Am I too late to the avo party?

Does this make me a bad millennial?

Butter fruit. That’s been my introduction to avocados here in India. That too in the form of juice. I don’t remember if I ever tried the butter fruit juice my friends were drinking when we were kids, but I’ve had no real feelings towards these oddly shaped fruits growing up. In my early twenties, avocado toast was all over the news as the sole reason our generation would not own homes. I had to look up what this avocado toast was and met butter fruit again. This time, mashed on toast.

Photo by Bethany Randall on Unsplash

As I bit into my first piece of avocado toast, the only thing on my mind was that it definitely wasn’t worth letting go of my dream to own a home. I met avocado again in the form of guacamole and of course this was an improvement over the mash that made my toast soggy, but I still didn’t get the hype.

Cut to a whole decade and some more random experiments later¹, I tried again. This time because my nutritionist recommended I added some more good fats to my diet. Surprisingly though, this time I didn’t hate it. This time, my toast didn’t get soggy because this time I knew what I didn’t like about avocado, so I made an effort to fix it.

Presenting, my very late to the party top 3 tips to make avocado toast that doesn’t suck.

1. Don’t mash the avocado on the toast.
   Call it a rookie mistake, call it blindly following every aesthetic avocado toast video you see. But if you mash something on your toast, obviously you’re going to ruin it. Like, cold butter on toast. Same thing. It won’t spread and it will ruin the integrity of your nice crunchy toast. Mash the avocado in a bowl and then add it to your toast.

2. Season your avocado.
   Unsalted butter sucks. You know it does. So does unsalted avocado. So even just adding some salt to it while mashing it, makes a whole world of a difference to it. It also helps to toss in some garlic salt, chilli flakes, or pepper—gives the avocado some personality along with just being a good fat you’re supposed to eat for health reasons.

3. Use a thin layer of avocado on your toast.
   I like to top my avocado toast with eggs or mushrooms and I’ve noticed that the ratio of avocado to bread matters. Too much and it just overpowers your dish. You want to use it like you would butter—a nice thin layer elevates your toast, too much and that’s all you can taste, and not in a good way. (Yes, there is such a thing as too much butter, no it doesn’t necessarily taste good.)

That’s all I have for you today. I’m still new to this avocado party and am looking for more ways to take my avocado toast to the next level. So tell me your secrets.

1. On one of the earlier seasons of MasterChef Australia, a contestant used Avocado in a healthy cooking challenge to make a chocolate mousse that the judges loved, so of course I tried it and of course it was terrible.