Inspired by tins of Heinz toast toppers; popular in the 70s but discontinued in 2015, much to many people’s dismay. Toast Toppers were tins of creamy mushroom with ham or cheese, indented to be spread thickly onto toast and grilled until bubbling.

This recipe uses leftover ingredients to make a really comforting brunch or lazy Sunday dinner. The cheese sauce I first used for this recipe was a stilton sauce left over from a pumpkin lasagna. The point of this recipe is to easily use up excess ingredients, therefore best when you have a bit of sauce and some ageing mushrooms in the fridge, rather than making a béchamel from scratch (but you can do that if you want, and have enough people to feed, cas it’s really delicious). The ingredient quantities below are necessarily vague; use what you have!

15 mins
Quantities per slice of toast

3 tbsp cheese sauce (or more! any cheese is fine)
3-4 chestnut mushrooms
Half-handful of fresh herbs, spinach leaves or rocket, finely chopped
Thick-cut bread

• Chop the mushrooms and dry fry until browned with a lot of black pepper
• Mix the mushrooms into the cheese sauce, season well
• Stir the chopped rocket, spinach or herbs into the cheese and mushrooms and check for flavour - add a little oil to loosen the mix if needed
• Very lightly toast your bread and heat the grill
• Thickly spread the mushroom mix onto your toast, place under the grill until the mix begins to blister and bubble