Chicken Tinga Tostadas

If you don’t use ground chicken often, this is a great recipe to start with. So many people think that ground chicken doesn’t do well with bold flavors but that couldn’t be further from the truth. When you develop the flavors in layers, you can build them up and have an amazing dish in the end. Chicken Tinga Tostadas are going to be a real win and a great change of pace for your next taco night.

Tinga is a classic Mexican dish that is usually made with shredded chicken. Typically, they roast the chicken along side the tomatoes, tomatillos and white onions. This makes the whole dish take quite a bit longer, so I swapped out the whole chicken breasts for ground chicken. You get all the same great flavors without spending an hour in the oven. It is important to make sure that the vegetables are thoroughly blitzed before pouring onto the cooked ground chicken to simmer. I prefer an immersion blender as I can see when things are at the consistency that I’m looking for. But you can certainly add everything to your favorite blender and be just fine. As always use caution when adding hot ingredients to a blender, the heat can cause pressure to build up and resulting in the lid blowing.

Queso Fresco, also known as Casero, is a mild but flavorful cheese that adds the perfect amount of saltiness to this dish. It’s important that you get this cheese really fine (think grated parmesan cheese). This way it’s evenly distributed over the whole tostada and no big chunks. If you don’t care for this type of cheese, you could replace it with finely shredded monterey jack cheese or cheddar.

These tostadas really do make for a whole meal. If you have any refried beans left over, you can serve them on the side. If you want to have more beans on the side, you can double the recipe. You could also go for some cilantro lime rice. The easiest way to make that is to make long grain white rice as your normally would (2 parts water to 1 part rice, dash of salt covered for 20 minutes on medium high). After the rice is done cooking, stir in lime juice and fresh cilantro.

Now Let’s Get Cookin’!

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Chicken Tinga Tostadas

A delicious combination of roasted tomatillos and chipotle peppers with chicken and beans on a warm tostada.

Course Dinner, Main Course

Cuisine American, Mexican, Tex-Mex

Keyword baked beans, chicken tinga, ground chicken, roasted tomatoes, tinga, tomatillos, tostada

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Ingredients

• 16 Corn Tostadas
• 4 tbsp Oil divided
• 1 Large White Onion half minced
• 2 lb Ground Chicken
• 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
• 2 tsp Oregano
• 2 tsp Cumin
• 3 Roma Tomatoes halved
• 3 Tomatillos halved
• 1 7oz can Chipotle Pepper in Adobo
• 1 15oz can Refried Beans
• 1 tbsp Taco Seasoning see recipe below
• 1 cup Queso Fresco crumbled
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• ½ cup Cilantro rough chopped

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Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400degF.
• In a large saute pan over medium high heat, add half of the oil and minced onion. Let cook for 3 minutes then add ground chicken, minced garlic, oregano and cumin. Cook and crumble until no longer pink.
• On a parchment paper covered baking sheet add a baking rack and spray with cooking oil. Place halved tomatoes and tomatillos as well as remaining half of the white onion. Drizzle with remaining oil. Place in oven to roast for 20 minutes.
• In small sauce pan over medium-low heat, add refried beans and taco seasoning. Stir to combine. Continue to cook and stir occasionally until ready to build tostadas.
• Remove vegetables from oven and add to bowl with entire can of chipotle in adobo. Blend until smooth with immersion blender. (You can also use a blender). Add mixture to chicken. Toss to coat and reduce heat to medium low. Let simmer for 10 minutes.
• Add tostadas to baking sheet in a single layer. Place in oven for 5 minutes, then remove.
• To build a tostada, smear with portion of refried beans. Add a large spoonful of chicken tinga then add a dollop of sour cream. Sprinkle with queso fresca and cilantro. Repeat with remaining tostadas.

Notes