Butter. Garlic. Sourdough Bread. It’s hard to name a trio more enticing. Add fresh herbs and a 5-minute cook time, and you’ve got Rudi’s Rocky Mountain Bakery’s latest addition to their freezer lineup: Texas Toast.
Sliced twice as thick as typical garlic bread, Texas Toast got its start in the 1940s as a hearty companion to southern classics like chicken fried steak, chili and Texas barbeque. The fluffy bread makes for an epic sandwich upgrade, especially when topped and broiled with a slice of your preferred cheese.
Available online and at Whole Foods locations in-store across the country, Rudi’s Texas Toast lineup doesn’t stop with a single flavor. Garlic, Three Cheese with Garlic, Gluten Free Garlic and Gluten Free Three Cheese with Garlic varieties make indulgence accessible to plenty of eaters, regardless of wheat tolerance.
Unlike fellow toast brands, the Colorado-based company uses only a handful of high-quality (and recognizable) ingredients to ensure their frozen recipe is no different than homemade. Once baked, the bakery’s signature rye sourdough — made the same way since 1976 — is slathered with cultured butter and parsley before being frozen. Mozzarella, white cheddar and parmesan are added to the Three Cheese version and the same prep goes into their impressively fluffy gluten free loaf. Rudi’s rendition is the first clean-eating toast of its kind to hit the market, and it’s definitely worth the Texas pride.
Before Rudi’s, my only college encounter with Texas Toast was Raising Cane’s, the fast food chain known for its crispy chicken fingers and crinkle-cut fries. The Loyola location beneath the Red Line is revered by Wildcats as one of few options within a reasonable distance for late-night grub.
While apt at absorbing any going-out beverage orders — and often served by NU Sports to lure more students to games — trekking down Sheridan for a piece of Cane’s bread isn’t particularly practical. After cooking, toasting and recipe-testing with Rudi’s Garlic and Gluten Free slices, storing a box in your freezer is a definite (and convenient) must.
Armed with a southern-inspired inquisition and a $50 budget, I hit my local Whole Foods to start my Texas Toast exploration. Since I lack an affinity for chicken fried steak (what is chicken fried steak?) and have no idea where to get catfish, I stuck to familiar veggie-forward meals as company for my bread.
Texas Toast, I found, is not relegated to a single time or meal. For breakfast, I topped a golden-brown slice with a generous helping of sautéed kale and mushroom, and finished it off with a squeeze of lemon. The decadent toast lived up to the importance of the day’s first meal and ended up requiring a fork to properly get the creation from face to mouth.
A Google search keyed me into the fan favorite combo of meatball subs and Texas Toast — an open-faced mashup of Italian, Texan and American ingenuity. I swapped regular meatballs for The Minimalist Baker’s “Best Vegan Meatballs,” made with black beans, quinoa and vegan parmesan. As promised, the thick toast sopped up the sauce without getting soggy and proved an excellent vehicle for my little flavor bombs.
Griddled, panini-ed, pan-fried or toasted, there is no way to mess up this bread. Lentil sloppy joes, mini pizzas and Caesar salad croutons are next on my list of inventive uses, along with the potential purchase of a ten-gallon hat. I may not hail from the South nor have my boots walked Lone Star terrain, but Rudi’s Texas Toast delivers pillowy slices garlicky enough to convert this East Coaster to the realm of double-sided butter on bread.