The Egg Avocado Toast Tip TikTok Swears By

Where were you when the great Avocado Toast Trend of the 2000s struck? Though avocado toast has existed in some form or another basically forever, the trend is typically traced to 2013, when, the Washington Post explains, GOOP founder Gwyneth Paltrow published a very simple recipe for a Vegenaise-spread, avocado-topped piece of toast sprinkled with salt in her cookbook "It's All Good." Avocado toast really took off around 2016, when Google searches for the dish surged, according to Insider. Since then the snack has become ubiquitous (at least in the United States), where available versions range from a $2.99 fast food option served at Dunkin' to the $9, 22-ingredient avocado toast plated up at popular Los Angeles restaurant Sqirl.

If you're at all familiar with the social media platform TikTok, you probably know it has become an unexpected destination for foodies over the past few years, where clips of recipes for dishes such as baked feta pasta and crispy Brussels sprouts go viral and are recreated by countless users worldwide, so it's really not surprising that cooks on the site have shared their unique takes on avocado toast over the years — and there's one spin on the now-classic dish that has generated a lot of enthusiasm recently.

TikTok's newest viral food video is an unlikely one, inspired by an avocado toast recipe posted by user healthyishfoods on January 11. In the video, recipe developer Sarah Thomas-Drawbaugh prepares her now-famous snack by toasting a thick slice of bread, spreading it with Kewpie brand mayo, adding slices of ripe avocado, and then adding the pièce de résistance: a whole hard boiled egg grated over the top of the toast using a Microplane grater. The grated egg comes out looking like a big, fluffy mound of parmesan cheese, and, once topped with the final touches of salt, pepper, and a few dollops of sriracha, makes for quite the photogenic dish.

According to Today, Thomas-Drawbaugh's video has been viewed more than three million times and has inspired a host of imitators. On TikTok, the hashtag #gratedegg has been viewed more than 9 million times, with copycat recipes featuring touches like using Cholula hot sauce in place of the sriracha and swapping Green Goddess salad (another popular TikTok recipe in its own right) for the mayo.

Thomas-Drawbaugh told Today that while she was surprised to see her recipe go viral, the phenomenon ultimately made sense to her, given that her combo of ingredients is a time-tested one. "I always like to reinvent classic recipes, and what's more classic for breakfast than egg and avocado?"