In a recent column for Food Republic, I wrote about my fascination with everything bagel seasoning, that shaker of dried onion and garlic bits available in the supermarket by the popcorn. I’ve been using it to season all sorts of dishes, from scrambled eggs to meatballs. And it’s fantastic.
Cue the hate mail.
“You are nothing but a hipster d-bag,” one reader informed me. “Do you even cook?” demanded another.
The recipe doesn’t sound like much: dehydrated onion, garlic powder and poppy seeds. But it tastes like magic! And it makes me feel like a badass every time I sprinkle it on something—which is often, because there’s no way I’m running out of this stuff anytime soon.
Food is subjective, and what we’re talking about here is a matter of taste (and budget: A four-ounce jar costs $3). But the people who love this stuff really love this stuff—and have since the product was introduced in 1973 by a company called Everything Bagel Seasoning Co., which is still going strong. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the product in 2013, saying that sales were up 47 percent over five years. The New York Times has written about it twice, most recently
It’s safe to say I love food. And I love food that gets me in trouble with my diet. This recipe for everything bagel seasoning is the perfect example of that. The thing about this recipe is that, no matter how much you make, you can’t possibly use it all up in one go. So what do you do? Make more of course! And then you have to figure out what to do with all that stuff…
Since I’ve already promised myself a trip to New York City this summer, I’m going to have an excuse to eat my weight in bagels, and this time next year I’ll be writing a follow up post about how I lost 10 pounds on the everything bagel diet. But first things first: mixing up the seasoning itself…
I’m actually not sure where I found this recipe (I love Pinterest) but it took me a while to realize that they meant 2 tablespoons of each spice, which is way too much for any normal human being. So if you’re like me and end up using 1/4 cup of each spice as opposed to 2 tablespoons, don’t worry – it still tastes great!
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 tablespoons dried minced onion (or two giant pinches
My father’s favorite bagel is an everything bagel. He is not alone in this, as evidenced by the fact that every supermarket sells them. Some are better than others, but you can’t go to a decent bagel shop and get one. I’ve tried, and it’s just not the same. When we lived in Pennsylvania, I made them at home, but once we moved to California they grew too tough to be worth the trouble.
How do they get them so tasty? It turns out that you can buy everything bagel seasoning from Amazon. It’s perfect for making these at home. If you want more of a challenge, try using a lox spread for one half of it instead of cream cheese. That will make it more like a lox & onion bagel.
The most popular flavor of the moment is a compound called “Everything,” and it’s been popping up in unexpected places. Olive Garden recently introduced an everything bagel-crusted chicken, and Starbucks sells an Everything cookie. The spice mix has become so ubiquitous that Trader Joe’s sells a premixed version in a bottle under the name “Everything But the Bagel Spice.”
After trying a few different recipes, I decided to go with a basic combination of smoked salt (I used Jacobsen Smoked Sea Salt), poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried minced onion, dried minced garlic and dried minced parsley. There’s also some subtle heat undertones from cayenne pepper.
(“It’s everything!” you say.)
I knew this spice mix would be good on eggs, potatoes and chicken — but I wondered how it would taste on popcorn.
“Everything bagel” is the name for a type of flavor, not a specific item. You can get an “everything” bagel from any number of respectable bagel shops in New York City, and it will be roughly the same. It will have sesame seeds and poppy seeds and dried onion on top, and it will taste like a combination of a plain bagel and a saltine cracker.
Tasting this way is what makes an “everything” bagel an “everything” bagel. When you go to buy one, the first step is to decide how much you want of each ingredient. If you want more onion flavor you should go heavier on the dried onion; if you want more saltiness you should use more salt.
Because it’s so hard to get exactly what you want, most people give up halfway through this process and just order whatever they usually get. But if you like to experiment with cooking at home, then I suggest trying your hand at designing your own everything seasoning. Start by buying some sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried onion flakes, salt and pepper (optional). Then mix together however much of each ingredient that seems like a good starting point for your own “everything” seasoning mix. After that come up with your
It is not a revolutionary idea to put everything on a bagel. However, it is an idea that transcends all demographics and cultures. In fact, the Everything Bagel was born in New York City in 1996 when a young entrepreneur, Naader Said, discovered that the magic of this bagel didn’t just stop at its namesake.
Tired of having to choose between the various condiments he purchased at his neighborhood deli, Naader decided to put them all on one bagel. The result was such a success that he started his own company with his brothers and sisters and cousins. They now run several restaurants in New York City and are expanding into other US cities as well as internationally.
The Everything Bagel has become so popular that it has spawned new hybrids; one of which includes the Avocado Everything Bagel. Each time, the original recipe has been tweaked to incorporate new flavors. A signature topping on these hybrid bagels is putting the seeds from a jalapeño pepper on top of an egg before cooking it.
With their growing popularity all over the country, it seems that The Everything Bagel will soon be available everywhere!
When you order this at the store, it comes in a shaker container. My mother went on an expedition to find me one of these, and returned to confirm that yes, you can now buy them on the internet. I have no idea how much she paid for shipping.