Serves 4 to 6
Time: 30 minutes || Active time: 20 minutes
For the new season, I’ve begun a tradition called True Blood Mondays. While the point was to hang out with friends and cook food inspired by the TV show, it’s just too hot to make a vegan human heart pot pie. So tea sandwiches will have to do! And, as someone on Twitter pointed out, you could definitely see Sookie Stackhouse serving these at a party.
But whether or not you’re serving fangbangers, tea sandwiches are fun to mess around with and fill with whatever you fancy. I like to take classic sandwiches and pair them down into tea size – for instance, mini po boys, banh mis, and eggplant parm. But these are my take on tradition: cream cheese and cucumber tea sandwiches. Avocado ditches its guacamole trappings and instead, is infused with lemon, fresh dill and mint. The end result is a nod to the old foil-wrapped cream cheese brick, but a creamy, tangy, silky experience that is all its own.
For my money, white bread is a must, especially if you can get it fresh from a bakery. It provides a bright but neutral backdrop that let’s all the subtle flavors shine through. Layer the avocado spread with cucumber sliced as thin as you can get it, then remove the crusts (sneak a few into your mouth), load up your prettiest vintage plates, and you’re in tea sandwich business.
Oh, and you can’t have tea sandwiches without tea! I recommend Lady Grey. The hints of citrus are the perfect complement to fresh herbs.
Tip: Avocado browns very quickly, so prepare the filling as close to serving time as you can. If you do need it to sit around for awhile, place in a container along with the pits from the avocado, and squirt on a little extra lemon juice. Then place a layer of plastic wrap directly on the mixture. Keep refrigerated until ready to use. But even with this method, I don’t recommend letting it sit around for more than a few hours.
For the spread:
2 ripe avocados, kept cold in the fridge
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped cucumber
2 tablespoons fresh chopped mint
2 tablespoon fresh chopped dill
To serve:
12 slices white bread
1 small cucumber, thinly sliced
First prepare the spread. Remove the pit from the avocados, and scoop into a food processor along with the lemon juice and salt. Puree until completely smooth, scraping down the sides ith a rubber spatula as necessary. Add the cucumber and pulse until cucumber is finely chopped. Add the mint and dill and pulse again so combine. You just want them well incorporated into the mid, not pureed.
Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes or so to let the flavors marry, and then taste for salt and seasonings.
To assemble:
Arrange the sliced of bread on the counter. Spread the avocado mixture onto all 12 slices. Add a single layer of cucumber on 6 of the slices. Now close each sandwich. Use a steak knife to cut off the crusts. With a gentle touch (so as not to squish the filling out too much), cut each sandwich into 4 equal pieces, either squares or triangles. Serve topped with extra herbs, or lettuce. In this pic, I topped them with pea shoots.
You are the best!!!!
Hmmmm….. I have mint taking over my yard and my cucumbers will be producing soon… This sounds like a nice summer treat!
These look delicious and so refreshing! Can’t wait to try them
love the idea to use mint and dill with the avocado!!!
Oooooooooh! True blood nights, that´s so much better than sitting alone with your laptop and watching it without any food or company.
Would really like to join you mondays. 😉
Oh and thanx for the wonderful recipes and ideas.
How funny!!! We do True Blood Sunday nights, where a group of friends gets together and takes turns cooking YOUR recipes…no joke!! Guess I know what I”m making this week!! 🙂
Freakin brilliant! Personally I’d use spring onions or chives or just dill on its own (not a mint fan…I know, weird, etc), but the concept is brilliant. Also the healthiness of the avocado makes me feel fine about using white bread.
Hehe, our flat does True Blood Mondays too 🙂
I love a mini cucumber sandwich! We’re all about that in summer here but I can’t wait to try your spread, yum!
These sound much more tasty than ‘regular’ cucumber sandwiches. Now were talkin’ about rockin’ the 11’s. Thanks for adding some Post Punk to otherwise ho-hum nibble.
I love tea sandwiches! That cucumber and avocado pairing sounds so delicious. These look like the perfect munchies for a tv marathon. 😀
Fabulous!!!!! perfect for summer and for True blood night!
These are rather fancy! I love using avocado instead of cheesy things, so good. And adding dill… yum.
These look yummy and oh so cute! I feel the urge to plan a tea party now 🙂
Couldn’t stand the thought of turning on the oven today… too hot so I went on here and found this recipe. So delicious and I’m cool as a cucumber too. My husband ate all the leftovers too. I’ll definitely make this again!
these look perfect for an upcoming baby shower!
These look delicious. I love using lemon with avocados versus the usual lime/guac thing.
And Lady Grey is my favorite tea, so I must try this!
I am not vegan, but love your recipes, so many of my meals are vegan.
loved this taste of summer. a friend of mine makes them with pesto and cucumber too. its nice to be a lady sometimes <3 🙂
Mmm looks good to me!
Oh NOM!!!! We just scored some glorious REED avocados at our farmer’s market this past weekend! Sookie inspired tea sandwiches it is!!
Beautiful combo avocados and cucumbers. We got plenty of both at the our farmers market right now. I never thought of mixing them together. Love your recipe!
heguibert
Yummy!!! Can’t wait to try this with our fresh mint growing in the container garden!
very tastey , it works with whole grain bread too yummy yummy thanks for blogging ur recipies !
THESE WERE AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just had them at a lunch with the girls and kids and we were all fans! Host told me where to find the recipe and I’m so excited to make up a batch of my very own! SO refreshing and summery and light! Great for a summer day!
This was a brilliant idea! I throw backyard tea parties every summer and this was such a great hit that I had to promise to make it a feature dish at all my tea parties. As I love to customize recipes to my own taste, I changed up a few things. Instead of mint, I added watercress and I added both lemon and lime juice and a few dashes of ground aleppo pepper (spicier than black pepper but not as spicy as crushed red pepper). Also I did not find I needed to use a food processor. Just a simple bowl and fork integrated everything really well without over mashing anything. I did julienne the cucumbers to incorporate. Thank you for the inspiration!
This looks amazing! I can’t wait to try these sandwiches, thank you!!
Made these last night for a party. Both my vegan and non-vegan friends LOVED them 🙂 Great recipe!
Just devoured one then….AMAZING
My partner and I made these to eat with fresh berries for Valentine’s Day. THEY WERE SO DELICIOUS!!!!
Seriously, these are so damn good. We made them again tonight. I think they’re all I want to eat once summer comes. Thanks, Isa!
I made these for a bachelorette party and they were literally gone within 15 minutes! The flavors are spot on and there is just something special about them. Another Isa hit!
I brought these to share with my women’s health class. There were none left by the end!
I tried this a while back, and let me tell you, it kicked anus. I wanted some easy but tasty snacks this week because of university owning my life, and my mind went back to this when I saw some dill in the store. As soon as my avocados stop being hard, it’s go time. Thanks for being amazing.
Awesome sandwich. I made it for a tea party and it was a hit!! Everyone loved it!
These were so flavorful and delicious but one big problem was transporting them! i thought these would make a very cute picnic sandwich but by the time i pulled them out of our basket they had turned into MUSH. They worked just fine to make and eat right away but I definitely wouldn’t try to take them with me next time…