A couple of years ago I set out to find a quick, easy, and nutritious breakfast for Mollie and me. We had just gotten married, and Mollie's commute was an hour and a half each way, which meant we needed something fast that wasn't cereal.
At the time, avocado toast was making it's way around the internet, but I wasn't ready to jump on the train, and we'd been cutting out bread in an effort to remedy a multitude of heath problems. Our normal Trader Joe's haul usually included their frozen hash brown patties, and I told Mollie I wanted to use them to make my own interpretation of what I thought avocado toast should be.
The next morning, I threw a few hash browns in the air fryer, cooked 2 eggs over easy, mashed an avocado and threw it all together with some paprika on-top. The beauty of this dish is how simple and cost-effective it is, while still delivering on the flavor. Before the pandemic this was definitely a morning staple of ours and I'm sure the people waiting on the metro with Mollie were pretty jealous of her breakfast.

Ingredients for this hash brown patty avocado toast.
In its most basic form, you only need 4 ingredients for this dish: avocado, hash brown, egg, and paprika. Mollie, as usual, prefers to elevate it, but it's perfectly tasty either way. In Mollie's version you add a little bit of lime and cilantro to the avocado mash and add hot sauce to your liking on top of the "toast."
Budget Meal Cost Breakdown
To make this recipe for the first time for four (double the recipe), it'll only cost you around $6.56, or about $1.64 per serving. The limes and cilantro are optional; without them, the cost drops to $5.20, or $1.30 per serving. And to top it off, you'll have leftover eggs and hash browns!

Cooking Tips
- For cooking your eggs, I'll forever and always recommend adding a little bit of avocado oil to the pan. It has a neutral flavor and prevents the egg from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Any oil you have on hand will work, though.
- If you're making over-easy eggs, I only like to cook the yolk side for about 20 seconds. That way the egg is still nice and runny once you break into it.
- Mollie and I have tested hash brown patties from a couple of grocery stores, and our favorite brand is Trader Joe's. If you don't have a Trader Joe's near you (I feel terribly sorry for you), Ore-Ida makes a perfectly good version that most grocery stores seem to carry.
- I cook my hash brown patty in the air fryer for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees, but if you don't have one, feel free to cook according to package instructions. How ever you do it, for best results, cook until it's nice and crispy.

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