Review: Panera’s New Croissant Toast Sandwiches and Strawberry Caprese Salad Become Instant Lunchtime Favorites

When you’re craving a hearty meal on the go but aren’t too keen on a greasy fast food burger or sad bag of gas station nuts, Panera Bread is your lighthouse in a sea of (frankly, too many) food options. The feel-good comfort food chain started its journey as a modest St. Louis bakery and, over the course of a few decades, transformed into a 2,000-plus-location behemoth found in just about every U.S. state. It’s famous for serving soups in a bread bowl, vibrant salads, and downright addicting sourdough, but now there’s a new contender for fan-favorite Panera dish: croissant toast sandwiches.

When the words “croissant toast” materialize on a menu board like a buttery omen, you simply have to heed the call. The hip, contemporary sandwich bread is having a big moment right now, and its popularity is well-deserved. I took a trip to my local Panera Bread the day it rolled out two new sandwiches — the Croque Monsieur Croissant Toast Sandwich and the Fromage Croissant Toast Sandwich — to see what all the flaky, savory fuss was about. I tried the two handheld bites along with a brand new Strawberry Caprese Salad to give my tell-all opinion on the taste and quality of all three items. So, let’s waltz into cozy, homey Panera and see if its new menu items are the literal best things since sliced bread.

Last year, Panera revamped its entire menu, so you can consider these new additions an upgrade to an already impressive lunch selection. The latest stars on the menu are two melty, cheesy sandwiches built on a brand new foundation: croissant toast. The new bread transforms croissant dough into the shape and style of sandwich bread, for a meal that’s easy to eat and better suited for piling on ingredients. Yet, it still contains all the flakiness, crispiness, and butteriness of the best thing to come out of France since impressionism and the Eiffel Tower.

The first new sandwich, a Croque Monsieur Croissant Toast, is Panera’s take on a French classic, not to be confused with a croque madame. It comes with black forest ham, provolone and asiago cheeses, and caramelized onion, all brought together with a creamy gruyere spread. For a decadent vegetarian option, Panera presents the Fromage Croissant Toast, which has arugula, caramelized onion, and provolone and American cheeses, all doused in garlic aioli.

Panera Bread’s new Strawberry Caprese Salad is here to steal the salad spotlight. It consists of mixed greens and arugula tossed with balsamic vinaigrette, topped with crunchy pecans, fresh strawberries, mozzarella, and basil. It can act as a garden-fresh side or a fruit-forward alternative to the buttery new sandwiches.

Unfortunately, the two croissant toast sandwiches and the fruity caprese salad aren’t here to stay. All three items are new features on Panera’s ephemeral spring menu, alongside tried-and-true seasonal favorites like the Strawberry Poppyseed Salad and Mexican Corn Chowder. You can find the new items at Panera starting on April 16th, 2025. They should stay around as long as the other seasonal offerings do, but the season is a fleeting one, so don’t hold out too long if you want to give the new items a try.

Prices will vary depending on your specific Panera Bread location, but I was able to snag the Croque Monsieur Croissant Toast for $9.79* and the Fromage Croissant Toast for $7.99 at my local Panera Bread in rural Pennsylvania. Each sandwich came with a side of chips. I picked up a half-size Strawberry Caprese Salad for $6.89, but a large size goes for $9.79. If you want to upgrade the salad and make it a heartier meal, the Strawberry Caprese with chicken would have cost me about $12.99 for a large size and $9.19 for a smaller size.

The Croque Monsieur Croissant Toast came out hot and fresh, and I was immediately impressed at how much it resembled the promotional photos — a rare feat in the fast food world. The delicious aroma of butter from the bread almost masked the savory, herby scents from the other ingredients, but I wasn’t complaining. My first bite unleashed a wave of varying textures from the croissant toast alone. The outer rim of the toast was extra crunchy, while the inside was velvety soft and moist. I could detect each soft layer in the bread, and it was blatantly obvious why Panera made the croissant toast the star of its new spring release.

