15 Unique Pastelones, Pastelitos, and Empanadas Fillings

En Español

Usually, pastelitos, and empanadas are filled with minced beef and shredded chicken, but there are many other ways to make them: pick from beef, pork, seafood, chicken, vegan, and sweet fillings for your pastelitos and empanadas. Some of these are also great rellenos for pastelones (casserole stuffing).

And we have those traditional recipes here, but we also have a larger collection of fillings to make your gathering a smashing success.

How to use them

You can use these in our traditional fried pastelitos and empanaditas, my no-butter baked empanadas, the gluten-free yuca empanadas, these sweet empanadas, or crispy dough sticks (the easiest way to make empanadas).

Beef fillings

Beef empanadas recipes are very popular, so it stands to reason that we'd have a lot to offer here. Check out our minced beef filling recipes with 3 variations to make your empanadas and pastelitos, and the traditional one to also use in pastelones.

Or try something new: our tasty carne ripiada is great too as a pastelito and empanada filling.

Which one is your favorite of these empanada fillings? Is there one missing you'd like me to write a recipe for? Let me know in the comments.

Buen provecho!