Meatless Monday: Yum Veggie Sandwiches, Open Face

It’s Monday night. You burst in the door from work, exhausted, irritated, and utterly unwilling to cook. Your sole desire is to flop on the couch and have someone fork-feed you a cheeseburger. But… what about Meatless Mondays?

This week’s recipe is not only as simple as they come but completely adaptable to whatever ingredients you have in your fridge. It takes ten minutes to prep, tops, and only five to cook.

Assemble your ingredients—seasonal, juicy sweet onions, ripe tomatoes, buttery avocado, crunchy alfalfa sprouts and toasted sesame seeds. Pop two sliced English muffins in the toaster and set the oven to broil. Dice the tomatoes. Dice the onions. Mash the avocados.

After placing the muffins face up and close together on a cookie sheet, thickly cover them with mashed avocado. Although the original recipe recommended the use of only one avocado, I’m kind of a fanatic. I used two. Double the avocado, double the fun.

Your next layer will consist of the alfalfa sprouts, followed by the chopped sweet onion. At this point, I decided to add the requisite ranch dressing—and let me tell you, this is the key to success. I covered each muffin with a tablespoon, and they may have been a little too gooey. I recommend around two teaspoons per muffin, but if ranch is your thing, hey. Go crazy. Salt and pepper to taste. I added some of my favorite hot sauce (Cholula), which was fabulous.

Cover the ranch-y, sprout-y, onion-y avocado-muffs with the diced tomatoes and sprinkle lightly with sesame seeds. Next time, I’d love to try any number of garnishes: pine nuts or sunflower seeds spring to mind. Add a small handful of sharp shredded cheddar to each muffin, pop under the broiler for a few minutes (it only took three and a half minutes for the cheese on mine to start bubbling). BAM. A crunchy, filling, kind-of-unbelievably-decadent vegetarian sandwich. Although… can you really call it a sandwich if it’s open face? Discuss.

--Anneka Gerhardt, Foodista staffer