As a rule, a bagel sandwich is an impressive—and sometimes intimidating—sight to behold. The height of the average bagel alone dwarfs most other sandwich carriers, and when you add in multiple layers of ingredients, the result is a bona fide feat of culinary construction.

Hand-filling handhelds like the bagel sandwich offer several craveable factors that appeal to today’s consumers who have proven ever-ready to explore and expand their cache of personal favorites. Bagel sandwiches have long been the near-exclusive purview of concepts that specialize in either bagels or breakfast fare, leaving consumers with a craving for more nuanced bagel builds often out of luck and unsatisfied. Now is the time for savvy menu developers—especially at restaurants with broad offerings—to take a page from leaders in the bagel category and explore fresh opportunities with bagel builds.

Making the Case

“When a bagel is done right, it has that crispy shell that is nice and chewy,” says Chad Thompson, Bagel Brands’ head of product innovation, research and development. Based in Denver, Bagel Brands is the parent company of several national and regional chains, including Einstein Bros. Bagels. “And when they are made with high-gluten flour, you’re not going to find a stronger carrier than a bagel. Of course, that works against you, too, if you get easily tired of chewing,” he laughs.

But his point is clear: A bagel build—even one that is gluten-free—is not going to get soggy or fall apart, no matter how moist the fillings are or how steamy the sandwich becomes when wrapped in to-go packaging.

Hannah Serdynski, brand manager of Washington, D.C.-based Call Your Mother Deli, shares this opinion: “Bagels have the perfect crust every time, while the interior stays soft in an incredibly satisfying way. They’re very sturdy. Plus, their flavor is often nuanced without stealing the show from the other ingredients.”

Breakfast and lunch are prime times for bagel sandwiches, with the composition of the builds largely reflecting the daypart. More eggs, sausage and cheese in the morning, while other meat-and-condiment combos drive lunch choices. Thompson also sees opportunity in menuing and marketing to a brunch crowd, both on weekdays and weekends. “There are guests who want to indulge a bit more and find more satiety in the hours between traditional breakfast and lunch,” he notes, pointing to physical laborers and shift workers in particular.

When it comes to menu ideation, there’s always a method to the madness of pairing flavorful ingredients together, but the sheer number of bagel flavors—growing all the time and arguably more than most other sandwich breads and carrier types—offers chefs and menu developers an immense canvas. “Even without the fillings, bagels themselves are so versatile in carrying flavor,” says Thompson. The dough is easily infused with ingredients that transform the profile, which can be further enhanced—or contrasted—by what’s in the filling. Start multiplying both bagel and filling flavor combinations and the calculus of possibility is head-spinning.

4 Trends in Bagel Builds

1

Savory & Sweet

Photo Credit: Einstein Bros. Bagels

The Maplehouse Egg Sandwich at Einstein Bros. Bagels showcases the potential of sweet-savory bagel sandwiches. A sweet Maple French Toast Gourmet Bagel is filled with eggs, pork sausage, crispy bacon, cheddar cheese, Honey Almond Cream Cheese Shmear and syrup.

A kissing cousin to the swicy trend, sweet-savory combinations create unexpected culinary experiences with a high crave factor. This is playing well in the bagel sandwich category. At San Diego’s Nomad Donuts, the We Brie Jammin’ bagel sandwich pairs housemade maple sausage, Brie, a fried egg and fig jam layered on a Montreal-style rosemary sea salt bagel. Meanwhile, Call Your Mother riffs on the iconic PB&J with its Grand Villa, featuring crunchy peanut butter, granola and seasonal jam on a cinnamon-raisin bagel.

Bagel Brands leans deep into the craveability of this trend with its Maplehouse Egg Sandwich, which launched last week. Gracing menus across all its concepts, the LTO features eggs, pork sausage, crispy bacon and cheddar cheese loaded onto its brand-new Maple French Toast Gourmet Bagel and topped with a spread of its popular sweet Honey Almond Cream Cheese Shmear and a generous drizzle of syrup.

“We saw a menu gap,” explains Thompson. “We weren’t addressing sweet and savory together.” The new sandwich goes all in on both profiles. “It’s a French toast-inspired bagel topped with a candied cinnamon crunch—that’s the sweet, along with the schmear and the syrup. The pork sausage brings a nice, fatty, comfort flavor and texture, and the bacon, cheddar and eggs round out the sweet-savory experience.” The fact the new item works well in the burgeoning brunch space is an added bonus.

2

Global Influences

Photo Credit: Call Your Mother Deli

At Call Your Mother Deli, classic Jewish cuisine proteins of brisket and pastrami get a Latin American twist in the Jetski sandwich, thanks to the addition of sofrito and jalapeños.

Fresh interpretations of global flavor systems are claiming more turf within the bagel sandwich space. Call Your Mother fully commits to this trend, thanks, in part, to the Argentine roots of co-founder Daniela Moreira. “We often find ourselves pulling inspiration from her culture,” says Serdynski, citing fugazzeta, a pizza with thick mozzarella and onion slices, as one example. “We love to experiment and play with global elements in our recipes.”

Cultural heritage plays a valued role, too. At Call Your Mother, two of the most popular bagel sandwiches feature Jewish deli favorites: pastrami and brisket. The Sun City layers bacon, pastrami, a bodega-style egg, American and cheddar cheeses and spicy honey on an everything bagel. The Jetski features brisket and pastrami, plus American and cheddar, along with jalapeños and sofrito all piled high on a cheddar bagel.

