Jalapeño Rainbow Veggie Bagel Sandwiches

Let me introduce you to my new favourite lunch. I don’t think I have ever craved veggies so much as I did after eating this sandwich. It is so fresh and full of flavour. Max is a veggie lover so I knew convincing him to eat these would be a no-brainer but I was surprised just how much Alli, the veggie snubber, loved these sandwiches as well. I think it has to do in part to the fact that everything is sliced very thinly making it easier to chew. And having it be the colour of the rainbow helps a lot too. 😉 We loved them so much we repeated them again the next day, and they are on my mind again for this week too.

Once I decided to create a veggie sandwich my first thought was to use my jalapeño popper cream cheese as a spread. It was the perfect compliment. You can adjust the heat by adding more or less jalapeño. I used a whole jalapeño but it wasn’t very spicy, if the jalapeño were on the spicy side I would probably just use half, for the kids sake.

I like to prep the veggies and make the spread ahead of time and keep them in the fridge for fast lunches later. I know these will be on the menu a lot during the spring and summer. It’s fun to pick the most colourful vegetables you can, somehow even as an adult it makes it so much more enjoyable to eat. If you get heirloom varieties you can switch up the colours even more. In this case I used rainbow carrots to give more variety in the colour. I’ve recommended colours below to get as much variety from grocery store produce as possible but feel to switch up the colours as you see fit!

Jalapeño Rainbow Veggie Bagel Sandwiches

Makes: 4-5 sandwiches

Ingredients

• 4-5 cheese bagels, sliced and toasted
• 1 large tomato, thinly sliced
• 3 medium carrots, shaved thinly using a vegetable peeler
• 1 small yellow bell pepper (or 4 mini), sliced thinly
• 1 medium cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1 bunch microgreens (or spinach)
• 3 radishes, thinly sliced
• salt and pepper, to taste

Jalapeño Popper Cream Cheese Spread

• 4 oz. spreadable cream cheese
• 1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
• 1 green onion, thinly sliced
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Mix together jalapeño popper cream cheese ingredients in a small bowl. Spread generously onto both halves of bagels. Top one half of each bagel with a layer of each vegetable. Season with salt and pepper. Top with remaining bagel halves. Serve.