Lentil and Spinach Empanadas Recipe

Hi! I’m back with a simple, straightforward recipe for some amazing Lentil and Spinach Empanadas. They are crunchy on the outside and packed with garlicky flavor on the inside. I eat mine with homemade chimichurri sauce.

Empanadas are a type of dumpling that supposedly originated from Spain, when the Moors invaded. Apparently empanadas comes from the Spanish word “empanar” which means to wrap or coat in bread. They were supposedly a spin on the Arabic samosa. And don’t look at this as a form of laziness but there are so many spellings I’ve come across for what it’s called in Arabic from sambusak to samboosek to sambousek to Sambusa. If anyone knows, please clarify because there is a lot of conflicting information out there. I’m still trying to figure it out and I haven’t given up.

This lentil and spinach empanadas recipe is inspired by the Argentinian empanadas I ate regularly in Buenos Aires. Like I mentioned a few posts ago in my chimichurri recipe post, my partner and I spent a month there, eating our way through the city. I’ve tried different, regional variations of empanadas before but, hands down, the Argentinian ones are my favorite. I wasn’t vegan then, mind you. But even now, I can admit that those empanadas are hella good! From cheese and onion filling to ham and cheese or even beef, I could never get enough.

Obviously, I no longer can have the exact same fillings. But I can still have something nutritious and tasty by choosing my own plant-based fillings for my own empanadas. While I came up with the filling myself, I adapted the dough recipe from At The Immigrant’s Table. Thank you, Ksenia, for your awesome recipe and helpful tips!

So how do we make our lentil and spinach empanadas? Here we go!

We make our filling first and these are the ingredients we need (salt not pictured).

We’re going to roughly chop the yellow onion, roughly mince the onions, drain the lentils (reserving the liquid brine from the can to use as an egg wash substitute!). We rinse the lentils and set aside. That brown stuff on the upper left in the picture below is the lentil brine from the can. Don’t throw it out as you’re going to brush that over the empanadas later.

You cook the garlic and onions until translucent and, not quite caramelized, but a little golden. Obviously it takes 45 minutes to caramelize onions and I’m not going to lie about that. So the onions and garlic are cooked for maybe 5-10 minutes at medium heat since olive oil has a high smoke point. Then we add the frozen spinach and cover the pan to steam for 6-8 minutes. For some people it might take 8-10 minutes. The goal is to just cook the spinach so that it’s not all icy and to actually get flavored with the garlic and onion. Throughout this whole process we are salting to taste. This is not a bland dish.

We add the drained and rinsed lentils last. Since these are canned lentils, they’re already cooked so we’re pretty much just mixing it at medium heat for a minute.

The above is how it should look. Again, salt to taste. I can’t emphasize this enough. Add fresh ground peppercorn if you’d like but salting to taste is mandatory.

Once the filling is done, we store it in the fridge, covered, until we need it to assemble. Yes, you can make it in advance but like most foods, this is only good 3-4 days in the fridge so if you want to make it way in advance, then you will have to freeze it after making it. It’s good in the freezer for 2-3 months. You’d remove and thaw in the fridge the day before and/or warm on the stove (not necessarily cooking it) but just having it on low in a pan or pot on low until it’s at room temperature. We wouldn’t want it hot since we’re going to be handling it.

We start working on our dough. We take the flour, salt, cold water and vegetable oil and mix it until we get a nice, springy dough. I use my mixer for this as it takes maybe 6-8 minutes on medium to get it to all come together as it’s a little oily (not too oily). Then we take a ping pong or golf ball-sized piece of dough and roll it into a ball, then flatten it to start rolling. Then I do quarter turns the same way I do with my jiaozi wrappers and roll until I get wannabe discs that are 4-5 inches long in diameter.

Here’s my wonderful wannabe circular wrapper. Hahaha.

Then we take a heaping tablespoon of filling and add it to the dough and shape it slightly so that it’s a log.

Then we fold over one side to another and seal. The easy way for me sometimes is to just take a fork and flatten the edges with the tines to seal.

However I personally prefer folding over the flaps and taking the ends of each flap and joining them together like this:

They’re just so cute and pudgy! We then assemble everything we can and bake in batches.

We place as much as we can on the tray and then use the lentil brine to brush over all of them with a pastry brush like this:

They don’t expand so no worries about space. They just need to not be touching. Bake at 400°F for 30-40 minutes or until it is a beautiful golden color.

They are pretty much done at this point and you can serve them right away. And, of course, serve with chimichurri.

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