The Unexpected Cream Cheese You Should Spread On Your Next Cinnamon Raisin Bagel

Bagels are generally thought of as a savory breakfast. Though there are varieties like cinnamon raisin and blueberry, the majority of them are flavors like onion, sea salt, and everything. When you do decide to indulge in a sweet bagel though, chances are you're pairing it with either plain cream cheese, butter, or maybe even strawberry cream cheese. But most don't pair it with veggie or smoked salmon cream cheese, for example.

That's probably why actress-turned-politician Cynthia Nixon made headlines in 2018 when she ordered a cinnamon raisin bagel with lox, red onion, cream cheese, tomatoes, and capers. "Cynthia Nixon's bagel order just ruined my day. I can't concentrate on anything but how bad that must have tasted," one tweet reads. "Cynthia Nixon's garbage bagel is the equivalent of when you're creating a video game character and you press "randomize," and that's why I'm voting for her," another says. As it turns out, however, Nixon was onto something with her bagel order.

Salmon, tomatoes, and capers may be a bit much for a cinnamon raisin bagel, but the onion component isn't as bad as you think. In the U.S., cinnamon and raisins tend to be present mostly in sweet recipes, but in other cuisines, the two ingredients are considered savory. In Indian cooking, for example, both ground and whole cinnamon are used alongside onion in many chutneys, curries, and stews, being one of the spices in garam masala. In the Philippines, on the other hand, you can find raisins in plenty of savory dishes where onion is also present, including embutido (a kind of meatloaf), menudo (a pork stew), as well as ground beef picadillo, which is also seasoned with cinnamon.

If you lean into cinnamon and raisin as savory flavors, pairing them with onion isn't far-fetched at all. Cinnamon raisin bagels, in fact, don't have any more extra sugar than other types of bagels. New York-style bagel dough contains granulated sugar, and that's whether it's a cinnamon raisin bagel or an everything bagel. Therefore when you put scallion cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel, therefore, the flavors are just as complimentary as if you were to add it to any other savory bagel.

Though cinnamon, raisins, and onions are often paired together in Filipino and Indian cooking, a cinnamon raisin bagel with scallion cream cheese won't give your bagel an Asian flavor. Instead what you get, according to Bon Appétit who taste-tested the unique combination, is a mild onion flavor with a balanced sweetness.

It's common knowledge that onions are sweet, but unless it's a Vidalia onion, you typically have to cook and caramelize them in order to taste any sort of sweetness. Scallion cream cheese is made with raw scallions, making it more pungent than sweet, as most people know. But put it on a cinnamon raisin bagel and its taste changes. According to Bon Appétit chef Chris Morocco, the natural sweetness of the raisins and cinnamon mellows out the sharpness of the scallion. Scallion, as it is, doesn't have an overwhelming flavor compared to other onion varieties, which means the taste of the raisins and cinnamon still come through, but is perfectly balanced out by the onion. So while you might expect these three components to clash, they end up complementing each other surprisingly well in the form of a delicious bagel.