These buffalo chicken empanadas are super easy to make, crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, and perfect for the calorie conscious gangsters out there. Thanks to a spin on the infamous 2-ingredient dough, each baked empanada has just 4 grams of fat!
And best of all, they’re highly customizable. I’ll give you a few of my favorite filling combos below, but you can get as creative as your heart desires.
How to Make Baked Empanadas
In case you’re unfamiliar with 2-ingredient dough, it’s simply a combination of fat free Greek yogurt and all purpose flour. It’s perfect for bagels, pastries, and especially low calorie pizza.
For these baked buffalo chicken empanadas, the recipe calls for blending the dough together in a food processor. But you can certainly mix it by hand. My air fryer pizza recipe is a great example of this.
Once you have your dough ready to go, roll it out into rectangle and cut it into 4 pieces. Then it’s as simple as fill, wrap, brush with a bit of oil, and bake!
Buffalo Chicken Empanadas Filling Ingredients
Simple is the name of the game. Here’s everything you’ll need:
- fat free or 1/3 fat cream cheese
- buffalo sauce (I used Frank’s Red Hot)
- ranch seasoning
- cooked chicken
That’s it!
Options for the Cooked Chicken
You can use any kind of chicken in your empanadas. Here are a few ideas:
- my Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken was destined for chicken empanadas
- my Carolina BBQ crockpot shredded chicken
- use rotisserie chicken without the skin
- use precooked chicken products or chicken by the pound from a local restaurant
- pressure cooker shredded Mexican chicken
And while it’s not chicken, one final recommendation would be my crispy pork carnitas.
Final Recipe Notes
For a quick and easy dip, you can mix 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt with 1 tablespoon of the ranch seasoning. You can also use a premade low calorie ranch, bleu cheese, or dressing of your choice.
And if you’re using an air fryer, I fried mine at 400 for 8-10 minutes but cooked the outside a bit too fast. I would reduce the temperature to maybe 375 and fry for 14-16 minutes.
And I think that’s about it! If you make these buffalo chicken empanadas, I wanna see ’em! Grab a photo and tag me on Instagram @mason_woodruff. Or you can join my free Facebook group and share it with the Proton Party.
Baked Buffalo Chicken Empanadas
Creamy buffalo chicken inside crispy 2-ingredient dough.
Ingredients
- 1 C (120g) All Purpose Flour
- 2/3 C (150g) Fat Free Greek Yogurt
- 3 oz Chicken Breast, cooked and shredded
- 2 oz Fat Free Cream Cheese, or 1/3 fat cream cheese (room temp or softened)
- 2 Tbsp (30mL) Buffalo Sauce
- 2 tsp Ranch Seasoning
- 1/2 Tbsp (8g) Olive Oil, or your choice of oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick mat.
- Add the flour and Greek yogurt to a food processor and blend until you can form a ball of dough. (You can also mix by hand.)
- Spray the parchment paper with a bit of cooking spray and roll the dough into a large rectangle (about 11x8).
- Mix the cream cheese, cooked chicken, buffalo sauce, and ranch seasoning together in a small bowl.
- Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces and add 1/4th of the buffalo chicken mixture to each piece near the center cut line.
- Fold the other half of the dough over, sealing the edges all the way around.
- Use a fork to crimp the edges to further seal the empanadas and brush the olive oil over each empanada.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. (Air fry for 14-16 minutes at 375.)
Notes
- Each serving has 4 Smart Points.
- If you have trouble rolling your dough because it's too sticky, add a bit more flour. You shouldn't need more than an extra tablespoon or two.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 empanadas Serving Size: 1 empanadaAmount Per Serving: Calories: 200Total Fat: 4gCarbohydrates: 25gProtein: 14g
More Filling Ideas
A handful of recipes come to mind that would make for great savory empanada fillings:
- the filling from my black bean quesadillas
- bean and cheese taquitos
- chipotle beef from my sweet potato nachos
- the best Instant Pot taco meat
Enjoy!
Maria
Sunday 17th of May 2020
Can you sub Greek yogurt for the light cream cheese?
Mason Woodruff
Wednesday 20th of May 2020
It's worth a shot!
Stepheney
Wednesday 15th of April 2020
These really saved the day for us. Highly recommend. Our regular oven has been broken this entire quarantine. Luckily we still have our air fryer. I have a pretty crappy rolling pin so it didn’t stay together quite as pretty. But the taste was amazing!
Alicia
Tuesday 28th of January 2020
One of my top favorites to make. It’s suuuuuper easy to make. although I still have trouble when I fold the dough over (I get small holes and tears) it’s what’s on the inside that counts. ❤️ And that is creamy buffalo chicken. (What Mason never fails to do is create delicious recipes that make you think you’re eating junk food, but in reality, you’re hitting macros and getting full. No more bland chicken and rice. You can have fun with cooking AND eating!)
Valerie
Wednesday 15th of April 2020
This recipe is great! I tried these but used crockpot BBQ chicken on the inside instead of buffalo. The dough makes the recipe! It’s nice to be able to enjoy a dough that’s got better nutrition then most.
Courtney S.
Tuesday 28th of January 2020
This was so yummy and so easy to make! I was worried about making the dough on my own as I have never done that before, but it was SO EASY. Also, I tried making this with BBQ chicken using G Hughes Original BBQ sauce, and taking out the ranch and buffalo sauce. The best part about making these is that I more than likely already have all the ingredients in my house. I can make these whenever I want, and don't have to worry about running to the store for an ingredient. I would recommend everybody give these a try, you will not be disappointed!
Khalid
Friday 3rd of January 2020
Omg! These were sooooo good. I first made the buffalo chicken from this site then made these and made the Greek yogurt ranch dip and it was way better than I expected! I'm new to cooking so all of this took me a long time but the end result made it all more than worth it! Will definitely be making these many times over soon!