Chicharrón Aztec Casserole

Chicharrón. What in the world is that? Basically, deep-fried pork skin/rind. It can also be pork belly. Or, like you would find in any market/butcher in Mexico, it is a large pork rind slab that can also include some meat attached to it. That is the very best Chicharrón you could ever eat. It’s delicious on its own, as the ultimate Mexican finger snack. It is also enticing as a taco filling acompanied with a spoonful of your favorite salsa. Lip-smacking good! In the US, however, and this far North (remember, we live on the frontier), the only Chicharrón available comes from factories, in neat bags. You may know it as pork cracklings. So, for the purposes of today’s Chicharrón Aztec Casserole, that’s what we will use.

The star ingredient of this Chicharrón Aztec Casserole is Chicharrón en Salsa Verde. This is a traditional way to prepare your pork rind, whether it is fresh out of the frying vat, or it is more than a few days old. This way you don’t have to throw away any stale, crunchless Chicharrón. The salsa for your Chicharrón en Salsa can be either green (like the one for this recipe) or red. Chicharrón en Salsa is such an easy recipe, since all you have to do is prepare your salsa, fry it some in a bit of oil or lard, and then smother your fresh or leftover pieces of pork cracklings in it. And I promise that what your pork rind will lose in crunchyness, it will gain in taste, as it will absorb all those rich salsa flavors.

Aztec Casseroles are layered Mexican dishes. You might know them also by the misnomer “Mexican Lasagna”. They consist of veggies, meat (more often than not the meat is chicken), tortillas, salsa, and inordinate amounts of cheese and sour cream. In fact, if you have leftovers, this type of casserole would be the perfect way to use them all, thus avoiding waste.

The most delicious Aztec Casserole that I ever had did not even include meat. It was all-veggies (zucchini blossoms, corn, poblano strips), interspersed with layers of tortillas, salsa and cream and cheese deliciousness. It was one of my mom’s specialties and definitely one of our favorite dishes growing up. That woman could most certainly cook! It is so very true that the fondest memories are made when gathered at the table, around food. All these meals that we ate when we were younger, just like perfume, are evocative of our past.

This Chicharrón Aztec Casserole is very easy to put together. The layered tortillas will definitely hold better through the baking process if you quick-fry them before assembling your casserole. But if you are looking to slash those pesky calories, you can skip that step. It will also save you at least 10 minutes of prep time, so there’s that too.

Chicharrón Aztec Casserole

Yazzy

Print Recipe

Total Time 35 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Servings 8

Ingredients

  

• For the Salsa Verde:
• 8 – 10 units green tomatoes husks removed and scrubbed
• 1 unit Jalapeno pepper veins and seeds removed
• 1/4 wedge white onion
• 2 unit garlic cloves
• 1 unit small bunch of fresh cilantro rinsed under cold running water
• 3 cups water
• Salt and pepper to taste
• olive/vegetable oil/lard, to fry the green salsa
• 2 – 5oz. bags Pork rinds
• To assemble the casserole:
• 18 units soft corn tortillas
• enough oil/lard to quick-fry the tortillas if you are frying them. You can skip this step and just use them unfried.
• 1 cup Mexican or sour cream
• 2 cups shredded Chihuahua, Mexican Blend orr Mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup canned yellow corn drained (optional)
• 1 unit charred, peeled, seeded and deveined Poblano pepper cut in strips lengthwise (optional)
• 1 cup crumbled Queso fresco

Instructions

 

• Make the Salsa Verde: Blend all the salsa verde ingredients in a blender with the 3 cups of water, until smooth. Pass it through a strainer and fry it in a large saucepan or pot, in the lard/oil over medium heat. Once it boils and changes color, season with salt and pepper. Turn off the heat. Empty the two bags of pork rinds into the sauce and stir, coating all the pork rind pieces.
• Grease a lasagna baking dish with some butter. In a large skillet, quick-fry each tortilla 20 – 30 seconds on each side, in hot oil and set them on paper towels so they absorb the extra fat. You can skip this step and just use unfried tortillas for your casserole.
• Preheat oven to 350 F.

  Start your casserole with a layer of 6 tortillas at the bottom of the pan, covering the whole surface, with some overlap. Spoon a layer of the pork rinds in salsa verde and even out the layer with the spoon. Dollop with Mexican/Sour cream and sprinkle with Chihuahua/Mexican Blend/Mozarella shredded cheese, spoon some corn kernels all over and stretch some Poblano strips over the surface, if you are adding them, on each layer. Repeat with two more layers. On the top layer, evenly distribute the crumbled Queso Fresco.
• Bake uncovered for 15 – 20 minutes, until cheese has melted and starts to brown at the edges of the baking dish.