Holy Moly – – – > these are the most delicious things we’ve made to date! We may be partial to Mexican food, but our Incredible Pork Tostada recipe is where it’s at! These tostada’s are crispy, filling and packed with so many wonderful flavors! Layers of amazing, delicious ingredients make for one of the best dinners you’ll have all year.
A few months ago, we came up with our recipe for our Crispy Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas. They turned out to be, in our humble opinion, the bomb dot com. (Use our recipe HERE ) It made a ton of meat and we needed inventive ways to eat it. This recipe is simple to throw together and perfect for a weeknight dinner or a summer get-together. Once the pork is made, putting all the ingredients together takes no time at all. The best part is that everyone can personalize this dish to their own liking!
How do you make a tostada shell?
You can make a tostada-like shell out of a tortilla very easily! Preheat an oven to 350 F. Once heated, place the tortillas on a baking sheet and place in oven. Back for 3-4 minutes. Pull from the oven and flip, then place them back in the oven. Bake for an additional 3 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. They will be nice and brown and a little crunchy. You can also buy ready-made tostada shell from the store if you want it to be 100% authentic.
Can I make this tostada into a bowl?
Absolutely! To make this particular recipe into a bowl, start with the cabbage/slaw mixture as the base. Then you can pile on any of the ingredients in any order after. We would start with the cabbage mixture, then add the pork carnitas, refried beans, diced tomatoes, chopped cilantro, diced jalapeños and cheese. Top with the dressing of your choice! We highly recommend this Jalapeño dressing HERE!
Ingredients for our Incredible Pork Tostada:
- Street Taco tortillas
- Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas
- Refried Beans
- Shredded Cheese
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Shredded Cabbage
- Ranch – (We buy local when we can!)
How to make our Incredible Pork Tostada:
The first step is to turn your street-taco tortilla crispy and into a more traditional tostada shell. To do this, place the tortillas on a baking sheet and place in a preheated oven at 350 F. Toast for 3-4 minutes, flip the tortillas, and toast for another 3 minutes. They should be slightly browned and crunchy. If you bought an actual tostada shell, you can just skip along to the step!
Layer 1:
The first ingredient layer to go your tostada shell is refried beans. When opening the can, I usually dump the contents in a bowl and mix it up really well. If you have the time, take a few extra steps to make our Cheesy Refried Beans… they definitely add to the overall taste! (It’s super easy!)
Layer 2 & 3:
Next, add a nice big heaping of our Crispy SlowCooker Pork Carnita meat. We usually add about 1/3 Cup to each tostada. You can use any shredded mean you’d like, but we 100% recommend the recipe mentioned above. The sweetness of the pineapple and the slow heat of the jalapeños are great flavors you won’t want to miss. When the meat is on, layer on that shredded cheese. We use anywhere from 1/8th cup to 1/4th cup of cheese on each.
Layer 4 & 5:
After the cheese, go ahead and add the shredded cabbage and tomatoes. I typically have heads of cabbage in my refrigerator because I cook a lot with it. But if you don’t, the best thing to buy is a bag of coleslaw, without the dressing. It’s cheap and already shredded and ready to go. This makes life super easy. Big plus is that it seems to keep FOREVER in the fridge, so you can make this recipe multiple times and have plenty of ingredients that are good to go.
We use cherry tomatoes for this dish because we always have them on hand. Feel free to use hot house, roma, or on-the-vine tomatoes. We recommend using what you have on hand. No sense spending extra money when any variety will work great.
Final Layers:
Last, top with fresh cilantro and drizzle a little bit of ranch over top. I LOVE cilantro, so I go heavy with that garnish. I am also somewhat of a ranch-snob, and I do try to support local when I can. So the ranch we use in from our local Jim-N-Nicks BBQ restaurant. It’s my love language… my husband brings me some home when he know’s I’m low because it is that good!
This recipe is really one you won’t want to forget about. You don’t have to use our pork meat recipe to make a great tostada either. Use leftover chicken from last night or the ground beef sitting in your fridge right now. Top it with what you have and make it special to you. The combination above is what we love and is our favorite! I personalize each one slightly different for each member of my my family and that’s one of the reasons this is a family favorite 🙂
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Incredible Pork Tostada
Ingredients
- 8 Street Taco Tortilla Shells
- 1 Cup Shredded Cheese
- 1 Cup Shredded Cabbage
- 1 Can Refried Beans
- 1/2 Cup Cherry Tomatoes
- Ranch Dressing
- 1.5 Cup Pork Carnita Meat
- 1/2 Cup Diced Cilantro
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Cook tortilla shells for 6 minutes, flipping 3 minutes through. Heat meat in microwave until warm.
- Dice cilantro, cut tomatoes, and slice limes.
- Layer ingredients on tostada: refried beans, carnita meat, cabbage, cheese, diced cilantro, diced tomatoes, and drizzled ranch.
- Garnish with lime juice and extra cilantro if desired.
- Eat and enjoy!
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
8Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 402Total Fat: 18gSaturated Fat: 11gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 13gCholesterol: 93mgSodium: 973mgCarbohydrates: 32gFiber: 6gSugar: 3gProtein: 32g
(Nutritional information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.)