Recipe Review: Shrimp Tostadas

We’ve written recently about our decision to review less ultra-processed food from Aldi. Part of that change means looking for ways to make healthy meals using ingredients purchased entirely from Aldi.

If you’re looking for healthy recipes using all-Aldi ingredients, there is one great resource to check out: it’s the recipe section on Aldi’s website. It features a variety of recipes for breakfast, dinner, dessert, snacks, and more. Some of my personal favorites are the sheet pan chicken fajitas, Tex-Mex fajitas, and peanut butter granola bites.

Another winner in my family’s opinion is this recipe for shrimp tostadas. You make the tostadas by baking soft corn tortillas from Aldi. Then you top the tostadas with homemade refried beans and a salad that features shrimp and lots of fresh veggies.

These shrimp tostadas are as good as anything you might get at a Mexican restaurant, and these will definitely be on our regular rotation of meals in my house from now on.

You start by making a shrimp salad. I removed the tails from a bag of medium cooked shelled shrimp, then chopped the shrimp and put them in a medium-sized bowl. Then add diced red onion, diced jalapeño, diced mini cucumber, quartered grape tomatoes, chopped cilantro, and lime juice. Set this mixture in the fridge to chill while you make the tostadas and refried beans.

Next, brush both sides of 8 corn tortillas with oil and bake them for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Sprinkle them with a little salt when you take them out of the oven.

While the tortillas are in the oven, make the refried beans. Saute some onions and jalapenos in oil in a skillet for about 5 minutes. While the veggies are cooking, drain two cans of black beans, reserving the liquid. (I poured the beans into a strainer over a medium-sized bowl.) Add the beans to the skillet, adding enough liquid to submerge the beans. Cook for 5 minutes. Then mash the beans (I used a potato masher) and add a little salt and pepper. My beans ended up with a little more liquid than I wanted, so I cooked them about 5 minutes longer to thicken the mixture.

Finally, top the tostadas with the beans and the shrimp salad, and enjoy. We found some of the tortillas to be a little on the chewy side, but that didn’t stop us from thoroughly enjoying these. Some of the tortillas that got a bit more well done baking on the bottom rack in the oven were crispy and not chewy. Next time, I might bake the tortillas all on the top rack, and I might bake them for another minute or two to see if that helps crisp them up more.

Overall, this dish isn’t hard to put together. You can even do a little prep work chopping veggies and shrimp ahead of time, which will save time when you go to assemble the whole meal. I used some diced frozen jalapeños I had on hand to reduce some of the prep work, and they worked well even in the fresh shrimp salad mixture.

This recipe is also easy to customize if you don’t like certain veggies or want to include other veggies such as mushrooms, bell peppers, zucchini, or whatever you’d like.

The full recipe is posted below.

Shrimp Tostadas:

Ingredients — 

• 2 1/2 cups Fremont Fish Market or Sea Queen Medium Cooked Shrimp, thawed, diced, shells and tails removed
• 2 mini cucumbers, diced
• 1 cup diced red onion, divided
• 5 teaspoons minced jalapeño, divided (Wear gloves when dicing to protect your hands.)
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
• 5 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons Burman’s Hot Sauce (I didn’t have this on hand, so I just omitted it.)
• Stonemill Iodized Salt, to taste
• 8 Pueblo Lindo White Corn Tortillas
• 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon Carlini Canola Oil, divided
• 2 15.5-oz. cans Dakota’s Pride Black Beans, drained, liquid reserved
• Stonemill Ground Black Pepper, to taste

Directions — 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the shrimp, cucumbers, 1/2 cup red onions, 1 teaspoon jalapeño, tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, and hot sauce. Season to taste with salt. Stir until well combined. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
3. Lightly brush both sides of each tortilla with the 2 tablespoons of oil. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes until crispy. Season to taste with salt.
4. In a small skillet, heat the remaining oil over medium-high heat. Saute the remaining onion and jalapeño until tender, about 5 minutes.
5. Add the black beans and just enough reserved liquid to submerge the beans. Cook for 5 minutes; add more liquid if needed.
6. Mash the beans. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Spread the beans on each tostada. Top with the shrimp salad and serve.

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Did you try this Aldi recipe for shrimp tostadas? What did you think of it? Leave us a comment below.