These Weeknight-Friendly Pork Tostadas Are Perfect for Sharing

Tostadas are to tacos what open-faced sandwiches are to close-faced ones. They offer all the glory of stacking and mixing ingredients, but more room to pile on fillings. "One of my favorite things about a tostada is you can load it up with twice as many toppings as you could fill a taco," Justin Chapple says. "And there is something amazing about that." After demonstrating how to make tuna escabeche tostadas last year, Justin Chapple is back with another tostada recipe in this week's episode of Mad Genius: Home Edition—roasted pork tostadas with citrusy cabbage salad.

The recipe begins by cubing and roasting pork shoulder, and making a salad packed with fresh ingredients like green cabbage, scallions, and jalapeños. Once the pork is done, you combine the two with a simple dressing, and then load that mixture onto corn tostadas. (Don't forget the fixings, either!) The whole dish is ready in two and a half hours, and, since you can serve the pork salad family-style, it makes an easy shareable meal.

Read on for Justin's method and follow along with the video below.

Start with the Pork

Justin says that the citrusy pork in this recipe was inspired by "one of my favorite Mexican dishes of all time, carnitas. But of course, we're making sort of a very abbreviated version, just so that this is weeknight-friendly." To make it, take the pork shoulder and cut it into 3/4-inch pieces. Then, add it to a large roasting pan (we recommend 16- x 12-inch) with the extra-virgin olive oil, clementine juice, lime juice, fresh oregano, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Give the mixture a toss so the meat is well-coated, and then cover it with aluminum foil. Get it in a 350°F oven for an hour and 15 minutes until the pork is "nice and tender." Uncover it and give it a second roast for about 20 minutes until the top of the pork is browned. Once done, let the meat cool to room temperature.

Prep the Salad Ingredients

In the meantime, get your salad ready. For this component of the recipe, Justin was inspired by posole—it includes all of his favorite toppings for the Mexican hominy-based stew. You'll need rinsed and drained white or yellow hominy, thinly sliced green cabbage (you can use a quart container to measure the four cups needed), thinly sliced scallions, small radishes cut into thin wedges, and two thinly sliced jalapeños.

Make the Dressing

The dressing for this salad is super-simple—lime juice, extra-virgin olive oil, ground cumin, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Whisk it all together in a large bowl and you're all set.

Build the Pork Salad Mixture

Remove the oregano sprigs from the pork and transfer it into the bowl with the dressing. Then, add in all of the hominy, cabbage, radishes, and the other prepared salad ingredients (plus the cilantro), tossing so everything is combined. Season it to taste, and then get ready to build your tostadas.

Serve

To make the tostadas, just grab a corn tostada (Justin likes to buy them pre-fried) and load them up with some of the pork salad mixture. Serve them with avocado, cilantro, jalapeños, lime wedges, and hot sauce.

"It is so perfect with that citrusy pork, that creamy hominy and avocado," Justin says after taking a bite. "And that cumin lime dressing is just like, bringing it all together."