Mexican food can be cheap, cheerful, messy and eaten standing beside a taqueria counter.

It can also involve beautiful seafood, excellent wine and the sort of plate you would happily order for dinner somewhere rather smart.

These things are not mutually exclusive.

And this scallop tostada recipe is my little contribution to the argument.

It combines a crisp corn tostada with warm refried beans, quickly seared scallops, avocado crema, a little seaweed and just enough mango-habanero hot sauce to wake everything up without committing violence against a perfectly innocent scallop.

It is luxurious without being overly complicated.

More importantly, it demonstrates something I have been thinking about for a while: Mexican cuisine does not need to stop being Mexican in order to feel premium.

What Is a Scallop Tostada?

A scallop tostada is a crisp corn tortilla topped with scallops and complementary Mexican ingredients such as beans, avocado, chilli, lime and pickled onions.

My version uses seared scallops, refried beans, avocado crema, hiyashi seaweed and mango-habanero sauce.

The tostada is important. Very important, actually, as I discovered after making exactly the same dish as a taco first. It was delicious. It was also… mushy. Soft tortilla. Soft scallop. Soft beans. Soft avocado crema. Everything tasted wonderful, but texturally it felt as though the entire dish had attended the same meeting and unanimously voted against crunch.

So I didn’t publish it. Instead, I fried yesterday’s tortilla until crisp and rebuilt the same flavours as a tostada. Problem solved.

This is exactly why I love tostadas: the crunch is structural, not decorative. You can read more about using leftover tortillas in my guide to making tostadas from yesterday’s tortillas.

But Why Scallops?

Now we need to go on a small detour.

Those who have read my article about The Brand of a Cuisine will know that I have a slight obsession with how Mexican food is positioned internationally.

And yes, I realise most normal people eat tacos without conducting a brand-positioning analysis at the same time.

Unfortunately, I am a marketer by trade. There is no cure. Well, not really ‘unfortunately’, but there are occupational hazards indeed.

My argument was that Mexican cuisine is frequently presented outside Mexico primarily through inexpensive street food: tacos, burritos, quesadillas, colourful branding, casual dining and generally a cheap-and-cheerful perception.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with inexpensive tacos. A magnificent taco eaten standing up can be one of the greatest meals available to humanity. But when this becomes the only international image of Mexican cuisine, something gets lost. Because tacos and tostadas can also be brilliant vehicles for exceptional produce, precise technique and restrained cooking.

Contramar and the Rise of the Premium Tostada

Perhaps the most famous modern example is Gabriela Cámara’s tuna tostada at Contramar in Mexico City.

Contramar helped popularise the raw-tuna tostada in Mexico City, with the now-iconic combination of tuna, avocado, chipotle mayonnaise and crisp fried leek over a tostada (see my review of Gabriela’s superb cookbook on my best Mexican cookbooks page here).

Look at the idea carefully and there is a lesson there: it isn’t luxurious because somebody put gold leaf on it. Thank goodness.

It feels luxurious because excellent seafood is treated with respect and placed against carefully chosen contrasts: crisp tortilla, fatty avocado, smoky chilli, freshness and acidity.

I’ve played with the same broad philosophy before in my tuna tostada with avocado crema and mango-habanero salsa.

Scallops felt like the natural next experiment.

A Michelin-Starred Taco Makes the Same Point

There is another example I keep returning to: Taquería El Califa de León in Mexico City.

When Michelin awarded the tiny taqueria a star in 2024, the restaurant wasn’t transformed into a white-tablecloth palace. Michelin described a standing-room-only operation with an extremely focused menu of just four tacos. Its signature gaonera centres on thinly sliced beef cooked simply and served with freshly made corn tortillas.

And El Califa de León remains listed by Michelin in its 2026 Mexico selection.

That is fascinating to me. Because it demonstrates that premium food and elaborate food are not the same thing.

In fact, expensive ingredients often require more restraint, not less.

