Respect The Schmear: Bagel Pros Say THIS Is The Ideal Amount Of Cream Cheese

Few things can ruin a bagel lover’s morning more than unwrapping a bagel and finding a slab of cream cheese so thick, half of it squeezes out of the sandwich at first bite. Or, maybe worse, splitting the two halves to find a paper-thin layer of schmear.

There’s a fine line between tangy, chewy perfection and a wet, gummy mouthfeel. So how much cream cheese is necessary for the ideal bagel experience?

In our survey of nine bagel shops around the United States, pros are slathering on an average of 0.62 ounces of cream cheese per ounce of bagel. That’s roughly 6 tablespoons on an average-sized bagel served sandwich-style — a hefty helping. But there are notable differences across bagel styles and regions.

New York-style bagel shops tend to follow a heavier ratio of cream cheese to bagel, at 0.67-to-1, slathering on about 4 ounces of schmear per bagel — that’s one-quarter of a pound. To Jesse Spellman, a partner at Utopia Bagels in Queens and Manhattan, that serving size makes for the perfect bite on a standard 6-ounce bagel; it’s a bit messy and complements the texture of the chewy bagels, but it’s not too sloppy, he said.

Fausto “Tito” Quizhpe, an Ess-a-Bagel store manager in New York City, backs up that stance when speaking of the chain’s 6-ounce bagels. “If you put too much, the cream cheese is going to overflow the bagel,” he explained. “If you put too little, you don’t taste it.”

Across the country and over in the Pacific, Honolulu-based Tali’s Bagels & Schmear stays true to its New York roots. “We’re advertising a New York product outside of New York, so we have to make sure that we live up to that standard,” said co-founder Talia Bongolan-Schwartz, a New York native. “I always tell [our employees], I’d rather