Chefs, caught between patrons who want indulgent, great-tasting foods and menu-labeling laws that can paint such dishes in a negative light, have rediscovered the joys of green vegetables as a means to enhance flavor while adding few calories. 


Super spinach

Consumption of spinach has quintupled since fresh product became ubiquitous in the early 1970s, to well over two pounds per person in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That popularity has translated to increasingly creative use in restaurants. 


Bob Evans’ Farmstand Burger features Swiss cheese and portobello mushrooms with fresh baby spinach that gives it both flavor and eye appeal. California Pizza Kitchen recently launched a Roasted Artichoke and Spinach Pizza with sautéed spinach. Sweet Tomatoes promoted a seasonal Cherry Chipotle Spinach Salad where the greens provided a pleasing foil for the assertive, fruit-based dressing, and Au Bon Pain put fresh spinach on the morning menu as part of a bagel-and-hummus sandwich.


In Bertucci’s Salmon Florentine, the fish is brick-oven roasted with white wine, lemon and capers, and plated with wilted baby spinach. Olive Garden, meanwhile, pairs Pork Milanese with fresh spinach.



Great green beans 

The legume has long been a menu staple, but it’s ripe for rehab. 


Smashburger offers Veggie Frites, or flash-fried asparagus, carrots and green beans, as an alternative to French fries. Similarly, trendy Hub 51 in Chicago offers Three Green Bites, which combines edamame with blistered padrone peppers and tempura green beans. Equally exotic and appealing is the Chilean Chacarero sandwich at La Sombra in Austin, Texas. In addition to hanger steak, avocados and tomatoes, the crusty bolillo roll is stuffed with pickled cucumber and crispy green beans. 


Green beans also appear in La Sombra’s tuna salad, in which ahi tuna is miso-marinated and served with green beans, greens and vinaigrette, a kind of east-meets-west mash-up of the iconic niçoise salad.


Green beans also make a simple yet elegant side dish, as at Ruby Tuesday, where they are freshly grilled, and at Buca di Beppo, where they are sautéed in olive oil with fresh lemon juice.



Fresh flavors 

For the past several years, chains have aggressively embraced seasonal produce, with asparagus promotions blooming like spring flowers. Bertucci’s Pasta Verde is a great example, featuring asparagus, peas, spinach, Italian parsley, baby basil, cilantro and oregano, all atop pasta. At Phoenix-based Wildflower Bread Company, arugula is on the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich, fennel is on the Roasted Sweet Potato Sandwich and clover sprouts are on the Almond Tuna Sandwich. Schlotzsky’s



recent Route 66 sandwich promotion also embraced green stuff, finishing the Sedona Chick with baby spinach and artichoke-fennel pesto, and the California Chick with alfalfa sprouts and guacamole.



Looking ahead 

We’ll see lots more fresh vegetables on menus. We’ll also see growing use of fresh herbs, already evident in the fresh basil on Applebee’s new Steak and Potato Salad, the fresh thyme on Zpizza’s Tuscan Pizza and the fresh
cilantro on Panera Bread’s Asian Sesame Chicken Salad. 

Nancy Kruse, president of The Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta. E-mail her at nancykruse@aol.com.