SALT LAKE CITY — Ana Valdemoros started making and selling empanadas in 2006 to make a little extra cash.
She started out at the Salt Lake City Downtown Farmers Market, which was much smaller and mostly ran a stand in the summer. But as orders started to pile up, she realized there was a year-round demand for empanadas. Her small Salt Lake County shop, Argentina’s Best Empanadas, became a full-time business in 2017 and began selling at a second permanent location last Monday.
“Making empanadas is very common in Argentina,” said Valdemoros, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina and a former Salt Lake City City Council member.
But the competition is growing fast and Utah is finding that empanadas — turnover or hand-held pies stuffed with beef, chicken or other fillings — are becoming more and more common.
Valdemoros may have pioneered the South American empanada in Utah, but visit almost any farmers market along the Wasatch Front and you’ll find a growing number of vendors selling empanadas: Delicias offers Venezuelan-style empanadas, Empanada 801 offers Peruvian-style empanadas, Porteña offers Argentinian-style empanadas, and they’re available from other Utah restaurants and food trucks as well.
Ana Valdemoros, owner of Argentina’s Best Empanadas, shows off her empanada creations at Salt Lake City’s Downtown Farmers Market on June 22. (Photo by Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)
“It’s good fast food,” said Leo Pérez, a Colombian who has run Empanadas 801 for about a year with his wife, Marisol Pitta Pérez, who is from Peru. “We’re doing really well. Everywhere we go, we’re practically sold out.”
Pablo Montes, who has run Porteña since 2015, likens the popularity of empanadas today to that of the Mexican staple that became popular in the United States decades ago.
“In a way,[empanadas]are like the tacos or quesadillas of 30 years ago,” said Montes, who is from Argentina. “Empanadas are known, but they’re not necessarily common. A lot of people who try our empanadas for the first time say, ‘I didn’t know empanadas were my favorite food.'”
Montes said empanadas, made in South America, have their roots in foods brought to the continent by Spanish conquistadors, but other countries and cultures have their own versions, “and they’re called dumplings, fatai, samosas, pierogi, etc.”
“Easy to carry and easy to eat”
Allen Paz, a Venezuelan restaurant chain in Utah, serves Venezuelan-style empanadas at four locations, and also offers empanadas at other brick-and-mortar restaurants in Utah that serve South American cuisine.
Venezuelan empanadas from Delicius, a Salt Lake City-based Venezuelan restaurant that serves local farmers markets. (Photo: Delicius)
But at many of the farmers markets and food trucks operating across the state, empanadas are arguably the highlight, thanks to their grab-and-go nature. Brigham City-based Miranda’s Empanadas also serves up chilean empanadas from a food truck that travels around Northern Utah, while La Casa de la Empanada serves Peruvian empanadas at various farmers markets and other public events.
“It’s a practical food,” says Delicias’ owner, Ahimara Suarez, a Venezuelan native. “It’s easy to carry and easy to eat.”
Empanadas vary from country to country. “Each South American country takes pride in their empanada and they all think theirs is the best,” Perez said.
Empanada shells in Chile, Argentina and Peru are typically made with a wheat flour dough, while Venezuelan empanadas are made with a cornmeal dough. Empanadas can be baked or fried, and each country’s empanadas are uniquely flavored with different spices. Pérez said he has adapted the Peruvian empanadas he serves at Empanada 801 to suit American tastes, for example by removing pitted olives and hard-boiled egg slices from the filling.
While empanadas may be a novelty for many in the U.S., for Valdemoros, they bring back fond memories of his youth helping to make them in Argentina. He sells them at his farm stand and at his store at 357 S. 200 East in Salt Lake City and at the new Square Kitchen Eatery (which also houses several other restaurants) at 2435 S. State in South Salt Lake City.
“For me, this is a memory of growing up in Argentina,” she says. “These flavors remind me of my childhood.”
