Brown your ground beef in a large frying pan over medium-high heat, utilizing a Mix ‘n Chop to mince the meat really finely as it cooks.

Add your taco seasoning to the pan plus the water required (as instructed on the packaging).

Using a rubber spatula, continue to sauté the taco seasoned ground beef as directed as per the taco seasoning’s instructions.

While sautéing, dice up your onion using a sharp knife on a small cutting board.

To get it as finely chopped as possible, you may opt to utilize a blender or food processor as I did. I wanted my onion diced as finely as possible and you can’t always achieve that by hand, you know?

Add to the seasoned beef your finely minced onions and stir gently, folding the onions into the meat well.

Add to this meat onion mixture some finely minced garlic.

Sauté well until the onions get soft and lucid.

After the onions are noticeably soft and clear, add to the pan your preferred salsa and tomato paste; stir and mix well.

As you continue to stir, add in your smoked paprika.

Once everything has been added to the meat mixture, you may turn it to stay warm, low, or turn off in preparation for the next step – assembly!

Take your crescent roll dough out two at a time (still attached) and using a rolling pin on a large cutting board, roll out the dough pressing the sections together to make it one unit instead of two.

Once pressed together to make a seamless rectangle, lift to prevent sticking to the cutting board.

Replace the dough rectangles back onto the cutting board and cut in half using your sharp knife.

Place about a teaspoon-to-tablespoon size of meat mixture in the center of the smaller rectangles, and top with some shredded Mexican cheese.

Try not to overfill them too full with meat and cheese or they won’t close too well.

Take one side of your dough and fold it over top in half. Begin with one side and start curling the dough inward, rolling it between your fingers tightly and upwards towards the meat/cheese pocket.

Use a fork to crimp the rolled edges like a pie crust to seal it closed.

Place parchment paper onto your Air Fryer’s basket and spray lightly with cooking spray. Add your uncooked empanadas to the parchment paper and line them up nicely, gently spraying a little cooking spray over top them. They don’t spread much at all so you can pack them nice and tight to prepare as many at once as possible to minimize cooking time!

Bake them at 350 for about 12-15 minutes, flipping halfway. Test for doneness and add a couple more minutes if needed!

Let cool 1-2 minutes or so before serving!

Serve with your favorite Tex-Mex side dishes and sauces/dips! Enjoy!