Make-Ahead Chicken Tinga Tostadas

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These chicken tinga tostadas are made easy with our make-ahead shredded slow cooker chicken tinga, canned refried beans, mashed avocado, and queso fresco. Dinner can be on the table in under 10 minutes for those busy weeknight dinners.

We eat Mexican food at least once a week, generally twice if we’re being honest. And while we have so many great recipes for tacos, burritos, and enchiladas like our fried shrimp tacos, our chicken burrito rancheros, and our pork enchiladas verde, we love changing things up here and there with a tostada night. 

Much like taco nights, we love the experience that tostadas bring. Being able to mix and match flavors and toppings while we each get to build our own right at the table, makes these dinners special every time. Plus with tostadas, we get to see how far each other pushes the boundaries of our tostadas before they break! And of course, laughing when they inevitably do.

Why We Love This Recipe

What Are Chicken Tinga Tostadas?

Traditionally, authentic Mexican chicken tinga tostadas are fried corn tortillas topped with refried beans, chicken tinga, avocado, and cheese. Since tostadas are very similar to tacos (but served open face), you can choose from tons of different toppings like salsa, crema, lettuce, hot sauce, and more.

Key Ingredients

• Tostadas – We recommend buying tostada shells. But if you’re looking for a fun project or want to make this a date night activity, we’ve provided a section below for frying your own tostadas from corn tortillas. It’s extra work, but it is fun and very tasty.
• Refried beans – We prefer refried pinto beans with our chicken tinga, but refried black beans work really well too. Either way, refried beans are an important component to help be the glue between the tostada and the other toppings and keep it all together. It also keeps the juicy chicken from making the tostada shells soggy.
• Shredded chicken tinga – This recipe is designed to be made with our easy slow cooker chicken tinga. Our chicken tinga cooks for 6 hours in the slow cooker, so it can either be made in the morning or up to a couple days ahead of time. 
• Toppings – We like to keep these tostadas simple with mashed avocado, crumbled queso fresco, and chopped cilantro. But you can add any of your favorite taco night toppings as well such as: salsa, pico de gallo, shredded Mexican cheese, avocado lime crema, shredded lettuce, hot sauce, and more.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Serving Suggestions

• Incorporate unique toppings – Get a little crazy with your tostadas by adding some cottage cheese queso or mango pico de gallo.
• Add a fun side dish – Mexican nights are always more fun with a side dish or two for dipping some chips. Our favorites include Mexican bean dip, slow cooker Mexican street corn dip, and black bean corn salsa.
• Shake up a batch of margs – Check out our spicy mezcal margaritas or our smoky pomegranate margaritas for some fun and easy cocktails to serve with your dinner.

How To Make Chicken Tinga Tostadas

1. Make the chicken tinga ahead of time – Make our slow cooker recipe and let it cook all day before using it for tostadas at dinnertime. Or, prepare a big batch at the beginning of the week, store in the refrigerator, and simply reheat for tostadas!
2. Prepare the toppings – Heat up the refried beans, mash the avocado with some salt and lime juice, crumble the queso fresco, and put out any other toppings you want. 
3. Serve and assemble – We like to bring the tostadas, chicken, beans, and all our favorite toppings right to the table for a build-your-own tostada bar that’s perfect for self assembly. 

Here is our recommended assembly for making these shredded chicken tinga tostadas as delicious (and structurally sound) as possible:

1. Spread a thin layer of refried beans on top of a crispy tortilla.
2. Top with a small scoop of shredded chicken tinga.
3. Top the chicken with a dollop of mashed avocado.
4. Sprinkle queso fresco and chopped cilantro over the tostada and serve!

Making Tostada Shells From Corn Tortillas

1. First, prepare your workstation for frying the tortillas. Line a large baking sheet with paper towels and place a wire cooling rack on top. Then, preheat about a quarter-inch of vegetable oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Once the oil is nice and hot, carefully place the tortillas in the pan with tongs (you will likely need to work in batches of only 2 or 3 tortillas at a time). Fry for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the bottoms are lightly golden brown, then flip and fry for another 30 seconds or so. Transfer tortillas to the wire rack to drain over the paper towels. Continue until all the tortillas have been fried.

Note: This can also be done using homemade corn tortillas!

The layers of flavor in these chicken tinga tostadas are so delicious, eating this meal is a whole experience. In one bite of these tostadas, you’ll get crispy tortilla, salty refried beans, juicy chipotle chicken tinga, creamy avocado, queso fresco, and fresh cilantro, all with a hint of zesty lime. There’s truly nothing like it! 

We hope you love these chicken tinga tostadas as much as we do! They’re such a fun twist on taco night, perfect for weeknight dinners with the family. Tostadas are also one of our favorite date night recipes to make together, since we both love Mexican food. Whatever the occasion, these easy shredded chicken tinga tostadas will be a hit!

Try the recipe below and don’t forget to rate, comment, and share. We’d love to hear what you think!

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