Toast happens in this country every morning, usually while something else is happening. The kettle. The radio. A bag being found.
And then most of us put the same thing on it we put on it yesterday.
The best toppings for toast are not complicated. They are just not the thing you have reached for on autopilot since about 2016.
Hot bread. Open cupboard. Here we go.
Key Takeaways
- Heat: Choose the best toppings for toast by temperature, hot toast for anything that melts, cooled toast for anything creamy or fresh.
- Sweet: The best sweet toast toppings are banana and cinnamon, ricotta with berries, nut butter, dark chocolate and grape molasses with tahini.
- Savoury: The best savoury toast toppings are a fried egg, baked beans, garlic mushrooms, smashed avocado with chilli and cheese under the grill.
- Swaps: Instead of butter, try tahini, ricotta, hummus, cottage cheese or olive oil with flaky salt.
What are the best toppings for toast?
The best toppings for toast fall into two camps. Savoury: a fried egg, baked beans, garlic mushrooms, smashed avocado, cheese under the grill. Sweet: banana and cinnamon, ricotta and berries, nut butter, dark chocolate, grape molasses with tahini. Choose by how hungry you are and how hot the toast is.
The last one needs a sentence, because it is genuinely odd and most people have never met it.
Grape molasses is grape juice cooked down until it goes dark, thick and fruity. Tahini is sesame seeds ground to a paste, nutty and savoury. Put them together and they taste, unmistakably, like caramel.
That is Messyface. Grapes and sesame, the entire ingredients list. Rich, dark and properly caramel-like, with enough savoury sesame underneath to stop it going sickly.
No refined sugar. No palm oil. No milk powder, no emulsifiers. Nothing added at all.
What can you put on toast other than butter?
Plenty. Tahini, ricotta, cottage cheese, hummus, mashed avocado, olive oil with flaky salt, or a fruit and sesame spread. Butter is not the enemy. Butter is the default, and the default is how breakfast quietly becomes a thing you do rather than enjoy.
- Tahini and honey. Nutty, savoury, sweet, all at once.
- Ricotta. Spoon it on in rough lumps. The lumps are the point.
- Hummus. Underrated on hot toast. Goes loose and faintly nutty.
- Olive oil and flaky salt. Sounds like nothing. Tastes like a holiday.
- Cottage cheese. Back from the dead, and far better here than in any diet plan.
None of them needs a cold block of butter and an argument with it at seven in the morning.
What do Brits actually put on toast?
Butter, jam, marmalade, Marmite, baked beans, cheese and peanut butter, roughly in that order of national stubbornness. British toast is not the styled, stacked, photographed toast of the internet. It is fast, functional and often eaten standing up.
Odd, then, that the food pages written here are almost all savoury: mushrooms, beans, sardines, rarebit. Sweet toast, which is what a great many of us actually eat before work, barely gets a look in anywhere.
There is an unwritten national breakfast happening every morning at about ten past seven and nobody has bothered to write it down. Toast. Something on it. Coffee. Coat.
That is the morning we make Messyface for.
What are the best sweet toppings for toast?
The best sweet toppings for toast are banana and cinnamon, ricotta with berries and honey, nut butter with sliced apple, grated dark chocolate on hot bread, and grape molasses with tahini. All five work on plain wholemeal, in under two minutes.
- Banana and cinnamon. Sliced thin so it warms through. On sourdough it gets close to a pudding.
- Ricotta, berries and honey. Cold and soft on hot crust, the best temperature clash in breakfast.
- Nut butter and sliced apple. Salt, sweet, crunch.
- Grated dark chocolate. Melts in about six seconds.
- Grape molasses and tahini. A heaped spoonful dragged towards the crust until the surface goes glossy. Some ends up on your thumb.
Hot bread, a heaped spoon, the whole thing going shiny. Sticky fingers. A wonderful way to start a day.
The awkward part: plain toast never fully recovers. Same story with French toast.
What are the best savoury toppings for toast?
