The main gig might pull them in, but it’s the side hustle that can close the deal when served with burgers and BBQ.
Creative side dishes appeal to diners who don’t look at the side as an afterthought, but as an essential part of the full experience. Serving creative side dishes can help increase average ticket numbers, because you’re offering premium options guests perceive as added value, encouraging them to upgrade the meal.
Bring Home the Bacon
Adding bacon to a side dish almost seems like cheating — everyone loves it, a little goes a long way, and it’s always trending. As a recipe developer and editor for major brands, I’ve seen bacon added to a wide range of side dishes, including baked beans, cauliflower mac & cheese, and Brussel sprouts, just in the past couple of months.
This inexpensive hack is intensely flavorful, even a single cooked slice added per portion means you can offer servings as an upgraded side or as a larger share size at a premium price. To really keep it simple, offer crumbled bacon to most side dishes for an easy upsell at the table. Ridgecrest® provides bacon sliced from fully trimmed pork bellies for lean, consistently sized slices with a delicate blend of smoke, sugar, and salt.
Stacks on Stacks
The humble potato gets an upgrade when sliced thinly and cooked with cream and sharp cheese in the form of gratin. The format is endlessly customizable — any form of regular or sweet potato works as well as hard winter squashes, beets, turnips, celery root, and carrots.
You can even tweak the formula to include sliced vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, and summer squash stacked in between the starchy layers to lighten up the dish. Large buffet pans can be baked ahead of time, sliced into squares, and reheated to serve.
Get That Green
Refreshing, healthier side dish options give diners permission to indulge in a juicy burger or meaty sandwich without the guilt. My preferred option — and the most popular choice at my favorite local BBQ spot — is the chunky Cucumber Tomato Salad. Simple, clean, and perfect for the hot summer months. At home, I like to give it an Asian twist with fish sauce, lime juice, and toasted sesame seeds for crunch. Or add some feta and oregano for a Greek alternative. Cucumbers don’t wilt like lettuce and can be combined with the dressing ahead of time, saving both time and money.
Health Hacks
If the popularity of sweet potato fries has taught me anything, it’s that people will go crazy for a slightly healthier sounding version of a popular food. Consider riffing on a best-selling side dish — like mac & cheese — with a healthier version, by subbing vegetables in for part or all of the starch.
Like that Cauliflower Mac & Cheese I mentioned — it still features two cheeses and bacon, so it hits like a decadent treat, only with a full head of roasted cauliflower added into the mix, for a lighter choice alongside a hearty sandwich.
Pot of Gold
Sweet, in-season corn is the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow of summer vegetables. This inexpensive veggie is as versatile as it is delicious — and it just happens to be my all-time favorite vegetable. Street-style eloté is having a moment — the Mexican-inspired corn on the cob is interesting enough to include as an upgraded side option or stand-alone app.
For a version you can run with year-round, an off-the-cob version, made with frozen corn, delivers all the flavor in an easy, pre-prepped, scoopable corn salad. Depending on the style of cuisine, corn can be customized to the theme for an easy upgrade. I’ve recently seen recipes with sweet corn folded into a savory corn pudding, mixed into a summery risotto, and unsurprisingly combined with bacon to make a spicy, cheddar corn cake.