The Specialty Sandos lineup at Nomad Donuts is a study in trend-forward global flavor profiles. Bali Spiced Chicken brings together chicken thigh marinated in ginger, lemongrass and Thai chiles with tamarind glaze, pickled green papaya salad and a side of sambal aïoli. The jalapeño bagel is the recommended carrier. The Queso Birria begins with a sesame bagel “fried inside out” in crispy pepper Jack cheese and is filled with white onion slices, house salsa and beef shank slow-roasted in an herby, pepper-tomato stew. It’s all rounded out with a side of consommé. And with Hawaii-inspired flavors, a 2024 Top 10 Trend, surging in popularity, it’s no surprise to find the iconic “mixed plate” appearing in a bagel build. At Nomad Donuts, the Mixed Plate Sando comprises smoked pork butt marinated in char siu sauce and piled on a sesame bagel along with Hawaii-style macaroni salad and furikake.

“When you talk about innovation, you have to talk about your target audience, and when it comes to global flavors, it skews to a younger demographic, which is really fun and really cool,” says Bagel Brands’ Thompson. “Maybe it’s an al pastor build or schnitzel or birria—we’re seeing a lot of this on social media.”

3

Gourmet for the Gourmand

Photo Credit: Einstein Bros. Bagels

Einstein Bros. Bagels’ premium varieties instantly elevate a sandwich build, as exemplified by the Texas Brisket Egg Sandwich; the Cheddar Jalapeño Gourmet Bagel adds extra flavor to the combo of smoked beef brisket, eggs and smoky chipotle aïoli.

Much of the sandwich innovation at Bagel Brands involves its assortment of gourmet bagels, which feature truly audacious topping combos—and a closed hole, making them even more suitable for sandwich applications. These gourmet bagels can be meals in and of themselves. Consider the Cheesy Hashbrown (made with shredded hash browns, mozzarella, Parmesan, cheddar, Romano and Asiago cheeses) or the Power Protein (featuring sunflower seeds, walnuts, amaranth, chia seeds, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, flax, buckwheat, cranberries and honey).

Although these hearty bagels excel as standalones, they also prove ideal flavor foundations for inventive sandwich builds. Bagel Brands’ two most recent LTOs were sandwiches built on gourmet bagels: the Maplehouse Egg Sandwich (described above) and the Texas Brisket Egg Sandwich, featuring smoked beef brisket, eggs and smoky chipotle aïoli on its Cheddar Jalapeño Gourmet Bagel.

In Philadelphia, Cleo Bagels runs the “frenchthing” bagel (with sesame, lavender, fennel, thyme and salt) and the roasted-garlic, black-sesame bialy alongside such classic bagel flavors as plain, poppy, sesame and everything. These support decidedly unconventional sandwich builds, including the Ramen Thing (boasting a mix of marinated egg, braised bamboo, house-pickled ginger, seaweed crisp, togarashi mayo, toasted ground sesame and scallions) and Beans, ‘Deens & Greens (filled with tinned sardines, house aïoli, marinated gigante beans, salsa verde, arugula and “lemon vin”).

Meanwhile, Serdynski is seeing growing interest in bagels stuffed with cream cheese and covered in a garlic butter sauce prior to baking. “The flavors really absorb into the bagel,” she says. While she acknowledges that Call Your Mother hasn’t leaned into this trend yet, “It inspires us to be innovative.”

4

“Everything” Is Anything

For a subtle yet impactful move, venture beyond the standard everything seasoning and incorporate global flavors into the mix.

Everything bagel seasoning is the year-round equivalent of autumn’s pumpkin spice, bigfooting its way across applications. Although the flavoring is relatively new in the bagel’s centuries-old timeline, Thompson considers it a classic that currently leads the pack. Still, he’s quick to point out that there is no singular recipe for the seasoning blend.

“Everything doesn’t need to be defined by a combination of poppy, garlic, salt, sesame seeds, etc.,” he notes. “I see people building their own everything seasoning blends using spices from India or Thailand, for example. Lemongrass, different colors of sesame seeds—there are a lot of ways to go.” Whether menuing housemade bagels or sourcing premade varieties, operators can tap into the enduring popularity of everything bagels while spinning up a signature flavor profile.

All Signs Point To…

Sourced or housemade. Boiled-baked. Montreal-style. Jerusalem. Bialy. Whole grain. Gluten free. Sweet. Savory. Selecting the “right” bagel for a sandwich that aligns with your menu narrative is just the start. Is it worth the trial and exploration?

Quick-serve giant McDonald’s rarely pushes the flavor envelope, but when it does make a menu move, the foodservice industry takes notice. McDonald’s recently revived its lineup of toasted bagel sandwiches in select markets, having discontinued the breakfast bagel builds during the pandemic. Each item features egg, cheese and “creamy breakfast sauce,” with applewood-smoked bacon, sausage and steak as the proteins on offer. The next-level steak bagel sandwich adds savory grilled onions. Fan demand via social media platform X and Change.org campaigns may have influenced the chain’s decision for the regional rollout; regardless, it affirms that the time for bagel sandwiches to make moves on modern menus is at hand.