Michigan Pasty Recipe | Yummy Beef Pasties w Vegetables + Easy Dough (2024)

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Michigan Pasty Recipe | Yummy Beef Pasties w Vegetables + Easy Dough (1)

By Sherry Trautman

Michigan Pasty Recipe: Fresh, Delicious, and Filling! Beef and Vegetable

Traditional Michigan Pasty Recipe | Beef Pasties with Vegetables + Easy Dough Recipe From A Yooper| Last updated: March 3, 2023 | By: Sherry Trautman | Travel-Mi.com

If you have ever crossed into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, you will see several small mom and pop stores/restaurants selling Upper Peninsula Pasties. It was a staple with the miners as this simple and filling meal could be easily transported and eaten in the copper mines.

So guys, I just wanted to clarify that these beef pasties with vegetables are seriously legit good. Speaking of legit, Chris is a born and raised Yooper (from Michigan's Upper Peninsula). His mom lives in the Houghton region and we love visiting as often as possible. She and Larry love to make homemade pasties or pasty pie and so do we!

See How I Make Pasties and Roll The Crust!

Michigan Pasties: Fresh, Delicious, and Filling! Beef and Vegetable

Easy Upper Michigan Pasty Recipe: Beef and Vegetable Pasties

    This makes about 6 pasties. This deliciouspasty recipe utilizes ground beef but you can leave it out to make a vegetable pasty.
  • 1 pound ground chuck
  • 2 russet potatoes, diced
  • 1 cup onion, diced (about 1 medium sized onion-I prefer sweet onions, by the way)
  • 1/2 cup rutabaga
  • 2-3 carrots, diced
  • 2 celery stalks, diced
  • 1 tsp garlic, diced
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • Optional: Egg for an egg wash

Michigan Pasties: Fresh, Delicious, and Filling! Beef and Vegetable

Super EasyMichigan Pasty Dough Recipe

    Yield: 6 dough balls
  • 3 cups of flour, sifted (I use King Arthur flour)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup Crisco (I use sticks)
  • 1/2 cup very cold water

Dice your onions, potatoes, rutabaga!

Huge Rutabaga for Pasties!

So, this is a rutabaga!

If you are worried about not liking the taste of rutabagas, they are very mild with a bit of a spicy zing. Very potato-like. Just buy a small one-I bought a huge one and didn't need even half of it for this Michigan pasty recipe.

OH MAN...rutabagas are super hard to cut! You will need a good knife, like a heavy steel blade to cut a larger one. Be SUPER careful. It's not easy like a potato.

Peel and chop it.

Diced onions, celery, rutabaga, carrots and spices: Ready for this pasty recipe!

Directions: Let's Make Michigan Beef Pasties!

  1. Wash, peel, chop or dice your vegetables to small bite sized pieces.
  2. Place vegetables in a large bowl.
  3. Add your spices
  4. Add your raw beef to the vegetables and mix by hand.

Diced onions, celery, rutabaga, carrots and spices plus the beef

Directions: Michigan Pasty Dough

Get messy! Use your hands to mix the pasty dough!

  1. Mix your sifted flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Add the shortening (Crisco) and incorporate with a pastry blade (see my video above). Once the shortening is cut into the flour and is the size of a tiny pea, it's time to get messy!
  3. Add the ice cold water
  4. You will need to get in there with your hands (washed first!) to properly incorporate the Crisco into the flour and salt mixture. Don't add more water until it is completely mixed.
  5. Don't over mix, I try to do this as quickly as possible to keep the dough cold and not allow the shortening to begin to melt from the heat of my hands. We want flaky crusts!
  6. The dough for this pasty recipe makes 6 balls.

Let's Assemble Our Michigan Beef Pasties with Vegetables

We are almost there! So, next take a rolling pin and roll out each of the six dough balls into as close to a circle as you can get. I made mine about 10 inches; you need it bigger than you think to allow room for the filling.

At this point, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

  1. Place 1 cup of the raw meat/vegetable mixture on one half of the dough.
  2. Fold the other half of the dough over the meat mixture.
  3. Tuck the bottom dough over the top and roll upward to seal in the meat mixture.
  4. Optional: In a small bowl, beat one egg with a fork and brush the egg onto the finished pasties to create a golden color after baking. So pretty!
  5. Place your finished pasties on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
  6. Bake uncovered for about 1 hour.

** See my video above! I attempt this one handed while videoing!

Add 1 cup of raw meat/vege mix onto the rolled dough

Roll the bottom layer of the dough over the top layer to seal to the mixture inside the dough

Let's Bake Our Beef Pasties! This Upper Michigan Pasty Recipe Looks so Delicious!

Bake the pasties in a preheated oven for about 1 hour!

Bake your beautiful Michigan beef pasties at 350 degrees for about 1 hour until they are golden brown! We like to eat them with ketchup just like the Yoopers in Upper Michigan! So delicious and filling! We hope you love this Michigan pasty recipe.

