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School Lunch Bagel Sandwich

"This sandwich mixes the goodness of bagels with the crunch of dill pickles. I came up with this sandwich for my son who loves bagels and cream cheese but I felt his favorite needed something extra to really make it a lunch. This is kid-tested good, and you can alter the veggies according to what your child likes."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bagel and cheddar cheese work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 12 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

1 sandwich
Prep10 min
Cook5 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Toast the split multigrain bagel halves until lightly golden and let them cool for a minute.

  2. Spread the herb and garlic cream cheese evenly over the cut side of both bagel halves.

  3. Layer the Cheddar slices on the bottom bagel half, then add the lettuce leaf, the dill pickle slices and the shredded carrot.

  4. Press the top bagel half down gently onto the filling.

  5. Wrap the sandwich in parchment or foil and pack it cold for lunch, keeping it chilled until eating.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bagel + cheddar cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream cheese + cheddar cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together468 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Dill + carrottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together321 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together975 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Dill + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, bagel, cheddar cheese, dill, carrot, lettuce):

  1. Celerybetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, bagel, cheddar cheese, dill, carrot, lettuce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).