Taste: Weeknight meals don’t have to be bland, try these avocado toast bowls

Katherine Grandstrand
·3 min read
A few kitchen staples turned these ready-to-eat avocados into a quick and easy weeknight dinner packed with flavor.
A few kitchen staples turned these ready-to-eat avocados into a quick and easy weeknight dinner packed with flavor.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I had a couple of avocados that needed to get used before they turned to brown mush.

Any avid avocado eater has experienced the heartbreak of waiting and waiting for an avocado to be ripe, only to miss that short window and open up a mushy, rotting mess.

Having had my fill of avocado toast and not wanting to make guacamole, I had to come up with a new way to use these two green ovals.

Avocado is a lot like tofu. It doesn’t really have any flavor of its own, but it’s very adaptable.

A really neat thing about avocado is that smashed avocado is a one-to-one substitute for butter in a lot of baking recipes because of its high fat content. But I didn’t want to bake avocado brownies, I needed something for supper.

I didn’t want to waste time with another shopping trip, so I needed to use ingredients I had at home already.

So I took all my favorites and combined them into a delicious bowl that checks all the meal building boxes: carbs, vegetables and protein. Throw in some great flavor enhancers and it’s dinner time.

I started by cooking two portions of rice — one rice-cooker cup per person. Once that was cooked, I stirred in plenty of everything bagel seasoning blend.

I love everything bagels, I have one practically every morning. Trader Joe’s was one of the first to sell the blend, but its popularity has caught on and it can be found in the spice aisle of grocery and big box stores.

Everything bagel seasoning contains sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onion, garlic and sea salt. It’s fairly easy to make a bottle at home, but also very convenient to buy pre-packaged.

Once the rice was done, it got split into two bowls, and then topped with sliced avocado, which also got a dose of everything bagel seasoning as well as a little sriracha and some lime juice. Each bowl got one full avocado.

On top of the avocado went two fried eggs with runny yolks, seasoned with — you guessed it — everything bagel seasoning.

Another sprinkling of everything bagel seasoning and this meal was ready to eat.

I love getting creative in the kitchen with one-off meals like this, because they can turn into weeknight staples.

And while this was a way to use up some avocado, really any vegetable could be substituted. It would be really good with some steamy broccoli or even California blend vegetables. Try different seasoning blends (hello ranch!)

Cooking doesn’t have to be hard to taste good.

Avocado toast bowls

Ingredients

  • 2 servings of rice, cooked.

  • 2 avocados.

  • 4 eggs, fried.

  • Everything bagel seasoning.

  • Sriracha.

  • Lime juice.

Instructions

  • Per package instructions, cook two servings of preferred rice. Once cooked, stir in 1-2 tablespoons of everything bagel seasoning. Divide between two bowls.

  • Remove the pit and skins from the avocados, slice thinly. Place on top of rice, sprinkle with everything bagel seasoning, lime juice and sriracha.

  • Top avocado with eggs fried to desired doneness, top with more everything bagel seasoning and sriracha to taste.

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Try avocado toast bowls for break up bland weeknight meals