Several weeks ago, I ended up with an extra bagel after a breakfast at work, so I wrapped it up and took it home and popped it into the freezer. I rarely eat bagels (too many carbs, too many calories), but I figured it would be good for a pre-race breakfast the day before a marathon.
Now, I have a thing about everything bagels: I really only like them with veggie cream cheese. However, while there are plenty of varieties of fat free and other fairly low calorie cream cheeses out there, it’s hard to find flavored versions. Besides, I didn’t want to buy a whole container of cream cheese just to have with one bagel. Instead, I decided to improvise and make my own. I often use yogurt in place of sour cream… why not cottage cheese instead of cream cheese?
I’m sure this has been done before, but I had never heard of it, so I’m going to declare myself to have “invented” the following recipe:
High Protein Veggie Cream Cheese
1/2 cup nonfat cottage cheese
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/3 tsp onion powder
1/2 carrot
1 stalk celery
1/4 onion
Sprinkle the spices into the cottage cheese and stir thoroughly to mix. Dice the veggies, add, and mix. Presto – you’re done! This makes two very generous servings for topping a bagel, English muffin, toast, or whatever you want.
As previously stated, I put mine on an everything bagel, which I further health-ified by hollowing out some of the inner bread. I had never done that before, but had read the tip the day before on a blog and decided to give it a try. I actually really liked it and didn’t miss the inner part of the bagel at all, but I was glad I had made my healthy cottage cheese topping, because the scooped out bagel was just begging to be filled up with topping, and filling it with cream cheese would be much worse than just eating the bread.
The cottage cheese topping was a little messy (probably because I piled it so high), but really delicious – I’ll probably start making this and eating it just plain (no bagel) as an everyday breakfast. If eaten plain, I’d probably eat the whole recipe (about 135 calories) instead of just half when used as a topping (with a 300 calorie bagel, give or take some by scooping out the insides), but either is a pretty darn healthy breakfast… not to mention super tasty 🙂
I have never heard of anything like this either . . . but you’re right, it DOES make a lot of sense! I’m definitely going to try it. Thanks for the great tip 🙂
Looks yum! I love cottage cheese on bagels, but have never mixed veges in before 🙂
I’ve never heard of cottage cheese on a bagel/muffin etc., but it’s a good idea! Cottage cheese is great with savory mix-ins…I like tomatoes and onions (or chives) and, even yummier, smoked salmon or lox! Maybe with some capers too and, hey, how about piled on a bagel? 🙂
that looks really good! i’m definitely going to try it!
That looks VERY yum. I may have to try that.
Yum! Looks good….of course I could never afford a 300 calorie bagel! I’ll have to try on toast 🙂
I’ve never heard of it – but now I really want to try it! I love cottage cheese and veggies so it sounds like a match made in heaven!