A calzone with an empanada-inspired filling. I love more traditional empanadas with their buttery crusts, but opted for a bready, chewy calzone crust because I love how it soaks up chimichurri sauce. This recipe is just for the filling--a ground beef mixture that is a little sweet and savory. For the calzone recipe go here. It's a bit involved and requires some planning for the dough, but the recipe makes 8 large empanada-calzones that are easy to eat on the go, and also freeze well. And let's be honest, if you're on a very low sodium diet like we are, you're probably spending a lot of time cooking anyways so why not try something new! Or, skip the calzone part altogether and throw this filling in a corn tortilla for some really quick, easy tacos.
Servings: Makes 8 Sodium: 43 mg sodium each Time: About 2 hours plus time for the dough to rise overnight.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
2 hard boiled eggs, diced small
1 small potato (about 4 oz), diced small
1 small bell pepper, diced small
1/2 yellow onion, diced small
1 jalapeno, diced small
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 cup raisins
Oil for cooking
1) Start with the recipe for calzones--mix your dough, let it rest overnight, and then shape into 8 balls to rest. I also highly, highly recommend making chimichurri sauce to go with these.
2) Boil the eggs and chop up all the vegetables. The smaller the better for the vegetables.
3) In a large skillet, add enough oil to to coat the pan and sauté the potatoes over low-medium heat until they are soft, about 4-5 minutes. They take a little longer to cook so I give them a head start. Add the spices and ground beef and break apart, and then add all remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the hard boiled eggs, tomato paste, and raisins.
Cook over medium heat until the meat is done and the vegetables are soft, about 6-8 minutes. Then stir in the tomato paste and raisins and cook for another minute or two. Finally, stir in the chopped up hard boiled eggs and remove from the stove. Allow to cool before filling the calzones.
This recipe makes about 4 cups of filling and I used about 3/4 of it for the calzones. The sodium content will depend on how full you stuff each calzone. If you use 3/4 of the mixture like I did, each calzone has about 43 mg of sodium. If you use it all, it's close to about 58 mg of sodium each.
From here, continue with stretching/rolling out your calzones, stuff, score and bake them. Here's the calzone recipe. Serve with lots of low sodium chimichurri sauce.