Soup and Salad on the Menu: A Soup and Salad Sensation

Variety is the spice of life. While some can eat pizza every day, others need to mix it up. When you look at increasing lunch business and repeat customers, soups and salads can be just the type of attractive menu items to entice diners to choose your restaurant.

Adding soup and salad options also allows you to attract guests seeking something lighter and healthy. Depending on your menu choices, soups and salads can appeal to individuals wanting low-carb, low-sodium, Keto, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, vegetarian and other restricted diets.

A great benefit to offering soups and salads is that they can yield higher margins. They also make for great grab-and-go (Be sure to read my grab-and-go story on page 34), catering, carryout or delivery. As you plan those new soup and salads, be sure to factor in single and bulk packaging to make additional revenue for those new items. 

Think combo. Develop soups and salads that pair well with each other. Market the pairing on menus and in promotions. Don’t forget to train your staff to upsell these items together, separately or as part of a complete meal bundle. With our prep ahead meal culture, plant the seed that soup and salad also make a great next-day lunch if they want to go ahead and put in that order.

Building your Soup and Salad Menu

When you build your soup and salad menu, here are a few considerations as you dive in:

• Go with your strengths. If your menu leans heavy to classic Italian dishes, your soups and salads should be too. If outrageous toppings are your thing, the same creativity should apply to a soup and salad menu.
• Look at your pizza makeline. Cross-utilizing ingredients can help with costing out that new menu.
• Run a report of previous soup/salad successes. Look at past menus for stars. You don’t have to bring that exact item back. You can use it to draw inspiration and apply a spin on the hit item.
• What’s local, regional or in season? Look to your own community for inspiration. What do people in your area go crazy for? Are there local businesses you should partner with for ingredients?   

What’s trending with Soups and Salads?

• Beans are all the rage right now. Bean salads and bean soups, consumers are gravitating towards beans for protein and variety.
• International soups and stews. The National Restaurant Association’s What’s Hot Culinary Forecast called it as we entered 2024. Soups with an international flare are hitting big with consumers.
• Superfoods are still top of mind. Creating and marketing super food ingredients can pique the interest of curious diners.

Soups and Salad Italian Inspiration

Many pizzeria operators look to Italy for menu inspiration. Soup and salad ideas are abundant. Here are some items to pair:

First, salads:

• Caprese Salad. Classic and simple, plate caprese beautifully and it will be a star.
• Antipasto salad. Take an antipasto platter and create a salad and add Romaine and a nice lemon vinaigrette dressing.
• Panzanella. This Tuscan salad featured Italian bread, chopped vegetables, chickpeas and balsamic style dressing.
• Insalata di carciofi e bottarga. A Sardinia specialty, this salad features bottarga, which is fish roe. An easy substitute here is anchovy filet. It is combined with radicchio, artichoke, salt and lemon juice.

Next, soups:

• Stracciatella. This is an Italian egg drop soup featuring chicken broth, egg, spinach and Parmesan.
• Ribollita. A great winter option, this is a Tuscan white bean soup made with day-old bread, kale, cabbage or other hearty vegetables. 
• Zuppa Toscana. The creamy soup features bacon, Italian sausage, potatoes, crushed red pepper flakes and cream.
• Acquacotta. Another Tuscan soup, this one features cannellini beans, escarole, fennel and day-old bread.

A Great Cold Weather Pairing

Now let’s get down to recipes. I am pairing a Cheddar Broccoli Soup with Cavoletti Salad. It’s a great fall and winter soup and salad combo. The creaminess of soup balances against the tartness of the salad. Combining the two also provides a filling meal.

Cheddar Broccoli Soup

Get the Cheddar Broccoli Soup recipe.

Cavoletti Salad

Get the Cavoletti Salad recipe. 

DENISE GREER  is Executive Editor of Pizza Today.