8 Mind-Blowingly Delicious Ways to Top a Bagel That Go Beyond Cream Cheese (2024)

FAQs

8 Mind-Blowingly Delicious Ways to Top a Bagel That Go Beyond Cream Cheese? ›

Bagel With Avocado and Radish

If you've grown tired of cream cheese, trade the spread for one full of healthy, good-for-you fats. Top toasted bagels with a creamy mixture of mashed avocados and lemon instead. Slivered radishes provide extra nutrients—like fiber and vitamin C—and a delicious crunch to every bite.

Bagel With Avocado and Radish

If you've grown tired of cream cheese, trade the spread for one full of healthy, good-for-you fats. Top toasted bagels with a creamy mixture of mashed avocados and lemon instead. Slivered radishes provide extra nutrients—like fiber and vitamin C—and a delicious crunch to every bite.

Mascarpone

Mascarpone, an Italian cheese made from heavy cream and citric or tartaric acid, has a similar taste and texture to cream cheese. It's slightly sweeter and contains about twice the amount of fat, but aside from that, the two spreadable cheeses are pretty much interchangeable.

Peanut butter is a healthy option, especially low sugar, natural varieties. It offers flavor and protein without weighing you down, and it tastes great on bagels. Try it with a sliced banana! If actual cream cheese isn't your favorite, tofu cream cheese is a delicious alternative.

Some delicious alternatives to cream cheese for your bagel include butter, peanut butter, almond butter, hummus, avocado spread, or even a flavored jam or jelly.

Greek Yogurt

Yogurt has the same lacto-fermented, gut-healthy bacteria that gives cream cheese its signature tang. But its texture is much runnier. So when you're swapping cream cheese for yogurt, it's important to opt for thicker strained versions like Greek yogurt or Icelandic skyr.

Blend together one cup of thick coconut cream and one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Next, add a pinch of salt and two teaspoons of nutritional yeast for a cheesy tang. Chill the mixture to firm it up, and you'll have a terrific dairy-free cream cheese substitute.

What to put on a plain bagel? ›

Ingredients like malt syrup and high-gluten flour create a slightly sweet dough with an unmistakable chewiness. The overnight “curing” that rising bagel dough undergoes adds a very subtle tang that makes bagels stand out from regular bread.

Smashed avocado, nut butter, and hummus are satisfying spreads that give you a hit of fiber and let you skip the saturated fat in cream cheese and butter.

A bagel is an iconic New York food. It's a round bread, with a hole in the middle, savory, crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. It's topped with seasonings and traditionally filled with cream cheese and smoked fish. It's most known as a breakfast item but can be eaten at brunch or lunch time.

While bagels with cream cheese are delicious, traditional cream cheese is not necessarily healthy. This popular bagel topping is generally low in protein and high in fat and calories. The good news is that there are healthier cream cheese options, if cream cheese is your favorite bagel spread.

Cream cheese has fewer calories than butter per ounce. This makes it an easy choice to know per ounce which one is the healthier option. Cream cheese also has higher amounts of calcium and lower amounts of salt.