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New York City is home to many iconic foods: pizza, cheesecake, street pretzels, pastrami on rye. But it’s the trinity of bagels, lox and cream cheese, as ubiquitous as the yellow taxi, found at thousands of delis and diners, bagel shops and bakeries, brunch spots and corner stands, that captured my attention when I first moved there, in 2004.
I started with the bagel and cream cheese. Eventually, a few years in, I worked my way up to the lox. I didn’t grow up eating much fish, so it took me some time to appreciate the deeply salty salmon and its buttery, brined flesh. My Jewish friends were encouraging. “What you need to do is add red onions and capers,” my pal Robert suggested. “A squeeze of lemon and get it on an everything bagel,” advised my friend Gabi.
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Get the recipe: Everything Bagel Salad
Share this articleShareThanks to those tips, I was a bagel and lox fan in no time. The everything bagel was a real turning point, though. I had mistakenly thought the popular variety would be too strong for me, but I was wrong. Its seedy, salty exterior gives a good, chewy bagel some welcome crunch — not to mention pops of savory flavor.
Luckily, Washington is home to plenty of great bagel shops, and a few good delis, so when I miss that taste of New York, it’s never too far away.
Inspired by my bagel shop order of an everything bagel, toasted, with cream cheese, lox, red onions, tomatoes and capers, I dreamed up this big salad. It’s got all of my favorite bagel-and-lox flavors, with goat cheese subbing in for the cream cheese, and a lemony dressing punched up with capers and black pepper. Sprigs of dill give it a fresh finish.
For the sake of efficiency, I call for ready-made lox, bagel seasoning and bagel chips. But you could certainly go all out and make your own homemade lox, mix up your ideal ratio of everything bagel seasoning and bake a batch of fresh bagel chips. Either way, it’s a filling salad with lots of crunch and flavor — just the way I like it.
Get the recipe: Everything Bagel Salad
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