Do you know what time it is? It’s tostada time! OK, that was lame, but I seriously love tostadas. When I love something this much, I tend to get a little overly excited, but you’ll understand once you try these roasted chicken and butternut squash tostadas.

Butternut squash tostadas on a marble tray.

During the fall and winter months, I eat as much butternut squash as possible. Although butternut squash is delicious as a simple side dish, I also love incorporating it into Tex-Mex dishes. That sweet and spicy combination gets me every time. Anyone else feel me on that? I assume everyone's hand went up.

If you've never made tostadas, I should point out that you can buy tostada shells, but I highly recommend making your own. Freshly fried tostada shells are so much more delicious than anything you can get in a store, and it just so happens I have a super easy recipe for homemade tostada shells.

Step-by-Step Instructions

All right, now that you have your tostada shells ready, let's dive into the recipe, which happens to be super simple. Really, if you can scoop ingredients with a spoon, you can make homemade tostadas. Some ingredient prep is involved, but they're also plenty easy, and you can hack several of these steps if you're feeling a little lazy. No judgment. We've all been there.

With that in mind, we want to make sure we have all our ingredients ready to go, so here's what you'll need for this recipe besides the tostada shells.

Refried black beans
Roasted butternut squash puree
Roasted chicken
Red enchilada sauce
Cheese
Mexican crema or sour cream
Cubed avocado
Fresh cilantro
Plenty of limes

To roast the butternut squash, we simply cut the butternut squash in half, scoop out the seeds and brush with olive oil. From there, we fill a baking pan with enough water to cover the bottom and up the sides about a half an inch and roast the squash in a 425-degree oven until the squash pierces easily with a fork.

Generally, I prefer to roast butternut squash halves for about an hour, but a small squash can roast in about 45 minutes. Once the squash roasts, we scoop the flesh into a food processor and blend until smooth.

For an easy hack, you can buy precut squash and roast those chunks in half the time. If you go that route, still brush the squash with olive oil but don't fill the pan with water. Just put them straight on the baking pan to roast. Oh, and if you enjoy butternut squash as much as I do, you can always puree roasted butternut squash and freeze it to quickly add to your meals.

As far as the chicken goes, you can keep it simple with a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Those rotisserie chickens are ridiculously delicious and such an easy and economical way to source meat for recipes. You can buy a fresh rotisserie, or do as I do and keep frozen rotisserie meat on hand for those times when you don't want to deal with the grocery store.

If you're feeling ambitious, I used leftover meat from this roasted apple cider spatchcock chicken that I made for Recipes Worth Repeating. I love the way the spiced chicken plays with all the other flavors in this tostada, but a grocery store rotisserie chicken will also be plenty delicious.

For the enchilada sauce, this 20-minute red enchilada sauce is super tasty, and it makes enough that you can have some sauce for tostadas and freeze the rest for enchiladas. Of course, canned enchilada sauce is always available, but I highly recommend making this recipe if you can. My 20-minute enchilada sauce is so much more flavorful and will add a level of depth you won't get from a canned sauce. Like rotisserie chicken, I make a point to keep frozen enchilada sauce on hand, so it's always ready. Then, you can always make enchiladas on a whim in no time. Bonus.

Now if you're thinking, "I don't know. That's a lot of ingredient prep," well, you're right. But like I said, a lot of this can be prepared ahead of time.

In fact, when I made these tostadas, I prepared the chicken for an earlier dinner that week and used the leftovers, and the butternut squash puree and red enchilada sauce were ready to go in the freezer. I made the tostada shells earlier in the day on a lazy Saturday, so it took about 10 minutes to assemble that evening. Yes, I'm a food hoarder. I save all leftovers and freeze everything, but it makes so many meals quicker to prepare.

Now we just pile on the toppings and pop into the broiler to melt the cheese. Let's garnish with these delightful tostadas with Mexican crema, avocado, cilantro and lime and dig in. Delicious, huh?

Butternut squash on a marble tray close up.

Perfect Pairing

You can't have tostadas without margaritas, right? Right. If you're a fan of the classic margarita, give this recipe a try. For you fruited margarita lovers, I'm a huge fan of this roasted strawberry margarita.

A nice American pale ale isn't a bad call either. The hops in American pale ales tend to highlight the bright flavors of lime and cilantro while kicking up the chile flavor in the enchilada sauce. At the same time, there's enough of a malt backbone to counter the spice and meld with the butternut squash.

If you're on a wine kick, a fruit-forward sauvignon blanc works well with these roasted chicken-butternut squash tostadas. The sweetness from the fruit contrasts nicely with the spicy enchilada sauce, and there's a good punch of acidity to cut through all those layers of toppings.

I hope you give this roasted chicken-butternut squash tostada recipe a try. What's not to love about a freshly fried, crunchy tostada piled high with an assortment of delicious toppings?

Cheers!

An aerial view of butternut squash tostadas.

Craving Tex-Mex?

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Roasted Chicken and Butternut Squash Tostadas

Step-by-Step Instructions

Perfect Pairing

Craving Tex-Mex?

📖 Recipe