Hands down empadinha are one of my favorite Brazilian snacks. Found in any lanchonete (snack shop), padaria (bakery), or cafe empadinha’s are the perfect savory snack to have with a good strong cup of coffee. Usually you have a choice of filling, with frango (chicken), palmito (hearts of palm), and queijo (cheese) being the most common. Once you eat one of these you will want to eat one every day.
Empadinha is a small cupcake sized pastry filled with a savory filling. The pastry is not like your usual pie pastry, instead, the pastry for the empadinha is usually much thicker and as soon as you take your first bite the whole thing should fall apart. Although it is not the easiest thing to eat, one of my favorite parts of eating empadinha is the fact that the pastry is so crumbly and falls apart.
There are different ways of referring to this little chicken pie in Brazil which I think you should know about. Empada is what they are really called, but everyone calls them empadinha which basically means ‘little empada’. When you have a big empada it is called empadão or litterally ‘big empada’!