Nopales Slaw Tostadas with Pickled Red Onions

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These Nopales Slaw Tostadas made with hominy and Mexican nopalitos (cactus leaves) are ready in only 35 minutes and are topped with homemade Pickled Red Onions for a vegetarian and gluten free lunch. 

This post has been sponsored by La Preferida. Thanks for supporting the brands I love!

Happy Monday, friends! After a relaxing Saturday and Sunday with John, the cats and a Law and Order: SVU marathon (we’re addicted!), I’m feeling recharged and ready to tackle the world.

Since the beginning of the work week has a tendency to be busy and draining, the last thing I want to do is spend an hour and a half in the kitchen making dinner. Easy recipes that I can throw together in about 30 minutes are my go-tos on Mondays and Tuesdays. Tostadas are one of those meals.

Tostadas are baked corn tortillas (basically like big round tortilla chips) that are usually topped with refried beans and whatever else your little heart desires. You pick it up, eat it like a pizza and life is good. Sounds amazing, right?!

It totally is. ?

I’ve shared a recipe for tostadas in the past (Mexican Street Corn Tostadas), and now I’m excited to share a tostada recipe using an ingredient that most Mexican households are familiar with – nopales.

What are nopales?

Nopales are edible cactus leaves from the prickly pear cactus. It’s a popular food in Mexico and Central America and are usually green in color. They’re slightly tart and are somewhere between bell peppers and okra in flavor and texture. They’re often chopped and scrambled with eggs for breakfast or stir-fried for lunch or dinner.

I actually grew up with my parents buying fresh nopales with the spines still on the leaves! Yep, all the little pricklers were still on the fresh nopales when they bought them at the grocery store. My dad would wear gloves and shave them off with a sharp knife before cooking, and though it’s not a difficult process, it’s something I never enjoyed doing. I always pricked myself!

No, thank you. No desire to get stabbed by some cactus. Not today.

So instead of cooking and preparing nopales myself, I’ve opted for buying them already prepared. You can usually find them in a jar in the Mexican aisle of your local grocery store. If not, check with a specialty Mexican grocer.

I threw the nopales in with some shredded cabbage, hominy (another Mexican favorite), corn and other La Preferida ingredients to create an easy veggie-filled slaw. To serve, I spread some refried beans on a tostada, a handful of nopales slaw, some queso fresco and one of my favorite things in the world – pickled red onions.

That’s probably a weird thing to love so much, but it’s true! I first fell in love with pickled red onions after getting them on some tacos at an awesome restaurant one night. Since then, I’ve always wanted to make my own and now I finally am!

Here’s how.

How to Make Pickled Red Onions

You’ll need 1/2 a red onion, 2 limes, black pepper and salt.

Step 1: In a small bowl or mason jar, add red onions, lime juice, black pepper and salt. Mix together or shake to combine.

Step 2: Press down on the red onions to make sure they are fully submerged in the pickling liquid. I used the used lime halves to add weight to the top of the red onions to keep them submerged. Let them rest in the fridge for 30 minutes and that’s it!

Easy pickled red onions in no time!

I used them as a garnish on the Nopales Slaw Tostadas along with some queso fresco. Because both the slaw and the pickled red onions are tart and tangy, I highly recommend topping the tostadas with a creamy element to balance out the flavors. If you can’t find any queso fresco at your local grocery store, some Mexican crema or crème fraîche will also do the trick.

Another meatless Monday in the books!