More uses for your tortilla press

The tortilla press is a simple piece of kitchen equipment, usually made of metal plates that are hinged together to create perfectly even, flat dough pieces to make corn or flour tortillas. At first glance it seems like an Alton Brown “unitasker”, something that takes up valuable space but only has one use. That’s simply not true, says Taste Cooking’s Abe Beame, who explains that this “smushing machine” can be used for other tasks.

Also known as a tortilladora or prensa, the tortilla press is just over 100 years old but has become indispensable for anyone making tortillas. Some enterprising cooks have found new uses for the press. Jesse Jenkins, a food content creator who has nearly a million followers on social media, eyed his press one day when he was developing a recipe for tuna carpaccio.

“With certain tuna dishes, you have to slowly pound it out to maintain thickness and shape, and it’s a pain in the ass. I just looked over at my tortilla press one day and thought, ‘Why wouldn’t I just use this?’” Jenkins says. Since this discovery, he has been finding additional foods he can press.

Chef Luis Eduardo Swain also uses a tortilla press to smush foods other than tortillas, including plantains for tostones. He said he learned the technique from his mother. She began to use a tortilla press to do a quick press after the first fry several years ago, despite not using a press for this task growing up in Nicaragua.

Something not mentioned in the article that I’ve seen is using a tortilla press to squeeze the liquid out of foods like thawed frozen spinach. It can be a bit messy, but it gets the job done quickly. I have also used it to press dough balls for various cookies. Have you used a tortilla press for something other than tortillas?