regex - How can I insert a tab character with sed on OS X?

Question

I have tried:

echo -e "egg   salad" | sed -E 's/[[:blank:]]+//g'

Which results in:

eggtsalad

And...

echo -e "egg   salad" | sed -E 's/[[:blank:]]+/\t/g'

Which results in:

eggsalad

What I would like:

egg salad

Answer 1

Try: Ctrl+V and then press Tab.