Like these jalapeno eyeball tarts, these chorizo hand pies are one of my favorite spooky Halloween recipes to make, and so much fun too! While my favorite thing about Halloween is the candy (and the desserts like these witch finger cookies, Halloween monster cookies, Halloween cupcakes, and Halloween rocky road slices), a Halloween party just isn’t complete without some spooky savory snacks. So in the spirit of Fall and the holiday season, I made deliciously Spooky Chorizo Hand Pies, that are shaped like pumpkin heads for maximum Halloween effect! 🙂 These chorizo hand pies, which are really chorizo empanadas, are simple to make too. I used a homemade empanada dough for these Halloween pies, but you can use store-bought pie dough for this recipe instead. And the chorizo hand pie filling was the easiest of all to prepare – thanks to Cacique! I used Cacique Beef Chorizo to make the chorizo pie filling. It’s packed with spices and plenty of flavor, and I didn’t need to add a whole lot more to it. So it’s very convenient. With the addition of creamy oaxaca and manchego cheese, these Halloween chorizo hand pies are a treat! I love using Cacique products because of their quality and taste, and with Cacique®, authentic Mexican flavors with minimum effort are always guaranteed. I was introduced to Cacique products when I first moved to the US, and wanted to make some delicious quesadillas at home. Since then I’ve been stocking up on Cacique cheese, sour cream and meat products, because I never know when a quesadilla craving hits me! 🙂 These spooky chorizo hand pies are really fun to make as well! It’s a great Halloween food project to do with your kids too. You can get pumpkin cookie cutters, and use the mini triangle and round cutters to cut out the faces.
Empanada dough
Making the empanada dough is also easy. I used the same dough recipe that I used to make these Fish Empanadas (fish patties), but made a larger quantity for this recipe. You can make this in the food processor or by hand. It’s important to use chilled ingredients so that the pastry is nice and flaky when baked. The butter is blitzed briefly in the food processor, while making sure to have nice chunks of butter left. After the dough is brought together, it’s folded over a few times so that you get a wonderfully flaky empanada dough. I prefer to make this dough by hand, in a bowl, so that I can have bigger butter chunks in the flour. But the dough comes together just as easily in the food processor too. The meat filling for these Halloween pies is made with Cacique Beef Chorizo and minced pork. I added a little extra cayenne pepper and garlic, but since most of the seasoning and spices are already in the chorizo, the filling comes together quickly and easily.
How to make Chorizo Empanadas (Chorizo Hand Pies)
The chilled empanada dough is first rolled out, and then I used a 4 inch pumpkin cookie cutter to cut out pumpkin shapes from the dough. Next, take the dough scraps and bring them together to form of a disc of dough again. Re-roll these scraps/dough disc and cut out more pumpkin shapes. I used the smallest cutters I owned to make the pumpkin faces. I used round cutters, triangle cutters and a small sharp knife to cut out the eyes and mouths. But go ahead and get creative with the faces, you can make happy, sad, scary faces, or your favorite emojis! 🙂 And be generous with the chorizo filling when you fill the pumpkin pastry. I wanted the filling to strain out of the mouth and eyes, as the hand pies were baking. These spooky chorizo hand pies are every bit as delicious as they look! The meat filling is spicy and scrumptious, and the oaxaca and manchego cheese lend a delightfully creamy, nutty flavor. These are guaranteed to be a hit at your Halloween party! 🙂
More Halloween recipes you’ll love
Witches brew drink Witch’s heart cocktail Hocus pocus cocktail Halloween monster cookies Halloween cupcakes (bleeding black cupcakes) Halloween rocky road slices The phoenix cocktail (color changing shimmery cocktail) Chocolate skull cake Unicorn blood cocktail Flaming dragon’s blood cocktail