YouTube Video Below

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Michigan Pasty Recipe | Yummy Beef Pasties w Vegetables + Easy Dough (2024)

FAQs

What are Michigan pasties made of? ›

Pasties were the original fast food of copper miners and lumberjacks. Brought here from the mining region of Cornwell, England, U.P. wives would fill the rolled-out dough with leftover beef, potato, onion and rutabaga, fold the pastry in half, seal the edges and bake.

What is the difference between a pasty and a Cornish pasty? ›

There will always be great debate about the origin of the pasty, but one easy way to detect the Devon pasty from the Cornish is that the Devon pasty has a top-crimp and is oval in shape, whereas the Cornish pasty is semi-circular and side-crimped along the curve.

What is the difference between pasty and pastry? ›

A pasty is a meat hand pie generally made with beef and potatoes. Pastry is is a dough made with flour, a liquid, and a solid fat such as butter, shortening, or lard. Pastry can be either sweet or savoury.

What are the rules for pasty? ›

No meat other than beef, and no vegetables apart from those listed can be used in the filling. There must be at least 12.5% beef and 25% vegetables in the whole pasty. All the ingredients must be uncooked when the pasty is assembled and then slowly baked to develop all that famous Cornish pasty taste and succulence.

What is the best material to make pasties out of? ›

Here we are using craft foam, but you can use cardboard, or buckram, which is a hat-making material. Mark the centre of the circle, and cut a slit to that point. This will help us create the cone shape of the pastie.

What was in the original pasty? ›

These pasties (and the alleged venison pasty 1660s London diarist Samuel Pepys suspected was actually beef) were little more than cuts of meat wrapped in pastry dough. By then the Cornish pasty—made from chipped beef, potatoes, swedes (rutabagas) and onions—had already taken its place in Cornwall's regional cuisine.

What are the 5 types of pasty? ›

List of 5 Types of Pastry Doughs. There are five main types of pastry dough for creating pastries: flaky, shortcrust, puff, choux and filo. All of them are made primarily from flour, water and fat.

What is a devon pasty? ›

A proper Devon pasty always comprises of uncooked meat (beef skirt, traditionally) and veg in a circle of pastry. Always crimped before baking, which steams the contents beautifully and gives the case that gorgeous golden crunch.

Is the Cornish pasty illegal? ›

Cornish pasties have won official recognition protection under the EU protected food names scheme, Food Minister Jim Paice announced today. After 200 years of being handed down from generation to generation, often by word of mouth, the recipe for Cornish pasties will be officially protected across Europe.

What is the end of a pasty called? ›

The crust (crimp) served as a 'handle' – a means of holding the pasty with dirty hands without contaminating the meal. Arsenic commonly accompanies tin within the ore that they were mining so, to avoid arsenic poisoning, the crimp was an essential part of the pasty.

What is a pasty for a girl? ›

Pasties (singular pasty or pastie) are patches that cover a person's nipples and areolae, typically self-adhesive or affixed with adhesive. They are usually worn in pairs.

What are the faults in pastry making? ›

Tough Pastry
  • High protein flour.
  • Substitution of equal amount of butter or margarine for fat.
  • Insufficient fat.
  • Fat not distributed well enough.
  • Too much water.
  • Uneven distribution of water, requiring more manipulation.
  • Over stirring after water is added.
  • Dough not rolled immediately.

What do you eat with meat pasty? ›

Top tips: Serve with mashed potato and vegetables, or salad and baked beans.

How unhealthy is a pasty? ›

A Healthier Option Than Most Fast Food

Cornish pasties are made of simple ingredients which makes them much healthier than other fast food. It is stuffed with real vegetables, not just lettuce leaves and tomatoes as in fast food burgers. The swede fillings are enriched with calcium which is good for building the bone.

What is a pasty in the Midwest? ›

Pasties are handheld turnovers filled with meat and vegetables. These savory stuffed pies were originally made for miners in Cornwall, England, to take down into the pits during “crib” time (meal time) because they were an easy, portable and sustaining food.

What material are pasties made of? ›

They can be made from a variety of materials, including craft foam, artificial leather, buckram and plastic. Some are skin-colored while others are produced with decorative designs on them. They are often smaller in countries such as Japan than they are in America as they are typically not much larger than the areola.

What pastry are pasties made from? ›

For shortcrust pastry

(rough puff can also be used): 500 g strong bread flour (it is important to use a stronger flour than normal as you need the extra strength in the gluten to produce strong pliable pastry) 120 g lard or white shortening. 125 g Cornish butter.

What is pasty meat made of? ›

The traditional Cornish pasty, which since 2011 has had Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in Europe, is filled with beef, sliced or diced potato, swede (also known as yellow turnip or rutabaga – referred to in Cornwall and other parts of the West Country as turnip) and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper, ...

Are pasties healthy for you? ›

A Healthier Option Than Most Fast Food

Cornish pasties are made of simple ingredients which makes them much healthier than other fast food. It is stuffed with real vegetables, not just lettuce leaves and tomatoes as in fast food burgers. The swede fillings are enriched with calcium which is good for building the bone.

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