This healthier Baked Prawn Toast is just as good as the deep fried one, if not better! Generous amount of prawns on yummy garlic bread
Celebrating 2022 Chinese style
Don’t you just love celebrating Chinese New Year? I do, it’s like having another big celebration after our New Year! Except this one filled with loud firecrackers and enthusiastic dancing lions.
Chinese cuisine to me is comfort food. This is the highest compliment because it means I’m always in the mood for Chinese. Trust me, I’m not the type of person who enjoys sticking to the same foods because I love variety too much.
This year I had a few dishes in my head to make, but because of stock shortages in our supermarkets, many ingredients were unavailable. Randomly, one night when I couldn’t sleep, prawn toast popped into my head.
Why not? Prawn toast is a classic appetiser that appears in almost every Chinese restaurant.
To be honest, I’m not a fan of Prawn toasts, but I love the idea of it because it has everything I want. Prawns, bread and I am a fan of deep-fried food. However, deep-fried slices of bread are a bit too full-on for me. Even a fried lover like me can’t handle all the grease absorbed in the bread.
These baked prawn toasts were still golden and delicious but much healthier than the fried version. As a creative twist from the idea of chef Dan Hong, we use garlic bread as a base and we generously pile on the prawn mixture. Yay, no more skimpy prawn toasts!
Baked prawn toast
I’m a fan of Dan Hong and when I discovered he had a few prawn toast recipes, I was thrilled. He inspired me to use store-bought garlic bread to serve the toasts with yuzu sauce. However, with the prawn paste, I wanted to keep the Chinese flavours intact, and I baked the toasts instead of frying them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of deep-fried food. But, even deep fried lovers like myself have limitations because I never order prawn toasts. Bread soaks oil like crazy, so when bread gets thrown into the deep fryer it’s becomes a sponge picking up every bit of oil. That’s all I can taste, just greasy oil when I bite into a prawn toast.
It also doesn’t help that most restaurants are stingy with the prawn paste, so much that I can’t even identify if there’s actually prawns in it!
These prawn toasts have a fun mix of fusion, but I have kept the prawn mixture Chinese inspired. The Yuzu sauce and extra herbs top are optional but highly recommended, and it’s not much effort to put together. Yuzu mayonnaise adds a welcome zing, and the herbs add freshness and more flavours.
More delicious and easy Chinese-inspired recipes to try:
Chinese Poach Salmon
Tomato Egg Drop Soup
Chinese Roast Duck
Poached Chicken in Soy
Ingredients for Baked Prawn Toast
Raw prawns – I used a packet of frozen prawns that were already peeled and cleaned. If using frozen prawns, defrost the prawns and pat dry with paper towels. Doing this will prevent the prawn paste from being too mushy. For texture, we will blitz half of the prawns into a paste and chop the remaining into little pieces.
Sesame oil is very aromatic with a roasted nutty flavour and aroma. They usually stock sesame oil in the oil or international section of the supermarket.
Garlic bread – Depending on the size of the bread, this recipe will make between 10 to 12 toasts. Dan Hong cheap store-bought garlic bread, the ones you would get when you ordered Pizza Hut in foil. These weren’t because of the pandemic, so I got another brand with larger slices. If you rather not use garlic bread, use dense bread such as sourdough. Make sure the bread is approximately the same size as the garlic bread slices.
Roasted sesame seeds – Some Asian groceries store sell sesame seeds already roasted. However, if you can’t find this, you can easily roast them yourself by dry frying the sesame seeds in a skillet over high heat for a few minutes until they are golden and aromatic.
Yuzu juice – I’ve never seen yuzu fruit sold here, so I buy mine in small bottles sold in Asian or Japanese grocery stores. Yuzu is a citrus fruit, popular in Japan and Korea. It has a fragrant zesty flavour, more complex tasting than lemon or lime. Substitute with lemon if yuzu isn’t available.
Subscribe to 3CatsFoodie’s FREE Newsletter
For the latest recipes and other fun stuff!
How to make Baked Prawn Toast
Step-by-step guide with photos
Divide the prawns in half. Roughly chop one-half of the prawns into little pieces and set them aside.
Place the remaining prawns into a food processor with egg white, ginger and spring onion. Process until the mixture forms a paste. Transfer the prawn paste into a large bowl and place in the chopped prawns. Add the sesame oil, sugar, pepper, and salt with the prawns and mix well with a spatula to combine. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
Preheat oven to 220°C (430°F) or 200°C (390°F) for fan-forced ovens. Grease a large baking tray with oil or melted butter.
Place approximately 2 tablespoons of the prawn paste on top of the butter side of the garlic bread. Level the paste on the toast, covering all edges to prevent the bread from burning, then sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Bake for 10 minutes, then grill (broil) on high for 5 to 8 minutes or until the prawn toasts are slightly golden on top.
For the sauce and topping (optional) – mix the mayonnaise with yuzu and have a taste, then add salt and pepper if needed. Drizzle with toast with the sauce and place spring onions and coriander on top.
I’ve used a third-party application to calculate the calories and nutritional information, so please use this as an approximate guide only.
Cooking measurements are in Australian standard spoon and cup measurements. For specific details and conversions, visit our Australian Cooking Measurements page.
I would love your feedback and support if you made this recipe. To do this, please rate this recipe and provide a comment by scrolling down this page or by clicking that green circle on the bottom left. An email address is required (for spam), but it won’t be published. I would also love to see your dish, so don’t forget to tag me on my Instagram account ‘3catsfoodie’
Cheers – Cat T
Baked Prawn Toast
Ingredients
- 700 gm raw prawns (peeled and cleaned) (NOTE 1)
- 1 eggwhites (from a large egg)
- 1 tsp finely grated ginger
- 1 spring onion stem (green onion/scallion, white part only)
- 1 tsp sesame oil (NOTE 2)
- 1 tsp sugar
- ¼ tsp white pepper
- ½ tsp salt
- 12 slices garlic bread (NOTE 3)
- 2 tbsp roasted sesame seeds (NOTE 4)
- oil spray
Optional topping
- 1/2 cup whole egg mayonnaise
- 1½ tsp yuzu juice (NOTE 5)
- salt and pepper to season
- spring onions (thin strips)
- coriander leaves (cilantro)
Instructions
- Divide the prawns in half. Roughly chop one-half of the prawns into little pieces and set them aside.
- Place the remaining prawns into a food processor with egg white, ginger and spring onion. Process until the mixture forms a paste. Transfer the prawn paste into a large bowl and place in the chopped prawns. Add the sesame oil, sugar, pepper, and salt with the prawns and mix well with a spatula to combine. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.
- Preheat oven to 220°C (430°F) or 200°C (390°F) for fan-forced ovens. Grease a large baking tray with oil or melted butter.
- Place approximately 2 tablespoons of the prawn paste on top of the butter side of the garlic bread. Level the paste on the toast, covering all edges to prevent the bread from burning, then sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Bake for 10 minutes, then grill (broil) on high for 5 to 8 minutes or until the prawn toasts are slightly golden on top.
- For the sauce and topping (optional) – mix the mayonnaise with yuzu and have a taste, then add salt and pepper if needed. Drizzle with toast with the sauce and place spring onions and coriander on top.
