There’s a vegan eatery near my house that sells some pretty darn good avocado tacos. The avocado slices are breaded and fried and topped with shredded cabbage. Ever since first taste of Seabirds Kitchen‘s avocado tacos, I’ve been jonesing to try making my own. The first step in making this possible was to find a good fried avocado fries recipe.
While I’m not opposed to eating deep fried food (I actually love love love deep fried food), I’m not overly fond of making it. You have to use soooooo much oil when deep frying. It seems like a big ‘ole waste of oil when you’re using a large amount and you only get one or two servings of some yummy fried food.
For this recipe I instead searched for an air-fried or oven-fried recipe. I have a countertop convection oven that has an air-fry setting that I’ve never put to the test. It was high time to see how well this countertop oven could do anything else besides bake/reheat food, which is what I’ve been using it for so far. At Gina Homalka’s website, skinnytaste®, she offers a great recipe for healthy avocado fries — this is where I got my base recipe.
To get the breadcrumbs browned during the oven-frying process, I mixed the panko breadcrumbs with avocado oil. I reasoned that since I can mix melted butter with breadcrumbs to get a nice crispy mac and cheese topping it should work in this instance too. It did. You can opt to skip mixing the breadcrumbs with oil and instead spray the avocado fries with an olive oil mist or cooking spray on both sides before baking.
ingredients.
- 4 small avocados, peeled, pitted and cut into wedges (I got 6 wedges per avocado)
- 2 large egg, lightly beaten
- 2 c. panko breadcrumbs
- 1 c. all-purpose flour
- avocado oil
- salt and/or other seasoning
directions.
- Preheat the air-fryer 390F degrees** or the oven to 425F degrees.
- Salt and season avocado wedges. Place eggs in a shallow bowl. In separate shallow bowls place flour and mix panko breadcrumbs with a pinch or two of salt and enough avocado oil to moisten the crumbs.
- Dip each piece of avocado first in flour, then egg, and then in panko. (You will likely have a hard time getting the egg to stick to the flour in the spots where you are touching the avocado. This is OK. Repeat with one more dip into the egg and then the panko.
- Place the avocado slices on an air-fryer basket or baking sheet. Transfer the breaded avocado slices to the air fryer or oven and cook 10 to 15 minutes turning halfway.
**I noticed that many recipes call to cook foods at 390F degrees when using an air-fryer. Through trial and error, I have cooked other items at a higher temperature, 450F, which browns your crumbs faster. If you feel it necessary to increase the temperature to get a darker coating, feel free!
I’ve made these twice now and would highly recommend double-dipping the slices in panko as opposed to only doing one layer of panko bread crumbs. Doing a flour, egg and double panko combo results in a nice substantial layer of breading that holds up well. If you are trying not to eat so many bread items it’s totally fine to do one layer of panko coating.
I served these fries with some homemade ranch dressing. But you could also serve with a chipotle mayo or a cilantro lime dressing or any other flavor you desire.
These are, in a word, amazing.
If you don’t eat these delicious morsels in one sitting, simply refrigerate and reheat (using your air-fryer) the next day. As far as I can tell, the avocado was still green!
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 