Pork and Pineapple Tostadas

Pork and Pineapple Tostadas are perfect to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, or your everyday Taco Tuesday. How you top them is limited only by your imagination

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Mexican food is one of my favorite cuisines. The vibrant colors, bold flavors, and wide variety of recipes make it easy to satisfy even the pickiest eaters. My parents are vegetarian, and I love that so many Mexican recipes are versatile enough to go from vegetarian to including meat in a pinch.

A couple weeks ago I needed a recipe for National Grilled Cheese Day, so I decided on Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese. Great idea, until I realized I’d never made pulled pork before. After searching Pinterest, talking with friends, and not finding what I wanted in a store-bought pulled pork, I made Slow Cooker Pulled Pork. Another fabulous idea, because it is so delicious and incredibly easy. The only catch, I have a ton of leftover pork.

I recently partnered with Old El Paso to create the delicious Steak Fajitas Three Ways. With Cinco de Mayo just around the corner, I took the opportunity to create another mouthwatering recipe that combines Old El Paso products with my pulled pork, and created Pork and Pineapple Tostadas

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I’ve been eating Mexican food for a long time; I didn’t eat it much growing up, but that changed completely when I moved to Oklahoma. At home I almost always make hard tacos. At restaurants I’ve never been to I always get fajitas; I figure if they can do fajitas well, everything else will be good. I’ll also do tacos, chimichangas, quesadillas, and burritos. But I’ve never had a tostada, and I honestly have no valid reason why.

We have 3–yes THREE–Wal Mart locations in my small hometown, so I never have to go far to stock up on Old El Paso. Tostadas come in a pack of 12, and look like flat tacos

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You can warm the tostadas in a dry skillet or in the microwave. I decided to warm them in my toaster oven, but I left them in a little too long and they all burned. I tossed those, turned down the heat slightly, and watched the second batch more carefully. This batch was perfect

Many pulled pork recipes call to add BBQ sauce to the entire batch. I skipped that step, because I didn’t want to limit my options of how to use the leftovers. For these Pork and Pineapple Tostadas, I added fajita seasoning, as well as pineapple chunks and juice, and fresh-squeezed lime juice.

Because tostadas are basically flat tacos, I went with traditional taco toppings for these Pork and Pineapple Tostadas…tomato, onion, avocado, lettuce, queso fresco, and sour cream.

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I’m not sure if there’s a correct way to eat a tostada, so I just picked up the Pork and Pineapple Tostadas, and bit into them. Tostada shells are thicker than taco shells, and have a more coarse texture.

I added the pineapple to the pork for the last few minutes of cooking. I won’t do that again, though, because the pineapple loses some of its color and bite. Next time I’ll add the pineapple as I top the tostada shells.

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Pork and Pineapple Tostadas are so delicious. I love the tart flavor of pineapple, and how well it works with pork. The squeeze of lime juice adds another layer, yet different flavor, of tartness. The creamy avocado and cheese provide a very nice contrast in texture, and the juicy tomatoes and red onions add a wonderful flavor.

What I really like is that tostada shells don’t break apart as easily as regular taco shells. The biggest problem I had was some of the toppings falling off. That was operator error, because I went a little overboard with the toppings.

I am now a huge fan of tostadas, and will add them to my Mexican food rotation.