What To Serve With Empanadas 35 Delicious Sauces & Dishes (2025)

Empanadas are delicious crispy pockets filled with savory or sweet fillings. They can be served as the main course or as a side dish.

These are my favorite recipes to pair with empanadas, including sides, sauces, drinks, and main courses.

Tips and Suggestions Worth Noting

1. When deciding on what to serve with empanadas, it's important to take into account the kind of empanadas you're making or buying. Homemade empanadas are tasty, but require a lot of preparation, particularly if you're making the empanada dough from scratch. Some supermarkets have prepackaged empanada pastry dough, which can be found in the freezer aisle.
2. Different Latin American countries have different variations of empanada styles. The seasoning, spices, and ingredients vary from country to country.
3. A savory fried empanada is a dish full of delicious flavor and texture. It is typically served with hot sauce, such as aji picante, a tangy sauce that perfectly complements the empanada. Aji picante's (a classic Colombian empanada sauce) heat and acidity helps cut through the dish's richness. Alternatively, salsa verde and authentic chimichurri sauce are excellent pairings for empanadas.
4. Depending on hunger levels, when adding empanadas to the menu, I consider pairing them with a quick snack or appetizer or as a perfect addition to a nice lunch or dinner spread.
5. When it's time for lunch or dinner, savory empanadas make the perfect appetizer, side, or main dish. 
6. Set up a tapas-style meal with many different sauces and sides for a delicious empanada tasting. 

Empanada Flavors

Empanada pockets can be made with corn dough or wheat flour dough, and they can be baked or deep-fried and then filled with anything really, but the most popular empanadas are ground meat empanadas, chicken empanadas, and potatoes. 

Some are also filled with mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, feta cheese, or cream cheese and guava. Yum.

The Perfect Complement: Empanda Dipping Sauces

Tangy sauces with a hint of lime juice or lemon juice balance the savory chicken empanadas and beef empanadas so well. I especially find that creamy, sour cream, or mayo-based sauce with a hint of lemon or lime juice pairs savory empanadas well. While sour cream sauces are not the most traditional types of empanada sauces, they complement empanadas so well.

When you have a savory empanada filling like ground beef or chicken, a tangy and spicy sauce is the perfect pairing.

Empanadas are delicious without sauces or sides, but with the right dipping sauce, you can turn an empanada into the perfect bite.

More Ideas

1. Pico de Gallo – a fresh salsa, made with fresh tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, cilantro, and lime juice
2. Mexican Street Corn Salad – Sweet corn with cotija cheese, butter, lime juice, chile powder, and cilantro.
3. Black Beans – a simple recipe is made with drained canned black beans, and a hint of cumin.
4. Sweet Potato Fries – Sliced sweet potatoes that are then air-fried, baked, or deep-fried in avocado oil.

Sides For Sweet Empanadas

Many sweet empanadas are so deliciously sweet that they can be served without a sauce.

But let's say you wanted a dipping sauce for an apple empanada.

I love a cinnamon caramel dipping sauce. Or a cinnamon bun-style sauce made with powdered sugar, a hint of vanilla, and cinnamon. Then drizzle it on, and serve.