DIY lox and bagel may not be as pretty as a deli version, but you’ve saved a bunch of money and it’s all yours.
Lox and bagels are a favorite deli treat but it’s very easy to make your own DIY version which is better and also cheaper. The ingredients are mostly familiar but there are a few secrets along the way. Makes one open face DIY Lox and Bagel sandwich.
Ingredients:
Lox trim*, about ¼ pound
Everything bagel
Everything bagel seasoning (if needed) **
Cream cheese or Neufchatel cheese***
Capers, about a T
Two thin slices red onion
Two thin slices tomato (optional)
Bagel should be lightly toasted, like this.
Method: while sliced lox is $20/lb or more in the seafood cold case, lox trim* is under $10/lb and will suit our purposes just fine. If some pieces are a bit thick for your liking, it’s easy enough to trim them yourself. Get that ready and assemble the other cold ingredients while you cut your bagel in half crosswise and toast it until it just begins to brown.( If you don’t have access to a good source of NYC-style bagels, supermarket bagels will work fine but you may need some everything bagel seasoning** in case the seed coating on the bagel isn’t to your liking.)
DIY lox and bagel mis en place
As soon as the bagel comes out of the toaster, start spreading the cheese on the inside surfaces; it will soften and slightly melt into the crumb in a very satisfying manner. Also satisfying: being able to apply as much schmear as you want rather than letting the deli counter person do it for you. At the minimum, you need a nice universal coating with no crumb showing through. Cream cheese and Neufchatel are the same thing, but our market sells them in separate boxes at the same price so you can use whichever strikes your fancy.
The assembly
Now, the assembly. Start with capers, evenly distributed on each half of the bagel. Press them slightly into the cheese so they don’t fall off. If needed, shake on a little everything seasoning (which is toasted poppy seeds, sesame seeds, onion flakes, garlic flakes and salt; we use Trader Joe’s but you can easily make your own). Add red onion slices, opened up into rings and covering about half the surface area. Add a very thin slice of tomato if you like (we think it waters down the other flavors).
Finally, on goes the lox, evenly distributed and pressed down a bit so it holds down the other elements. As with the cheese, you can put on as much as you want. Now eat and enjoy. You’ve just made a DIY lox and bagel… see how good that is?
I’m a sucker for pumpernickel bagels. Cream cheese, capers lox and a slice of tomato on top.
Pumpernickel? Made with pumpernickel flour? Where do you get those locally?
Near me, the “best” bagels are from Brueggers. Brueggers is weird because the bagel quality varies from store to store. Really depends on who is making the bagel. I have had decent bagels there but I have also had bagels that were more like bread or a roll. Either way, they are the best of the mediocre bagels closest to me. I don’t know much about bagel making but I always thought a pumpernickel bagel was rye bagel with some molasses added. You get rye plus a little sweet/salty. It’s my favorite with lox.
ok, the picture becomes clearer. If you go on a baker website like thefreshloaf.com and search “pumpernickel molasses” you will find lots of folks who consider that combo an abomination. Pumpernickel flour is a coarser grind and milled whole (like whole wheat flour) vs some rye flour that has the husk and germ removed (like white flour) and then molasses added for a darker color and richer flavor to make “pumpernickel bread”. But that combination sounds good in the Bruegger’s bagel. The bagels I’ve been using for this experiment come from Price Chopper and Hannaford’s and they are really not bad; they have the chew of a traditional boiled bagel vs being bready.
There are a lot of different versions of “pumpernickel.” Just looked and saw some recipes with cocoa for color. The molasses was just a guess for bagels from commercial bakeries. I’ve never made a bagel of any kind. But whatever is in a pumpernickel bagel, I think the little sweet, little rye goes well with the salty lox.
I think I picked up my suspicion of molasses and pumpernickel from Jeffrey Hamelman at King Arthur flour. He raged about it in ours sourdough rye class. Sort of like baking powder in pizza, I guess.
I’m not a big fan of frozen pizza but it is a huge market. I learned that many of them use an encapsulated baking powder. The heat during the rebate melts the shell and the baking powder gets activated for the frozen pizza’s oven spring…but I totally get what you mean.
Did a quick search on the Brueggers pumpernickel ingredients. Looks like malt, wheat bran, caraway seeds and Carmel color are what make it pumpernickel. Probably shouldn’t have looked to see how the sausage was made.
Loving these comments…by the way…salmon trim is always my go to when I make my smoked salmon rollups…also cucumber and dill are great with your bagel combo
I always got the trim from Fresh Market, but I haven’t seen it quite a while.
They have the same brand, cheaper, at Hannaford. And the “local” (from Maine) was cheaper than that.
Cucumber is a mustm
Disagree.Cucumber literally waters down the synergy of the other ingredients.
not if you use a kirby cuke or english cuke….but also for my rollups, I use a knife to make cucumber shreds…again using an english cucumber as it is less watery
Would love to see one of these rollups next time you make them. Can you put a pic online somewhere and include the web address in a comment?
super simple….take a flour tortilla, spread with your favorite cream cheese( I adore the veggie cream cheese from Ben & Bill’s Deli at PC/Mk32 in Latham, but have used the light stuff as well). I then distribute all over finely diced scallions,capers (dried with a paper towel), chopped dill and sometimes red onion(but with the issues lately, I’m not using red onions for the near future), I then place the lox trim in a line down the middle and top with the shredded cucumber and jelly roll. I then refrigerated the rolls for at least an hour or even overnight covered in plastic wrap. I then slice into 1.5 inch (you can make bigger or smaller) pieces and assemble on a plate for folks to gobble up. Always a big hit with anyone who likes smoked salmon….next time I make it will definitely post…but you can add change do whatever you like with a recipe like this!