Avocado Toast Advice, From a Few Professionals

In our Phone a Friend column, we'll be asking some of our friends around the food world about how they cook and eat. And we want you to join the conversation, too. 

Today: In honor of Avocado Toast Week, we're polling some of our favorite people on how they customize this universally loved snack.

In case you missed it, we have declared this week to be Avocado Toast Week by the powers vested in us as official members of its fan club. We already showed you 5 ways to dress up this creamy-crunchy creation and how to keep your avocados at their greenest. Because we were curious (and have a mild case of FOMO), we asked you to show us how you enjoy this choose-your-own-adventure of a snack. And because we don't believe enough is ever enough, we've polled a few of our friends to see how they layer their own toast. We want to hear from you, too! Read on, then weigh in in the comments.

Chad Robertson, owner of San Francisco's Tartine Bakery: Avocado, sea salt, sardines (I prefer La Belle-Iloise), freshly cracked black pepepr, and Crystal hot sauce on whole grain Tartine toast. I bring sardines back from Brittany whenever I visit Patrick LePort, one of my baking mentors, since La Belle-Iloise has a store near LePort's boulangerie.

More: You don't have to fly to Brittany for great sardines -- here are some of our favorites.

Nick Balla and Courtney Burns, chefs at Bar Tartine and authors of the Bar Tartine cookbook: Our avocado toast is served on grilled country toast with homemade goat cheese, brown mustard that we make in-house with dill flower vinegar, and scrambled eggs.

Oliver Strand, writer: The grace note of an avocado toast -- or an avocado smash, as they call it in Australia, where I’m fairly sure it was invented -- is that it fires the same fatty, custard-y, melty, crunchy sensors that go off when you slather toast with butter, or peanut butter, or fresh ricotta, only you feel virtuous because an avocado is green and grows on a tree. You’re not just indulging, you’re also doing something healthy. You win.

This summer I made a round of avocado toasts nearly every afternoon; one for my toddling son, one for my mother who flew across the country for an extended play date with him, and one for me. Three generations happily munching on the same snack. I kept it simple: toasted, thick-cut bread, a quick drizzle of olive oil, a generous mash of ripe avocado (at least one half per toast -- enough to fill you up), another drizzle of olive oil, the tiniest squeeze of lemon, then a sprinkle of sea salt and something with a gently spicy kick -- crushed chili flakes, piment d’espelette, merkén, or aleppo pepper.

Like all uncomplicated but perfect dishes, you need to pay attention to every element of avocado toast in order to achieve the right balance of textures and flavors. I like to tip mine towards the fatty side -- too much lemon and it’s a salad -- which means using a good amount of sea salt to wake up the bread, oil, and avocado.  

The Infatuation’s Andrew Steinthal: Smashed, with some olive oil, chili pepper flakes, and an egg on top...

The Infatuation’s Chris Stang: ...and lemon. Lots of it.

Molly Yeh of mynameisyeh: I remove a slice of Ezekiel bread from my freezer (with any luck, this requires minimal hassle in breaking apart the slice) and put it in the microwave for 15 seconds. During this time I place a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and drizzle a bit of oil on it or, if i'm extra chipper, i'll run to the fridge to grab a pat of butter and throw it in. I just need to make sure this all happens in less than 15 seconds because I really, deeply hate the sound that the microwave makes when the time is up. When one second is left on the clock, I swing open the microwave door and retrieve the bread with my bare hands. I carry it over to the skillet and rub it around in the oil or butter and then flip it and let that side get nice and toasty and brown while I vigorously salt the side that is face-up and greased.

More: It's hard to have avocado toast without avocados. Learn all about these fruits (well, technically berries).

At this point I slice open an avocado and place the side with the pit in the refrigerator for a later use. I use a sharp knife to cut 1/2-inch slices in the pitted side, the long (hot dog) way. Throughout this process I check the progress of my bread and eventually flip it over so that the other side can get toasty. (I inspect this new face-up side to make sure that it's greasy enough, then drizzle on more oil if needed, and salt, of course -- kosher salt.) 

Once the bread is toasted to my liking -- or at least to my accepting, depending on how hungry I am -- I place it on a paper towel and then wrestle with my sharp knife to extract the avocado slices from the skin. If I'm feeling luxurious, I'll dirty up an entire other utensil, such as a spoon or fork, to make my life easier for this step, but usually I just wrestle. I distribute my avocado slices on the toast, smash them quickly and sloppily, sprinkle on more salt, grind on some pepper, and if it's a really really reeeeeeally fantastically good day, I add two slices of salami. I eat this in front of my computer and then probably go back for seconds.

More: Another surefire way to have a fantastically good day? Start it off with salami and butter on a bagel.

J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats' The Food Lab: Oh, easy! I spread a layer of warm refried beans on top of some toasted whole-wheat or multigrain bread, then I layer on sliced avocado (none of this mashing nonsense), some slivered white onions, and a sprinkle of good coarse sea salt for crunch. I even wrote a post about it.

Ignacio Mattos, chef at New York's Estela: For me, it's all about the avocado. I beat it with little bit of olive oil and just a sprinkle of sea salt, then put it on a dense multigrain bread. I like it as simple as possible -- but the bread must be really charred.

Missing our typical Too Many Cooks column? Don't fret -- on Friday, we'll be polling Food52 staffers with the same question. Stay classy, avocado toast-lovers.