Mexican pizza — Mexico

Mexican pizza is a dish that borrows the round, shareable, wedge-cut format of a pizza while keeping the fillings of Mexican tortilla-based cooking: a crisp tortilla, or two stacked tortillas, serve as the base, layered with refried beans and a seasoned meat filling, topped with cheese, salsa and sometimes vegetables, then heated until the cheese melts. This version is prepared in Mexico, where fried or lightly toasted tortillas topped and stacked in this way sit alongside other tortilla-based snacks such as tostadas and tlayudas, sharing much of the same pantry of beans, cheese, meat and salsa but assembled and named for their round, layered, pizza-like presentation. A tortilla is first fried or toasted until it holds its shape and turns lightly crisp, then spread with refried beans and a layer of seasoned ground meat or shredded chicken. A second tortilla can be added on top to sandwich a further layer of filling, and the whole assembly is topped with shredded cheese, chopped tomato, onion and a spoonful of salsa before being baked or grilled just long enough to melt the cheese. The exact fillings shift from one kitchen to another: some versions use picadillo-style spiced ground beef, others favour shredded chicken or refried black beans as the main body, and the salsa ranges from a mild tomato base to a sharper, chilli-forward mix, with the tortilla base sometimes single and sometimes doubled depending on how much filling is wanted between the layers.