I actually played with exactly this principle in my own Gaonera de Cerdo experiment, using thinly sliced pork sirloin instead of beef. Couldn’t help myself, really.

The better your hero ingredient is, the less interested I become in burying it under seven sauces, cheese, lettuce, crema, salsa, pickles, another salsa and half of someone’s herb garden.

Sometimes the difficult skill is knowing when to stop.

And scallops definitely benefit from stopping.

My Scallop Tostada Recipe

This recipe makes one substantial scallop tostada. Multiply as necessary if other people have discovered that you are cooking scallops.

Ingredients

• 1 day-old corn tortilla
• 2–3 large scallops, depending on size
• pinch of salt
• Neutral cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon warm refried beans
• 1 teaspoon avocado crema
• ½ teaspoon finely chopped hiyashi seaweed
• About ¼ teaspoon mango-habanero hot sauce, or to taste
• Pickled pink onions, for garnish
• Fresh coriander, chopped
• 1 lime wedge
• Optional: matchstick fries, crispy potato or crispy onions for additional crunch

For my bean preparation, see how I cook beans and refried beans.

You can find the avocado crema, mango-habanero ideas and plenty of other sauces in my Mexican Salsa System.

1. Make the Tostada

Heat a thin layer of neutral oil in a frying pan.

Add the day-old tortilla and fry it on both sides until golden and completely crisp.

Transfer it to kitchen paper or, even better, a wire rack. Let some of the excess oil drain while the tortilla cools.

You want a base that gives a proper CRACK when you bite it.

Not a tortilla that has merely spent 30 seconds thinking about becoming crispy.

2. Sear the Scallops

Pat the scallops dry and season lightly with salt.

Heat a frying pan until properly hot, add a small amount of neutral oil and place in the scallops.

For large scallops, I cook them for roughly 60–75 seconds on each side, although exact cooking time depends on their size and your pan.

The objective is a deeply golden exterior while keeping the centre tender.

Scallops are expensive.

Turning them into rubber is therefore not only a culinary disappointment but also poor financial management.

3. Warm the Beans

While the scallops cook, gently reheat your refried beans.

They should be warm and creamy rather than dry.

Here they have two jobs: they bring savoury depth, but they also act as edible glue between the tostada and scallops.

Sometimes engineering is delicious.

4. Assemble the Scallop Tostada

Place the tostada on your serving plate.

Spread roughly one tablespoon of warm refried beans over the base.

Arrange the seared scallops on top.

Add small dots of avocado crema.

Scatter over a little hiyashi seaweed.

Then add the mango-habanero hot sauce carefully.

Finish with pink pickled onions and fresh coriander.

Serve with a lime wedge alongside.

And then stop. I am bloody serious. Do not look around the kitchen wondering what else you could put on it.

Why These Flavours Work

There is quite a lot happening here, but every ingredient has a specific job.

The scallops are the hero. They are sweet, delicate and slightly briny.

The tostada provides crunch. Without it, as my first taco experiment demonstrated rather enthusiastically, the dish becomes too soft.

Refried beans provide savoury depth. They also connect the seafood to something immediately recognisable within Mexican cooking.

Avocado crema adds richness, but only in a small quantity because scallops do not need to swim in it.

Seaweed amplifies the marine character rather than competing with the shellfish.

Mango-habanero provides sweetness, acidity and chilli, but restraint matters enormously here. This is not the moment to demonstrate how much habanero you can tolerate.

And finally, lime, coriander and pickled onion provide freshness and acidity.

This is essentially the same logic behind my wider Taco Craft system: every component should have a reason to be there.

An Important Rule for Premium Taco and Tostada Ingredients

If I had to reduce this whole recipe to one principle, it would be this:

The more special the main ingredient, the less you should hide it.

If you’ve bought beautiful scallops, taste the scallops.

If you’ve bought beautiful tuna, taste the tuna.

If you’re using an exceptional piece of beef, let the beef remain identifiable.

Premium Mexican cooking does not have to mean piling expensive ingredients on top of one another until your tostada requires a mortgage.

