Avocado in your tonkatsu? It's a vitamin boost worth trying

Avocado, often called a "superfood," is technically a fruit — but it works surprisingly well as a cooking ingredient. It pairs particularly well with tonkatsu, a perennial Korean favorite, complementing both the flavor and the nutritional profile of the dish.

The California Avocado Commission introduced a recipe for avocado cheese tonkatsu that home cooks can easily prepare, shared through a video featuring chef Raymond Kim.

According to the video, avocado's creamy texture offsets the dryness of pork loin, while its rich, nutty flavor blends naturally with the oiliness of the crispy fried coating.

The nutritional pairing also works well. Tonkatsu is a protein- and fat-heavy dish, leaving it short on dietary fiber, potassium, folate and vitamin K — all nutrients that avocado provides in abundance, filling in the gaps.

A 50-gram serving, roughly one-third of a medium avocado, contains 3 grams of dietary fiber and is rich in more than 20 vitamins and minerals.

Avocado also helps the body absorb fat-soluble nutrients from the cabbage typically served alongside tonkatsu, including carotenoids and vitamin K. In fact, a 2005 paper published in the Journal of Nutrition by a research team at Ohio State University found that eating avocado with vegetables increased beta-carotene absorption by up to 15.3 times and boosted the conversion efficiency to vitamin A by up to 12.6 times.

Avocado cheese tonkatsu is not difficult to make at home. Slice the avocado and place it on the meat, wrap the meat around it, then coat it in flour. After about 15 minutes in the freezer, fry it and the dish is ready.

This weekend, why not try making avocado cheese tonkatsu — a dish that is as rich and satisfying as it is nutritionally balanced?

480g pork loin, 1 avocado, 200g mozzarella cheese, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, flour, breadcrumbs, oil for frying, salt and pepper to taste

Garnish: tonkatsu sauce (store-bought), lemon, cabbage, red onion, coleslaw dressing

1. Cut the pork loin into roughly 120-gram pieces, cover with parchment paper or plastic wrap, and pound flat with a meat mallet or rolling pin.

2. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Slice the avocado and place it on the meat, add sliced mozzarella on top, then wrap the meat around the filling.

4. Coat evenly in flour and freeze for about 15 minutes.

5. Beat the eggs with the milk and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Remove the meat from the freezer and dip it in the egg mixture.

6. Coat with breadcrumbs and return to the freezer for another 15 minutes.

7. Fry once in oil at 160 degrees Celsius, then once more at 180 degrees Celsius.

8. Arrange thinly sliced cabbage and red onion — soaked in ice water beforehand — on a plate. Top with coleslaw dressing and serve with lemon and tonkatsu sauce on the side.

Source: California Avocado Commission