A quick, easy, versatile Mexican dish!
Corn Tortilla Tostadas combine some of my favorite food groups
Those include:
- Fried bread (corn tortilla),
- savory meat (shredded smoked pot roast),
- Beans (refried)
- and crunchy vegetables (tomato, lettuce, and onion),
All combined, tostadas are an easy meal to prepare, flavor rich, and infinitely customizable.
You can easily swap out hot and cold toppings, or even use wheat tortillas. I often make mine with shrimp.
Generally though, I prefer the flavor of a gently fried corn tortilla, as the corn flavor subtly permeates the dish as you eat it.
About those corn tortillas
If you check the international isle of most super markets, you can find pre-fried corn tostada shells. These can be a real time saver for super fast meals. But if you can’t find them, or want to enjoy the flavor of a warm fried tortilla, you can quickly fry them yourself. We’ll do it this way below.
A quick tip on sour cream
You can make clean lines of sour cream by scooping some into a baggy, and cutting a small corner off one end. Then squeeze the sour cream out like a piping bag.
Alternate toppings on your corn tortilla tostada
As I mentioned above, you can customize this dish in a lot of ways.
Proteins that work well:
- Cubed or shredded chicken
- Shrimp
- Ground beef or turkey
- Cubed or shredded pork
- Shredded beef (like we are using here)
If otherwise unmarinated or spiced, you can use taco seasoning to give your protein the right flavor for this meal.
You can play with the bean layer too. We’re using refried, but you can use strained pinto or black beans as well.
If you go for a seafood protein, a simple red cabbage salad on top might go better than lettuce.
Generally you can also add:
- Lettuce, tomato, onion (like I did)
- Avocado
- Jalapeno
- Fajita veggies
- Corn
- Cheese
Let’s whip up some corn tortilla tostadas
Start by heating a pan on medium high heat with some oil. I used Canola oil. Once hot, lay down as many tortillas as fit in your pan and let cook for a couple minutes.
Flip the tortilla and cook for a couple minutes more; you’ll notice the tortillas turn a deeper yellow. Continue to fry each side until it reaches the desired level of brown/golden you prefer.
While frying the tortilla, you’ll want to heat up the bean layer and prepare your protein. Since we’re using leftover smoked pot roast, we just heated it up in a pan.
For the refried beans, we added a ¼ cup of water to a can of beans, and stirred them over medium heat. Once they smoothed out, we reduced to low heat until ready to prepare.
Once all of your corn tortillas, beans, and protein are ready, begin assembly. Lay out a layer of beans on the tortillas and stack your meat on top.
Then add the veggies and other toppings. We added tomato, then onion, then lettuce, and topped it with sour cream and smoked tomatillo sauce.
We served ours with a side of rice, enjoy 🙂
Recipe for Corn Tortilla Tostada
Corn Tortilla Tostada
Equipment
- 1 Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 1 6 inch corn torilla Use as many as you plan to eat
- 1 can refried beans
- 2 oz shredded smoked pot roast use about 2oz meat per tostada
- lettuce
- tomato
- onion
- Salsa
- Sour Cream
Instructions
- Heat a pan on medium high heat with some cooking oil. Once hot add as many corn tortillas to the pan as fits.
- Flip the tortilla and cook for a couple minutes more; you’ll notice the tortillas turn a deeper yellow. Continue to fry each side until it reaches the desired level of brown/golden you prefer.
- While frying the tortilla, you’ll want to heat up the bean layer and prepare your protein. Since we’re using leftover smoked pot roast, we just heated it up in a pan. For the refried beans, we added a ¼ cup of water to a can of beans, and stirred them over medium heat. Once they smoothed out, we reduced to low heat until ready to prepare.
- Once all of your corn tortillas, beans, and protein are ready, begin assembly. Lay out a layer of beans on the tortillas and stack your meat on top.
- Then add the veggies and other toppings. We added tomato, then onion, then lettuce, and topped it with sour cream and smoked tomatillo sauce.We served ours with a side of rice, enjoy 🙂
