I’ve recently started learning how to cook authentic Mexican food with the help of some friends who are  “in the know.”  Oh my goodness, it’s a whole new world!  So, you can imagine my delight when my aforementioned friends gave me the ingredients and a recipe for sopes (pronounced SO-pace) as a birthday present.

Sopes – one with green sauce and one with red sauce.

We were so full from eating the sopes I didn’t even notice we didn’t have a side dish or fruit.  Oh well, next time.  We covered the veggie, protein and dairy categories!

The ingredients, preparation, and variations are all courtesy of my friend Laura.  Me encanta los sopes, Laura y Alfredo!  Gracias por el regalo.

Ingredients

• corn sopes
• white onion, diced
• lettuce, shredded
• refried beans (or mashed up pinto beans), warmed
• sour cream
• cotija cheese (I’ve subbed feta cheese before if I can’t find the cotija)
• green or red sauce
• shredded chicken, flavored to preference – a bit of a kick is tasty in this recipe

NOTE:  You should be able to find sopes and cotija cheese at your local grocery store.  They’re both most likely in the refrigerated section.  However, I’d recommend finding a local Mexican/Latin/Hispanic grocery store, if you can.  The store I go to is a tiny, hole-in-the-wall shop with some amazing bakery items and the products (and, therefore, flavors) are imported and authentic.

Preparation

• Fry the sopes.  I filled a skillet with oil and heated the oil over medium – high heat.  Once the oil is hot, add the sopes and cook for about 1.5 minutes on each side.  Remove from heat and blot excess oil.
• Add the rest of the ingredients after you’ve fried the sopes.  We prepared them individually by layering the following:
• Add refried beans.
• Add chicken.
• Add sour cream.
• Add lettuce.
• Sprinkle the onion.
• Sprinkle the cotija cheese.
• Add red or green sauce.  As you can see from the picture – I did one of each!

Variations

• Add pico de gallo
• Make a breakfast version and substitute the chicken for scrambled eggs.
• Use turkey instead of chicken.
• Forget the egg or meat altogether and stick with the beans.