Empanada
baked or fried turnover consisting of pastry and filling
An empanada is a type of baked or fried turnover consisting of pastry and filling, common in Spain, Portugal, other Southern European countries, North African countries, West African countries (where they are known as meatpies in Ghana and Nigeria), South Asian countries, Latin American countries, and the Philippines. The name comes from the Spanish empanar (to bread, i.e., to coat with bread), and translates as 'breaded', that is, wrapped or coated in bread. They are made by folding dough over a filling, which may consist of meat, cheese, tomato, corn, or other ingredients, and then cooking the resulting turnover, either by baking or frying.
Origins
The origin of empanadas not currently known, but they are thought to have originated in 7th century Galicia, a region in northwest Spain.
An empanada (empãada) is mentioned in the Cantigas de Santa Maria 57:VI (c. 1282):Entr' esses roubadores / viu jazer um vilão / desses mais malfeitores, / ũa perna na mão / de galinha, freame / que sacara com fame / entom dũ' empãada | que so um seu çurame/ comer quisera, / mais nom podera, / ca Deus nom queria.
In the midst of these robbers he saw lying there one of the most vicious of the rascals with a chicken leg in his hand. He had taken the cold morsel out of a pasty and was about to eat it under the cover of his cape. However, he could not, for God prevented it.Rabbinic Jewish books from the same period, including the Novellae of Asher ben Jehiel (1250–1327), the Novellae of Yom Tov of Seville (c. 1260–1320), the Orchot Chayyim of Aaron ben Jacob (c. 1250–1325) and the Arba'ah Turim of Jacob ben Asher (c. 1270–1340) mention "inpanada" and "panada" as bread products containing fat, meat or fish on the inside.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Empanada” is baked or fried turnover consisting of pastry and filling. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Empanada, baked and fried, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q747457. The Library of Congress control number is sh94009556. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1282, 1250, 1327 and 1260.
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This entry incorporates text from “Empanada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.