It’s January, and that means New Year’s resolutions galore to eat healthier. In 2026, “healthy” overwhelmingly equates with “protein-packed.” This week alone, more than a dozen chains launched new protein-rich menu items, and they join the scores that rolled out others towards the end of last year.
But fast-casual Bellagreen is bucking the crowd.
“We’re hearing a lot of noise from our guests around anti-inflammatory; they’re seeking foods that make you shine from the inside out,” said Beth Collins, brand president of the nine-unit Dallas-based chain. “These are ‘radiant-rich’ ingredients like turmeric, ginger, kale and sweet potatoes.”
Bellagreen’s Golden Glow limited-time winter menu, running now, evolved from that guest feedback. It’s built around four core items: a soup, salad, bowl and salmon entrée. “Every window we innovate around includes these four platforms,” said Collins. “Innovating around just those categories points us in the right direction and allows us to get more creative with the seasonal ingredients and flavors we use with that new salad or piece of salmon.” It also helps control costs, so it’s a win-win, she added.
Every limited-time menu includes a $12 veggie bowl. Guests can add protein for an upcharge.
Gluten-free and vegetarian foods have also been foundations of the brand since its founding in 2008. The celiac, gluten-intolerant and vegetarian communities have rallied around Bellagreen, but the menu isn’t limiting; guests can add chicken, shrimp or salmon to any vegetarian item to boost the protein, Collins said. And the menu also includes heartier items like Wagyu meatball pasta and an Angus cheeseburger to broaden the appeal and attract all dietary preferences.
“I like to say Bellagreen doesn't have a demographic; it's a psychographic,” said Collins. “It’s more heavily female, but it's all generations as well as males. It’s a restaurant that’s appealing to people who care about what they put into their bodies. “
Getting the glow on
Collins is not a chef or nutritionist, but she spends a lot of time researching trends with the goal of offering a well-balanced and colorful selection of menu items. “Once I started looking into anti-inflammatory eating I discovered the Golden Glow diet, which is based on the concept that what you put in your body radiates out and creates a healthy glow,” she said.
Based on that thinking, Bellagreen’s longtime chef, Silvestre Reyes, developed the quartet of soup, salad, bowl and salmon dish, working closely with Collins. First up was Golden Glow Chicken Soup, simmered with turmeric, ginger, garlic, sweet potatoes and carrots, resulting in a restorative and aromatic winter warmer. It’s priced at $5 for a cup and $7 for a bowl.
“Customers love the soup so much and it is so popular, it will become part of our permanent menu,” said Collins. “This is only the second time a seasonal LTO has made it onto the permanent menu, as we usually like to build anticipation for a comeback.”
The Golden Glow Salad combines pumpkin seeds, chickpeas, arugula and butternut squash wild rice pilaf.
For the salad component, Reyes created Golden Grain & Arugula Salad with a gluten-free butternut wild rice pilaf, chickpeas, arugula and pumpkin seeds in an apple cider vinaigrette. There’s also a Golden Glow Roasted Veggie Bowl with a quinoa-kale base. Salads are $15 and bowls are promoted as an “extreme value” at $12 with an upcharge for the addition of protein.
“Our chef is a wizard at combining flavors and it’s very rare that we have a tasting and the dish isn’t there,” said Collins. But the Golden Glow Seared Salmon over turmeric cauliflower rice with chickpeas and parsley yogurt sauce required a few tweaks. “We had never done cauliflower rice before, and when combined with turmeric, the flavors were very strong and we had to work hard to get the balance right,” said Collins. “Some people love turmeric and some people don’t, but it’s a key ingredient in this diet so we needed to make sure it wasn’t polarizing in any way.”
Once the turmeric and salt were adjusted, the salmon was well balanced and worked well. It sells for $19.99, and while Collins admits the prices are a little high for a fast casual, there is “value in abundance,” as the portions are large. Plus everything is made from scratch and brought to the table. In fact, Bellagreen is branded as an “American bistro,” complete with a wine and beer selection, even though it’s an order-at-the-counter fast casual.
The salmon took a few tweaks to perfect.
For the most part, Bellagreen’s limited-time items cross-utilize ingredients already in house. Ground turmeric was the only new SKU brought in for the Golden Glow menu. Although cauliflower rice was a new prep, Bellagreen already sources fresh cauliflower and that was on hand.
Executing for growth
While the scratch-made menu is a bit complex, “we have to make sure that we’re not creating anything that’s too difficult for an average cook to pull off in one of our restaurants,” said Collins. The 3,500 square-feet locations have sizeable kitchens and “there’s a lot of prep that goes on back there, so we spend a lot of time on kitchen excellence and making sure that everything we create is executable as we work on scaling the brand and getting ready to grow,” she added. “People are spending less and eating out less, so when they choose to eat at Bellagreen, we need to make sure that the food is perfect.”
Table tents are placed on every table to explain the Golden Glow diet and its anti-inflammatory focus. Influencers and fans are spreading the word on social media as well. The limited-time items are available through February, and Bellagreen’s menu will jump into spring by March.
What’s next?
Collins said spring will bring a focus on fiber, but Chef Reyes is in the midst of creating the menu and there’s nothing definite yet.
In the meantime, a revamped mac ‘n cheese lineup will roll out at the end of January. “We had a gluten-free mac ‘n cheese on the menu before, but I didn’t like the way it tasted,” said Collins. The updated version is still gluten-free, but more craveable and delicious, she added. Collins gave it her stamp of approval, and so did her mac ‘n cheese-loving daughter, who is not gluten-free.