Monster Avocado Toast

For those nights when you get home hungry, stressed, and impatient, Hangry is here to help. Each Monday, Kendra Vaculin will share quick, exciting meals to rescue anyone who might be anxiously eyeing a box of minute rice.

Today: Avocado toast may be so last year, but avocado toast sandwiches are the next big thing. You heard it here first.

Whether or not we have some earl to thank for it, the stacking of all of one’s favorite things between two slices of bread is an inspired activity. A good sandwich is complete and eclectic—a handheld dream-maker. It hits all the flavor highs (and totally necessary lows—I see you, cucumber) without allowing any one ingredient to overpower the rest. I like a real giant type, piled high with Tetris-like precision, to make for a very sexy cross-section view when I cut it in half.

I uphold that a sandwich is one of those foods for which no substitute can be made. When you have a hankering, you’re pretty much just flailing through space until you get one. The pull is real, the struggle is great, but once you’re holding a turkey club, the reward is worth it. 

I have done my fair share of weird stuff in order to eat a sandwich. Once, with no bread to speak of but plenty of filling options, I ran downstairs to the coffee shop on my block and ordered a plain toasted bagel, which I immediately took back to my kitchen to doctor into a ‘wich.

When I lived in Spain and could not find a proper deli to save my life, I would load Manchego, jamón, greens, and spicy mustard onto the long rolls my host family usually reserved for Nutella. For all of the emphasis I put on acting as Spanish as possible, I allowed myself this one arena — heaping everything in their fridge between bread—in which to be totally foreign and baffling.  

Last week, under the influence of an early morning meat craving, I had an Italian beast for breakfast and straight up zero regrets.

Today, with avocado toast as my gateway drug, I'm making some kind of all-green-everything lunchtime magic. Tangy, creamy, crunchy, tart, and leafy, if ever a sandwich will teach you that meat is 100% optional, it’s this one.

Monster Avocado Toast Sandwich

Makes 1 sandwich, except you’ll want 2 for yourself probably

2 pieces of your number 1 favorite kind of toast
1 big scoop avocado flesh (I used about 1/3 of a whole ‘cado)
Fresh ground pepper
Flaky sea salt, like Maldon
Red pepper flakes
Pesto, leftover from when you made it for pasta last night
A few very thin rounds cucumber 
A few slices tomatillo
2 thick slices fresh mozzarella
Small handful spinach leaves
Sprouts
Fried egg, optional

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

Photos by James Ransom