Avocado toast has dominated brunch menus for the last two years, whether it was plain or topped with loads of ingredients.
But lately, I've noticed another unlikely food combo dominating Pinterest, food blogs, and Instagram - cottage cheese toast.
Cottage cheese toast was a big thing back when a Weight Watchers cookbook came out in 1967. The weight loss brand claimed you could make a "healthy cheese danish" by combining cinnamon and honey with cottage cheese and spreading it on toast. Then, you'd simply broil the whole thing until the cottage cheese started to bubble.
Though it didn't taste at all like the classic sweet pastry according to reviewers, the idea stuck and now if social media is any indication, cottage cheese toast is back.
But I was still skeptical. Cottage cheese with toast sounded too weird to work, so I decided I needed to try it before it became ubiquitous at brunch spots everywhere.
To prepare, I bought the main ingredients I was going to use: fat-free cottage cheese, bread, and honey.
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Just like avocado toast, there are a lot of ways to prepare the questionable-sounding cottage cheese toast. You can make it caprese-style with tomato, basil, and olive oil, make it sweet with berries and honey, or go Mexican-inspired and add guacamole and salsa.
But the combination that I'd seen most frequently was simply cottage cheese drizzled with honey.
First, I toasted my bread. I wanted to get it pretty toasted so that it could stand up against the soggy cottage cheese.
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Then I scooped out my cottage cheese and plopped it onto the toast and spread it around like I would peanut butter or jam. It looked super gross.
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I decided to take a test bite at this stage - it tasted like cottage cheese and toast. Not impressed.
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Next, I drizzled on the honey.
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Here's the end result:
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I could see myself eating this if I were on a diet. The cottage cheese and honey tasted pretty good together with the mix of salty, nutty, and sweet flavors, and the entire meal was very filling for roughly 200 calories.
And while it would be a good breakfast alternative if I was watching what I eat, I could never see myself making this every day or craving this as a meal. While I don't hate cottage cheese, I certainly don't enjoy it on its own, and not even toasted bread or honey could make it delicious.
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If you do love cottage cheese, more power to you - you'd probably love this. Go forth and eat cottage cheese toast.
Next time I might try it with berries, but for now, I'll stick with avocado toast.