This is a special message from Hellmann’s® Extra Heavy and Best Foods® Extra Heavy Mayonnaise and Hellmann’s® Real Sauces.

Traditional bound salad sandwiches like tuna salad, chicken salad and egg salad may not grab the headlines like artisanal, chef-driven gourmet sandwiches, but they are undeniably pleasing, familiar and popular with patrons.

These homey favorites fit the current interest in simplicity and back to basics, one of the top ten food trends in the National Restaurant Association’s What’s Hot in 2011 chef survey. While the familiar bound salads will always have a broad following, there is also a big opportunity to appeal to adventurous palates by tweaking the standbys with fashionable ingredients and flavors. This is an especially good idea in light of the willingness of some consumers to pay more for an upgraded flavor experience. Giving your bound salad recipes a few innovative twists may pay off in higher sales and profits.

From a business perspective, side salads and main course salads both can be quite profitable because their food costs are relatively low. Moreover, there are many ways to cross-utilize existing proteins, produce and condiments in the kitchen for bound salads without incurring additional inventory costs. This allows you to experiment with various flavor and ingredient combinations to create dishes with their own unique appeal.
The indispensable tool for making superior bound salads is Hellmann’s® Extra Heavy or Best Foods® Extra Heavy Mayonnaise. Its foodservice-only formula contains extra egg yolks for thicker viscosity and richer flavor. It has the perfect balance of acidic and sweet flavors to stand alone or serve as the backdrop for your own flavoring touches. In addition to its notable flavor, it has an outstanding ability to cling to ingredients to keep bound salads looking their best.

The following suggestions will work on bread, in wraps and in side salad and entrée salad applications.

For example, capitalize on the growing interest in Asian cuisines by creating an Asian Chicken Salad with ponzu-marinated grilled chicken breast, toasted wonton strips, fresh cilantro, green onions and ginger-flavored extra heavy mayo. Or add an appealing new flavor to your salad repertoire with BBQ Chicken Salad bound with extra heavy mayo and your favorite barbecue sauce. Or feature a crowd-pleasing premium protein as the star of a special bound salad, such as top sirloin steak strips tossed with garlic-flavored extra heavy mayo, crumbled gorgonzola and ripe tomato. However, tweaks don’t always have to be radical to be good. Sometimes all it takes is a simple substitution, like using smoked turkey in place of standard turkey breast in a turkey salad sandwich, to give new flair to the familiar.

For convenient flavor enhancement, reach for Hellmann’s® Real Sauces to distinguish your bound salads and sandwiches. They come in delectable flavor profiles like Real Ancho Chipotle Sauce, Real Creamy Pesto Sauce, Real Horseradish Dijon Sauce and Real Red Pepper Basil Sauce. These ready-to-use products require no labor and offer greater consistency than house-made sauces. Use them as-is to dress bound salads and sandwiches or mix them with mayonnaise and your own flavoring inspirations.

To learn more about the latest sandwich trends, visit: sandwichpro.com