Embracing the Empanada – Buenos Aires’ Favourite Snack Food

After a big slab of charcoal grilled bife (beef), our favourite thing to eat in Buenos Aires is empanadas. Although not in that order! In fact, many traditional parrillas or steakhouses offer a complimentary empanada to kick off a meal and whet your appetite while you’re browsing the menu and sipping a glass of Malbec.

Usually baked, but sometimes fried, empanadas are delicious pastries that are generally filled with meat or cheese and eaten warm. Porteños, as Buenos Aires‘ locals are called, don’t need much of an excuse to order a box of empanadas from their local empanaderia.

Friends coming over for a casual gathering? Heading out for a picnic in the park? Big football match on TV? Or just peckish? All are occasions for locals to go loco over empanadas. Empanaderias even home-deliver!

If you’re settling into an apartment rental in Buenos Aires and want a taste of what it’s like to live like a local, one of the first things you need to do is embrace the empanada, find your favourite local empanaderia, and save their number to your phone.

Embracing the Empanada, Buenos Aires’ Favourite Snack Food

Porteños all have a favourite empanaderia in their neighbourhood and a favourite type of empanada – they know just which one they want to grab when the box opens because each type of empanada has a slightly different shape. And they probably order from that empanaderia so often that they have their number on speed dial and the staff know exactly what their order will be.

When we stayed in an apartment rental in San Telmo for a couple of months on our last trip to Buenos Aires to write a guidebook to the city, we, too, had our favourite empanaderia just around the corner from our apartment block. When we were on deadline for the book, and didn’t have time to go out or cook, Lara would often head out to pick up a box of empanadas.

Near the end of our stay, the baker-owner of the empanaderia knew our order, remembered our favourites, and often surprised us with an extra empanada in the box. Or, if he was waiting for a batch to finish baking, he’d hand Lara a piping hot pastry in a paper serviette, while she waited for him to slide a tray of the heavenly pastries out of the oven.

Our favourite empanadas are carne (minced meat), carne picante (spicy minced meat), cebolla y queso (onion and cheese) and jamón y queso (ham and cheese), but these days there are dozens of other unusual and exotic flavour combinations that are in fashion at the sleek new breed of upmarket empanaderia.

Personally, we prefer the traditional empanadas sold at simple local places that specialise in just a few types of fillings and always have the most incredibly delicious pastry – which is not as easy as you might think to achieve.

We’ve tried empanadas everywhere – from the cute little old ladies who hand-make them in front of you at the Feria de Matadores on weekends, where they go for around US$1 each, and go brilliantly with a cold beer, to eating them as a starter at some of the best Buenos Aires parrillas, such the upmarket parrilla, La Cabrera, where they’re nicely matched with a glass of Malbec.

We can confirm that there’s no such thing as a bad empanada!