Who says healthy can’t be popular with students and faculty? Protein salads made with wheat berries and cottage cheese are flying off the shelf, watercress and tofu sell out a school-sponsored farmers market and football players are making the vegan station their first stop. At colleges and universities across the country, foodservice operators are meeting the challenge of providing meals that are both nutritious and tasty. Here’s a sampling of what’s being served:
Perfect Protein Salad
Concordia College, Moorehead, Minn.
For this upper Midwest school, the big hit is Perfect Protein Salad. Janet Paul, associate director of dining services, first tasted the salad at a local deli, and after some at-home knockoff experimentation, offered it late last winter in the college’s residential dining hall and three retail outlets. Faculty members show up early to buy the pre-packaged retail salads before they sell out and students complain when the salad isn’t available in the dining hall.
The popularity of this dish, made with soybeans, wheat berries and cottage cheese, loaded with vegetables and dressed with low-fat mayo mixed with apple cider vinegar, caught Paul off guard. “I’m frankly surprised students eat it at all,” she says. “I thought it would appeal to faculty and staff, but not students. Students ask for healthier items, but they don’t want healthier unless it tastes really good.” The salad is sold in retail every third day and is offered once or twice in a four-week cycle in the residential hall. It’s selling itself, says Paul, with little marketing needed.
“If we run out of it, people complain and we have to make more the next time,” she says. Ultimately, she says, it may end up on the menu every day.
Tilapia Printemps
The University of Montana, Missoula, Mont.
Tilapia Printemps tops the list of healthy foods at this Missoula school, which serves 15,000 students. Adapted from a previous menu item, Tilapia Primavera, the newer version replaces the original cream sauce with zucchini, carrots, red bell peppers, fresh parsley and a little unsalted butter. The dish has only 131calories per serving.
“It’s very colorful and inviting to the eye to eat,” says Mark LoParco, director of dining services. “A lot of our students don’t have access to varieties of fish and we are very conscious of that. We want healthy items that look good and taste great.”
LoParco relies on data from the computer system to rank the dish’s popularity. “It’s been on the menu for a year and a half. Things like carne asada or roasted turkey still outsell a fish item, but in terms of items that are healthier, this one does very well,” he adds.
Before adding the dish to the menu, LoParco’s staff tested it in the dining room and asked students to fill out evaluations. In addition, the management team personally looks to see who’s eating the dish and asks for direct feedback during mealtime. “Part of our goal is to educate students about food,” says LoParco. “We have kids who come as carnivores and now they’re vegetarians.”
Sizzling Station
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Penn.
Situated next to the salad bar at Erdman Dining Hall at this college of 1,300 students is the Sizzling Station. Students select from an assortment of snap peas, baby corn, carrots, edamame and bean sprouts, choose from a rotation of brown, white or jasmine rice in the nearby rice cooker, and then prepare their own stir-fried meals over two burners. They can use sesame oil or vegetable oil, soy sauce, teriyaki, Old Bay seasoning, sesame seeds and Sriracha hot sauce. “Students at Bryn Mawr are independent and like doing things on their own,” says Joseph Ludwig, unit manager. “They decide how much or how little seasoning, how much oil. It gives them a feeling that they’re eating well—and they are.”
With 15% to 20% of the students from Asian countries, says Ludwig, the Sizzling Station helps them feel, food-wise, a little closer to home. “Gluten-free students also like the option when they can’t eat what’s on the line that night,” he adds. While he doesn’t have quantitative data, Ludwig says there is always a large group at the station with four or five people regularly waiting during lunch and dinner.
The idea was born four years ago when students were looking for more vegetarian options. Students were already making their own omelets in the morning, so the same station was converted into the stir-fry option for lunch and dinner. A student worker is assigned to the area to keep the utensils and pans clean and refresh items when necessary. The station is “front and center” in the serving area of the dining room. Initially, the station was marketed with signs and featured on Facebook and Twitter, but that’s no longer necessary—all the students know about it, says Ludwig “I’ve heard tour guides specifically mention it on their open house tours,” he says. The school’s small size makes such an option manageable, says Ludwig, and he hopes to add two more burners soon.
Sumida Tofu Watercress Salad
Brigham Young University, Laie, Hawaii
In 2010, Chef Spencer Tan introduced the Sumida Tofu Watercress Salad at the BYU-Hawaii sponsored farmer’s market, following a tour of a local watercress farm by the school’s foodservice management team. It was an instant hit, says David Keala, director of food services. Watercress and tofu sales doubled and, at the market, samples of the salad were the first to be grabbed by taste testers. Shortly after, the salad was introduced in the main dining facility, called Anytime Dining, for the 2,500 students who live and eat on the Laie campus, where it’s now a staple in the salad rotation. The salad has become the school’s signature healthy dish.
Crispy Tomato Salmon
Illinois State University, Normal, Ill.
Crispy Tomato Salmon is the healthy dish of choice at this school, where about 12,000 meals per day are served in two dining facilities. Arlene Hosea, director of campus dining, reports that the salmon dish has one of the highest counts of any item offered at the Fresh Bites venue, located in the campus’ largest dining hall. Fresh Bites serves grilled poultry and seafood, whole grains and fresh produce.
The salmon, introduced in 2011, is made in small batches, about 25 servings at a time, right in front of students. “That is the best marketing—seeing and smelling your food cooked right in front of you,” says Hosea. The salmon’s dish biggest rival in popularity is dining services’ black bean quesadillas.
Quinoa Cakes
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine
Quinoa cakes are the brainchild of one of Bates’ chefs, the result of an effort to increase interest in the vegan station in the dining hall. The school’s one dining facility provides approximately 4,000 meals daily to about 1,800 students, says Christine Schwartz, director of dining. The quinoa cakes have been on the menu for two years and are marketed largely through menu cards in the dining facility. “When we first introduced the vegan station, it was a no-person land where no one dared to go,” says Schwartz. “Now it’s the first place that most students, from dancers to football players, stop as they select their meals.”
White Bean Patty,
Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.
The White Bean Patty with Fruit Salsa tops the list at Syracuse University, where the foodservice department operates 31 units, including five residential dining centers that service approximately 7,000 meal plan students. Ruth Sullivan, R.D., campus dietitian, developed the recipe in partnership with a dining center manager in an effort to increase the number of vegan patties served.
First introduced in the summer of 2009, the dish is “the most popular vegetarian item on the menu and we make several batches throughout the meal period,” says Sullivan. When tested against other vegan and vegetarian options, the White Bean Patty came out a favorite, she says. It’s served in all the residential dining centers and marketed through the on-line menu, the Meatless Monday campaign and the dining mobile app. What makes this item so popular? “The patty offers a nice flavor and, when coupled with the spicy, cold fruit salsa, it makes a great combination,” says Sullivan.