Although the bread was the obvious main attraction, that’s not to say that the rest of the ingredients on the sandwich were overshadowed. The sliced ham was plentiful and much thicker than I anticipated; it tasted fresh from the deli, with a bold, smokey flavor. Caramelized onions added just a lick of sweetness, while the creamy texture from the cheese balanced everything out. But the pièce de résistance (after the croissant toast, of course) was the gruyere spread. It was intensely decadent, but it wasn’t lathered on excessively as to overpower the rest of the ingredients. It provided the ideal hint of melty, coat-your-mouth richness that completed the sandwich and balanced everything out. Magnifique.

Croissant toast practically begs to be used as grilled cheese bread, and Panera Bread is obviously well aware of this. Its Fromage Croissant Toast sandwich is an artisanal, very Panera Bread-esque take on a typical grilled cheese, and flavor-wise, it blew a plain old grilled cheese out of the water.

The cheese was the main feature of the sandwich, but a little arugula added some garden-fresh flavor that helped it not feel overly decadent or too greasy. Garlic aioli and caramelized onions were absolutely necessary to add some aromatics and a burst of umami. However, the caramelized onions were excessive. They drowned out much of the flavor from fresh, peppery arugula and the mild cheeses, making the sandwich overly sweet.

I was a little disappointed in the use of American cheese on this sandwich. Not only did it not melt completely, resulting in a rubbery texture, but it felt out of place. American cheese is the clear choice for a classic grilled cheese, but this sandwich was far from traditional. Swap out American for Swiss — with its gentle tang and more pungent bite — and this sandwich could potentially top the croque monsieur as the better croissant toast at Panera.

On paper, the Strawberry Caprese Salad is a spring-centric meal option that’s hard not to love (although Panera is definitely stretching its definition of “caprese” here). Strawberries are a slightly unconventional sweet swap for tomatoes, but it’s no secret that they work like a dream when paired with basil. However, the basil on Panera’s new salad was a mere hint of bright, fresh flavor — it didn’t offer the fragrant explosion of herbaceousness that I was hoping for. This was a pretty big letdown, especially considering that basil is the highlight of a caprese salad.

Even though the basil was scarce, the candy-sweet strawberries and dense, salty mozzarella were the dynamic duo in this salad, and they were made even better with just the right amount of crunch from toasted pecans. The ideal amount of balsamic dressing was tossed into the salad; enough to add tang and a moist texture while carrying the other flavors, but not nearly enough to drown anything out or turn the salad into a soupy mess. The choice of peppery mixed greens and arugula as the base worked well, although some spinach would have acted as a bolder, bitter backdrop for the sweet, salty, nutty toppings.

All three of the new items at Panera Bread give something a little different to the spring menu, making it a comprehensive embodiment of the season. The undeniable showstopper was the Croque Monsieur Croissant Toast, which stood out as the better of the three options thanks to its contrasting textures, high-quality ham, and expertly-balanced ingredients. But that doesn’t mean that the other two meals didn’t have their strong suits.

With a couple minor tweaks, the Fromage Croissant Toast and Strawberry Caprese Salad could be elevated tenfold. The salad has the potential to be a fresh new favorite alongside Panera’s other salads and bowls with a little more basil and maybe a few more strawberries thrown in for good measure. The fromage sandwich could use a little less onions and a cheese swap to help it hold its own against the croque monsieur, which was decidedly exceptional as-is.

Even though I picked a clear favorite, I think that Panera fans will revel in the chain’s new offerings, especially considering the highlight of the new menu is a brand new bread — Panera’s namesake food and unequivocal crown jewel. The croissant toast itself was genuinely everything I dreamed it would be: buttery, flaky, melty, and riddled with decadent layers. Dare I say that, if Panera keeps it around long enough, it could potentially rival its sourdough to be the chain’s new magnum opus.