It can mean using one excellent ingredient and constructing the rest of the dish around it.

That, to me, is much more interesting.

What Wine Goes With a Scallop Tostada?

And now we arrive at the important business.

Wine.

This is very much a wine-and-dine tostada.

My first choice, as an expert, would be a dry, fresh pét-nat with good acidity and restrained aromatics. The bubbles are excellent against the fried tortilla, while the freshness works with the scallops, lime and chilli.

For me personally, a delicate, unoaked white wine would also work beautifully. I would look for freshness, minerality and enough acidity to handle the avocado and beans without overwhelming the scallops.

What I would avoid is something heavily oaked, very alcoholic or excessively aromatic. The scallops are far too polite to win that argument from your wine.

For the bigger picture, see my guide to pairing tacos and wine.

And if pét-nat has already made you suspicious of people saying things such as “living wine” while stroking their moustaches, my 5 Myths of Natural Wines may help.

I Believe That Mexican Food Doesn’t Need a Luxury Costume

This scallop tostada is ultimately about more than scallops.

Mexican cuisine doesn’t need silver cloches, white gloves or ingredients flown from the moon to demonstrate sophistication:

• Its formats are already sophisticated.
• A tortilla is sophisticated.
• Nixtamalisation is sophisticated.
• A great salsa is sophisticated.
• Knowing exactly how much acid, fat, chilli, salt and crunch a dish needs is sophisticated.

The interesting evolution is not turning tacos into something they aren’t.

It is recognising how much more they can already be.

Street tacos? Absolutely.

Beans and salsa? Give them to me immediately.

But also tuna tostadas. Beautiful seafood. Great cuts of meat. Natural wine. Thoughtful plating. Proper restaurant dinners.

There is room at the table for all of it.

And if someone still thinks a tostada cannot be luxurious, serve them this one.

Preferably with a glass of natural wine.

Scallop Tostada FAQ

Can you use scallops in tacos?

Yes. Scallops work very well with corn tortillas, avocado, chilli and lime. However, because both scallops and many taco toppings are soft, adding a crunchy component is important. That is why I prefer this particular combination as a tostada.

Why use a tostada instead of a soft tortilla?

A crisp tostada provides textural contrast to tender scallops, creamy beans and avocado crema. It also creates a firmer platform for plating delicate seafood.

How long should scallops be cooked?

Large scallops generally need only a short sear in a very hot pan. For mine, around 60–75 seconds per side gives good browning while retaining a tender centre, but cooking time varies with size and pan temperature.

What salsa works with scallops?

Fresh, fruity or gently smoky salsas work particularly well. I use mango-habanero because it brings fruit, acidity and chilli, but only a small amount is needed. Delicate shellfish should remain the dominant flavour.

What goes on this scallop tostada?

My scallop tostada consists of a crispy corn tortilla, refried beans, seared scallops, avocado crema, hiyashi seaweed, mango-habanero hot sauce, pickled pink onions, coriander and lime.

What wine pairs with scallop tostadas?

A dry pét-nat or fresh, unoaked white wine is an excellent match. Look for good acidity and moderate aromatics so the wine refreshes the palate without overpowering the scallops.

Taco Craft. Salsa Magic. Proper Tortillas. And occasionally, some rather luxurious scallops.

Buen provecho.

For more inspiration with premium ingredients and tacos, check out my Octopus Tacos and Tuna Aguachile with mango. And take some humble seafood, like mussels, for a spin – see my Mussels recipe with chipotle crema here.

Here are also my most used and loved tools and ingredients for a joyful Mexican cooking:

Masa harina for tortillas: Masienda, Bob’s Red Mill, Maseca

Chillies: Chipotle, Ancho, Guajillo, Tajin

Delicious Habanero Sauces: Mexico Lindo

My go-to jarred Chipotle hot sauce: Cholula

Tools: Tortilla Press, Ninja blender, Global knives.

Masienda store on Amazon – for the best masa harina for your taco tortillas