Italian Ground Beef Empanadas

Not only do these ground beef empanadas come together quickly, they’re a real kid-pleaser (no fork necessary!). Pair them with a green salad and dinner is done.

Serves: 9 empanadas Prep Time: 10 Total Time: 30

Ingredients:

1 lb Crowd Cow ground beef
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 package (2 sheets) puff pastry dough
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
¼ cup prepared pesto
¼ cup parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan and heat to warm. Add the ground beef and cook until browned. Set aside to rest.
Mix the ricotta cheese, pesto, and parmesan together. Crack fresh pepper on top of the mixture.
Roll out the prepared pastry dough and cut 3-4” diameter circles using a circular dough cutter (a drinking glass works well to cut the circles if you don’t have any cutters on-hand). Now you are ready to assemble the empanadas.
Take one of the circular pastry rounds and put few tablespoons of the cheese and pesto mixture in the center. Then add a few tablespoons of beef. Take another piece of puff pastry and place it directly on top, sealing together the top and bottom pieces of the empanada.
Place the empanadas on a baking sheet. Finish by crimping the edges of each empanada with a fork.
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Brush tops of the empanadas lightly with milk (or egg yolk) and bake on top shelf of oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Serve warm. ½ cup milk