Empanadas Tucumanas – Juicy Beef Turnovers
The historic rivals of the salteñas: filled with boiled beef flank cut by hand, plenty of scallions (spring onions), hard-boiled egg, and the broth that makes them drip when you bite in. The traditional recipe from Tucumán, with a homemade suet dough and the obligatory 13 pleats.
The meat is cut with a knife, never ground. That texture is part of what makes them tucumanas rather than anything else.
And the filling goes in cold, with its juices barely set — that is the whole secret of the juiciness. Warm, it soaks the dough before the empanada reaches the oven.
Eat them standing up with your head tilted, as tradition demands, because they drip.
The rivals, in both versions: the traditional salteñas and the hand-cut salteñas.
🔎 What is beef suet? — where it comes from, what goes in it and how it differs.
Ingredients
- 1 beef flank, about 1 kg
- 750 g all-purpose flour (plain flour), for the dough
- 150 g melted beef suet, for the dough
- 250 ml warm salted water, for the dough, approximately
- 500 g white onion, finely chopped
- 1 large bunch scallions (spring onions), green part included, chopped
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
- 1 tbsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- Chili flakes, salt and pepper, to taste
- The broth from cooking the flank, as needed
- Fat or oil for frying, or a hot oven
Method
- 1
Boil the flank in salted water for about 40 minutes, until tender. Keep the broth and cut the meat into small cubes with a knife — never in a food processor: the texture is part of the tucumana identity.
- 2
The dough: make a well with the flour, work in the melted suet and the warm salted water a little at a time, and knead until smooth. Let it rest, covered, for 30 minutes.
- 3
Cook the white onion in fat until translucent, add the chopped meat, the paprika, the cumin and the chili flakes, and moisten with a ladleful of the reserved broth. Take it off the heat, add the raw scallions and the hard-boiled egg, and cool the filling well: at least 1 hour in the refrigerator, ideally overnight. A warm filling soaks the dough and the empanada opens in the oven.
- 4
Roll the dough out, cut disks of about 12 cm, fill with a generous spoonful — the filling cold, with its juices barely set, is the secret of the juiciness — close and make the fine pleated edge, traditionally 13 folds.
- 5
Fry in very hot fat until golden, or bake in a hot oven at 220 °C for about 12 minutes.
Argentine Classics: Tradition with Identity
Nothing beats the taste of home. These are the recipes that belong to Argentina's culinary history: from a properly made locro to the tricks behind empanadas with hand-cut beef that fall apart in your mouth. It is not only about dishes but about techniques, family stories and the legacy of criollo cooking — each recipe close to the tradition, but written with the precision that makes it work every time.
