This empada de carne is Portuguese comfort food at its most shameless: a savory filling of ground beef and chorizo under a golden crust of mashed potatoes, striped with a fork and studded with chorizo slices before it goes into the oven.
The chorizo is the secret weapon here — blitzed with the beef, it seasons the whole filling with its smoky paprika depth, so you get big flavor from a short ingredient list.
It is also a meal-prep dream: make the mash ahead, cook the filling in one pan, assemble and bake when you are ready. Serve it with a crisp green salad and watch it disappear.
Empada de Carne Recipe
What you need
Ingredients
- 1½ pounds ground beef
- ½ chorizo sausage
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- Ground cumin, to taste
- Chopped parsley, to taste
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 pounds mashed potatoes (frozen or homemade)
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons milk
Cook along
Instructions
- Skin the chorizo and cut it into slices, reserving 10 for the top. Chop the rest in a food processor and mix it with the ground beef.
- Finely chop the onion and garlic.
- Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the onion and garlic over low heat until golden.
- Add the beef-chorizo mixture and cook until it changes color.
- Season with cumin, chopped parsley, salt and pepper, mix, and remove from the heat.
- Spread half the mashed potatoes in a baking dish, layer the meat over it, cover with the remaining mash and smooth the top.
- Brush with the egg yolk beaten with the milk, draw lines with a fork, arrange the reserved chorizo slices on top, and bake at 400°F until golden.
- Serve immediately, ideally with a mixed green salad.
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