Refreshing your menu to capitalize on current trends is easy when you have eggs in the kitchen. For each daypart, every culture & cuisine, and virtually all dietary lifestyle choices, eggs are the answer.
Here are three menu inspirations featuring eggs in a starring role to match some of the top consumer trends.
It’s not getting any easier to plan a menu, with many consumers demanding options that meet their dietary needs & desires. The reasoning behind specialty diets ranges from weight management to health concerns to religious and cultural requirements. Fortunately, flexibility is the name of the game when it comes to eggs. For example, an elevated yet back-to-basics Mediterranean Omelette can be vegetarian, keto-friendly, gluten-free, and more. Featuring pea sprouts, grape tomatoes, and crumbled feta, it’s a virtually infinitely customizable item, simple to create, and absolutely satisfying.
Consumers continue to satiate the desire to get away by discovering international flavours and recreating far-flung culinary experiences from previous vacations. But that doesn’t mean you have to hire a new chef or overhaul your supplier list. Eggs are a pan-cultural ingredient, and adding them to exciting international menu items that won’t unduly challenge your kitchen staff is easy. A Japanese Tamago Sando is a heavenly take on a classic egg salad sandwich. The secret ingredient? Light and fluffy Japanese milk bread. The not-so-secret ingredient? Eggs — hard-boiled and mixed with mayo (bonus points for Japanese mayo) and nothing else to let their naturally great taste shine like the rising sun.
For today’s varied lifestyles, meatless options like this are a welcome addition to your menu and can help expand your customer base.
We’ve watched the gradual decline of a carnivorous diet in Western society for a while now. Consumers are increasingly choosing meals that better reflect their values, eating less meat and seeking natural ingredients over processed alternatives. What hasn’t changed is the need for protein — and eggs deliver! Eggs have a far smaller environmental footprint than any other animal protein and require no processing like plant-based proteins, making “put an egg on it” the smart way to meet your customer’s needs. Case in point, a trendy Green Goddess Salad with Hard-Boiled Egg. Mix a variety of greens you already purchase with sprouts and herbs, drizzle with a zesty, tangy mayo-based dressing, and top with sliced or crumbled hard-boiled eggs for a fabulous presentation.
The Egg Quality Assurance™ (EQA®) program offers an opportunity for restaurants to show that the eggs they sell are made locally, according to the highest standards of food safety and animal welfare. Add the EQA® mark to your restaurant menu as a symbol of that quality and Canadian egg farmers’ commitment to excellence. To learn more, visit eggquality.ca.