Eep! I’m so excited about this recipe that I want to hit publish and share it with you right this minute. I know how much you enjoy spicy sweet potatoes, black beans and avocado together—you all have such good taste—and I’ve already been keeping this one under wraps for a few weeks now. I should probably tell you the story behind these tostadas. A few months ago, I went on a fun girls’ weekend trip to Nashville with a couple of friends. We all share equal enthusiasm for good queso, margaritas and tacos.
Thanks to Yelp’s infinite wisdom, our hungry and thirsty selves landed at a restaurant called Bakersfield for a very late lunch. Apparently it is a small chain. There, we promptly ordered a pitcher of apple margaritas and some truly spectacular queso. I settled on the “papas,” their black bean tostadas, and some portobello tacos. I loved how they served their tostadas on a bed of romaine lettuce. Tostadas are inherently tricky to eat. Do you pick them up? Try to break through the crispy tortilla with a knife? The romaine offered the perfect solution. Take a fork and knife to the tostadas, which is a lot easier to do with lettuce padding the underside. Plus, the romaine is crisp and fresh, which are two essential components to a great tostada (or taco, for that matter).
So, I took notes, and those tostadas combined in my head with my sweet potato tacos and burrito recipes. We ended up here, with crispy baked tortillas spread with “refried” black beans, topped with spicy roasted sweet potatoes, avocado, and fresh cilantro, all served on a bed of lime-and-feta romaine salad. I just know you’re going to love them. These tostadas are a very hearty vegetarian dinner option. The recipe as written yields quite a lot of food. If you intend to have leftovers, I’d store the components separately (wait to dress the lettuce just before serving, if possible).
Perhaps the coolest feature of these tostadas is that I bought all of the ingredients at ALDI, one of my go-to grocery stores. ALDI is different from your average grocery store, but it will feel familiar if you have ever explored grocery stores in Germany (my first ALDI experience was in Germany during my semester abroad) or elsewhere in Europe. The first difference you’ll notice is that you’ll need to insert a quarter to get a shopping cart, which is refunded when you return it (a brilliant incentive to return the cart to its proper home). You’ll also want to bring your own bags, and be prepared to bag up your items. Those are a couple of ways that they keep costs down, which you will definitely appreciate when you see how low your total is at check-out. I appreciate ALDI because their products are super affordable, and they now offer a wide variety of my favorite ingredients. Their organic options include spinach and mixed greens, frozen berries, coconut oil, honey, milk, canned beans, salsa and tortilla chips. You can also find quinoa, a wide variety of cheese (all rBST-free), cheap avocados and limes (hello, guac!) and lots of other fresh produce.
I’ve introduced some friends to ALDI and now they shop there all the time. Since I’m always trying to show that home-cooked meals can be healthy, affordable, and doable all at the same time, I’m excited to announce a new partnership with ALDI. I’ll be sharing three more recipes using ALDI ingredients over the next couple of months. If you haven’t experience ALDI yet, go explore one and let me know what you think! Also check out their new Hello, Healthy blog, which offers meal plans, videos and recipes from bloggers like me (these tostadas made the cut).
This post was created in partnership with ALDI and I received compensation for my participation. Opinions are my own, always. Thank you for supporting the sponsors who support C+K!