The best savoury toppings for toast are a fried egg, baked beans, garlic mushrooms, smashed avocado with chilli and lemon, and cheese under the grill. Each turns toast from a snack into a meal, and none takes longer than the kettle.
- A fried egg. Crisp edges, soft middle.
- Baked beans, with grated cheese if it is that sort of day.
- Garlic mushrooms. Cooked past squeaky, into buttery.
- Smashed avocado, chilli flakes, lemon, flaky salt.
- Cheese under the grill. Grill, not toaster. The blistering is the point.
Worth stealing from the sweet side: tahini works both ways. Savoury on its own, which is exactly why it holds its nerve against something sweet.
How do you build better toast before the topping goes on?
Start with the bread, then mind the temperature. Wholemeal, granary, seeded or sourdough carry a topping better than thin white. Toast it properly so the outside crunches. Then match the topping to the heat: melty things go on at once, creamy things want a minute.
| Topping | Toast should be | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Butter, cheese, grated chocolate | Straight from the toaster | You want it melting into the holes |
| Grape molasses and tahini spread | Hot | Warmth loosens it and the surface goes glossy |
| Ricotta, cottage cheese, avocado | Cooled a minute | Heat turns creamy things watery |
| Beans, eggs, mushrooms | Hot, eaten immediately | Wet toppings and waiting do not get on |
| Tomatoes, herbs, smoked salmon | Cool | Everything else wilts |
If a spread is too stiff to move, stop wrestling it. Spoon what you need into a small bowl and give it ten seconds in the microwave. It comes out as a drizzle, which is also what to do to a stack of pancakes.
A bowl, not the jar. You warm only what you are eating, and the lid is metal.
Are toast toppings a healthy breakfast?
Toast can be a very good breakfast, and the topping decides most of it. The NHS recommends wholemeal bread for fibre, and says starchy carbohydrates should be about a third of what you eat.
Sweet toppings deserve honesty. Messyface, our grape molasses and tahini spread, has 42.3g of sugars per 100g. All from the grapes, none added. A serving is 15g, a heaped teaspoon, 66 calories. The swirl, not the breakfast.
One non-messy bit: Messyface contains sesame, one of the 14 regulated allergens, and both jars are made in a facility that also handles nuts.
If a training session is attached, timing matters more than toppings.
Top Tips
- Toast it properly. Pale toast goes soggy under anything wet.
- Warm a stiff spread the sensible way: a spoonful in a small bowl, ten seconds, done.
- Salt the sweet stuff. Flaky salt on banana toast is not a mistake.
- For a thicker spread, Messyface Peanut takes a proper slather.
- Eat it over a plate. Or don't, and discover where it went later.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best toppings for sourdough toast?
Sourdough has a tangy, chewy crumb that stands up to wet and heavy toppings, so it suits smashed avocado, garlic mushrooms, tomatoes and beans. On the sweet side, that sourness plays beautifully against caramel-like spreads, ricotta and honey. Toast it thick.
What are good toppings for buttered toast?
Butter is a base, not a finish. On top of it: Marmite, honey, jam, marmalade, grated cheese, cinnamon sugar, sliced banana or nut butter. Butter first, then the topping, while the toast is hot enough to melt everything together.
What are the healthiest toast toppings?
Wholemeal or seeded bread with protein or fruit on top. Eggs, cottage cheese, ricotta, hummus, avocado, tahini, nut butter and berries all add something. The NHS suggests wholegrain bread for fibre. Sweet toppings are fine too, just keep an eye on the spoon.
Does grape molasses and tahini spread need refrigerating?
No. Keep Messyface in a cool, dark cupboard rather than the fridge, and use it within three months of opening. Cold makes it stiff and harder to spread. If it has settled in the jar, stir it with a knife and it comes straight back.
So what goes on your toast tomorrow?
The best toppings for toast are the ones you will genuinely reach for again. Something savoury when you are hungry, something sweet when you are not quite awake, hot bread underneath either way.
If the odd one appeals, Messyface is grapes and sesame, tasting like caramel, going everywhere.
Spread it thick.
