Potato Cheddar Puff Pastry Turnovers

These potato cheddar puff pastry turnovers have a soft and flavorful cheesy potato filling wrapped up in flaky and crisp puff pastry.

I made these easy cheesy potato cheddar puff pastry turnovers for a recent get together and they were sooo tasty. The inside is full of soft potatoes and melty gooey cheese with big pops of flavor from red onion, red chili and earthy seasoning.

Some of the leftover filling goes into the eggwash, which gives them a chunky topping that bakes up golden and crunchy.

They're really quick to make since they don't have a lot of ingredients and the potatoes get par-cooked while you're dicing up the onion and chili.

Overall a super easy but satisfying carby cheesy appetizer for your next get-together (or just for yourself...yummm).

Quick Summary

• Dice up the potatoes and par cook them quickly in the microwave (or stovetop) while you finely dice the red onion and chili;
• Grate the cheese and mix it up with the potatoes, onion, chili and seasonings to make the filling;
• Spoon the filling into each puff pastry square and then fold it over to make a turnover;
• Apply a chunky eggwash made with some of the leftover filling;
• Bake for 20 minutes and enjoy.

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• Quick Summary
• Ingredients
• Equipment
• Instructions
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Ingredients

• Puff pastry squares: The squares I used were about 15cm / 6 inches.
• Potato: For my puff pastry squares I needed about 1.5 cups of cubed potatoes which was 3 medium sized potatoes. Your mileage may vary.
• Cheddar cheese: Cheddar cheese goes so well with potato and onion. You can also use a mix of cheeses, for example by adding mozzarella for that cheese pull action.
• Red onion: Red onion is a bit sweeter and brighter than yellow - it adds a pop of flavor that brings a fresh counterpoint to the richness of the filling.
• Fresh red chilies: Fresh red chilies bring a bit of heat and also contrast with the richness of the filling. If you don't have fresh chilies then you can use dried chili flakes (see recipe card). If you don't like spice then just skip the chilies.
• Seasoning (summer savory, black pepper, salt): Summer savory brings an herby earthy flavor that adds a bit of depth to the turnovers. See recipe card for substitutions. Black pepper and salt round out the other flavors.
• Egg: The egg is for a final eggwash. Normally I'd say this is optional, but by mixing the egg with a bit of leftover filling you get an amazingly crunchy chunky topping for the turnovers that really elevates their delicious-factor.

Note on quantities in this recipe

Since puff pastry squares and potatoes come in different sizes, the indications here might not result in exactly the right amount of filling for your turnovers.

For the most part you should be able to adjust as you go - either fill each turnover with a bit more filling, or otherwise cut up a bit more potato to begin with if you see your puff pastry squares are much bigger than mine.

If you end up with a bit extra filling you can try to use it to make an even chunkier topping for each turnover.

If you end up with less filling than you need, you can either quickly whip up a bit more or otherwise just fill with cheese or any other yummy thing in your kitchen that you'd like to eat in puff pastry.

Equipment

• Baking sheet
• Microwave - or you can use the stovetop, see instructions or recipe card.

Instructions

The whole process goes very quick so you can start by preheating your oven to 200 C / 400 F.

Cut the potatoes into small cubes. I chose to leave my potatoes unpeeled but you can also peel if you prefer.

Put the cubed potatoes in a bowl with about 2 tablespoons of water. Cover loosely (like with a plate) and microwave for 4 minutes or until fork tender.

Using the microwave to parcook the potatoes speeds up the whole recipe - by the time you're done preparing the other filling ingredients the potatoes are done and ready to be added to the filling!

If you don't have a microwave, you can put the potatoes in a pot on the stove with ½ cup water: cover and cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes or until fork tender. Drain any excess water.

While the potatoes are cooking, finely dice the red onion and red chili. Grate the cheddar cheese.

Combine the now-cooked cubed potato with the finely diced onion, red chili, grated cheddar and seasonings. Mix well until to combine it all evenly.

Spoon 2-3 tablespoons of the filling onto each square. I recommend reserving 1-2 tablespoons of filling for topping the turnovers at the end.

After filling a puff pastry square, fold it over to make a triangle. You should be able to seal the edges just by pressing together firmly. If that doesn't work you can brush on a bit of egg.

Arrange the turnovers on a baking sheet, leaving about 4 cm / 1.5 inches space between each so they don't stick together after rising.

Once all the turnovers are filled, use a fork to mash down the remaining filling until fine.

Crack an egg into the leftover filling and mix well then use a basting brush or teaspoon to apply the mixture to each turnover.

Now it's only about 20 minutes in the oven until the turnovers are beautifully golden, crisp and have that yummy topping.

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