Make Your Egg Salad Sandwiches Unforgettable With One Extra Ingredient

Egg salad sandwiches are great because they're predictable. You know that between those two slices of bread is some combination of hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, diced celery, and relish. They combine creamy and crunchy textures and fit just about any occasion, from a low-key egg salad sandwich for lunch to egg and cress finger sandwiches for a luncheon. They're reliable, but they can get boring — a fact that has prompted people to create stellar egg salad sandwiches with unexpected ingredients. And one addition that really jazzes up an egg salad sandwich is kimchi.

Kimchi offers a pop of fermented zest to the sandwich, and deepens the flavor profile of the egg salad with complex layers of sour, sweet, and often spicy notes. Heat levels and subtle dimensions will change depending on what kind of kimchi you add. Store bought or homemade kimchi works wonderfully. Incorporate some gochujang (Korean chili paste) to the mix as well for an even more spicy flavor profile and to change the egg salad to a bright orange-red color.

You don't have to add a whole bunch of ingredients to make your next egg salad sandwich unforgettable. Kimchi brings a wide range of bold flavors to the mix and is actually tamed down by the mayonnaise and eggs. They balance each other out with the vibrant fermented cabbage cutting through any oppressive mayonnaise flavors. And adding all that extra flavor to egg salad is easy — just mix drained, diced kimchi into your regular egg salad recipe.

You can make kimchi egg salad with just kimchi, hard boiled eggs, and mayonnaise, but there are plenty of other ways to elevate even a batch of kimchi egg salad. Bacon makes it even better, and you can caramelize the kimchi in bacon grease before adding it to the salad to double down on bacon flavor. Add fresh herbs like chives or dill, or something savory like grated Parmesan cheese or capers for even more variety, or perhaps chopped cranberries or apples for sweetness and texture. Then, choose a kimchi with flavors that match your other ingredients to create a complex and intricate egg salad sandwich, one that you won't soon forget.