Appetizer
3523 recipes found
French Onion Dip
The simple combination of a packet of French onion soup mix and a tub of sour cream is instantly delicious. Paired with crinkle cut potato chips, it’s the dip that everyone can’t stop eating. All the flavor found in that packet of soup mix can be duplicated — and perhaps improved upon — in this homemade version. Dried onion flakes are replaced with sweet and silky caramelized onions, which are time consuming but worth every minute. They are joined by onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne and Worcestershire sauce and stirred into sour cream, which creates a smooth and deeply flavorful dip that promises not to break your chips. If you want to make this recipe vegetarian, replace the Worcestershire sauce with a few splashes of soy sauce to taste. If you are looking for extra tang, replace some of the sour cream with Greek yogurt. If you crave a bit more fatty flavor, replace some of the sour cream with mayonnaise. And if you somehow don’t crave potato chips, serve this dip with crudités.
Roasted Cauliflower With Nước Chấm Sauce
Hearty slabs of cauliflower are deeply caramelized in the oven on high heat then dressed with a riff on the traditional Vietnamese nước chấm sauce — an umami-rich mix of fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, garlic and chiles. Fish sauce and garlic add pungency, vinegar brings a touch of sourness (in place of more traditional citrus), sugar rounds out these strong flavors with some sweetness, and chiles bring the heat. Mild, subtly sweet cauliflower benefits a great deal from getting burnished in the oven, and again from the sauce, while crushed roasted nuts add texture and bring out the vegetable’s nuttiness. Serve this dish as a starter or side, or supplement with rice to make it a main.
Leafy Greens With Turmeric Dressing and Spicy Pistachios
If there’s going to be a salad at any celebration, it deserves to feel as festive as the rest of the menu — but it should also be simple. Golden turmeric dressing will add brightness to any greens you choose, but it works especially well with bitter ones. The quick candied nuts add crunch, plus a dose of heat that keeps guests coming back for another forkful. If you tend to snack on what you’re cooking as you go, make a double batch of nuts so there will be enough to go around.
Pão de Queijo (Chewy Cheese Buns)
Brazil's pão de queijo stands out among Latin American cheese breads for its simplicity and irresistible chewiness. The secret lies in tapioca starch, extracted from cassava root (also known as manioc or yuca) native to Brazil, which gives these buns their distinctive texture. Pão de queijo is traditionally made with queijo minas, a cow’s milk cheese with a mild flavor, plus sweet or sour tapioca starch (or both), but this adapted version uses more readily available cheeses and omits the sour tapioca starch without compromising that addictive chewy texture. The straightforward nature of this recipe is a great way to highlight your favorite cheese's flavor. While pão de queijo is traditionally enjoyed on its own, the optional tangy, sweet-heat guava dipping sauce pairs perfectly with it, offering a Caribbean twist on that classic guava and cheese pairing. You can freeze the buns for future meals and bake them off as needed, as they are best eaten the same day they are baked.
Vegan Latkes
You don’t need to use an egg substitute like flax seeds or aquafaba to make excellent vegan latkes. The key is to use flour to bind the potato strands together, then leave the latkes alone in the pan as they cook thoroughly on the first side before flipping them. (Too much flipping can cause them to fall apart.) Once the latkes form a golden-brown crust on the first side, carefully turn them over to finish cooking. For the crispiest result, you can add the potato starch lost in squeezing back into the batter (see the Tip for details). It does add an extra step and 15 minutes to the process, but it’s easy and worth it for latkes lovers who live for the crunch.
Vegetarian Miso-Mushroom Sausage Rolls
The art of a delicious vegetarian sausage roll is in creating a filling that is just as moist and juicy as the original. This recipe turns to mushrooms to achieve that feat. Naturally packed with water, mushrooms keep the filling moist while imparting an immense savoriness that is reinforced by miso paste. Using two different types of mushrooms — a combination of cremini or button mushrooms and shiitake, oyster or other wild mushrooms — adds more flavor and texture, but feel free to experiment with other varieties. These bite-size mini rolls are perfect for sharing and can be made ahead of time and frozen (see Tip), so are well suited to potlucks, picnics or any holiday table. A tip: The mushroom mixture doubles as a great vegetarian burger; simply shape into patties and pan-fry until golden.
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The Crispy Fried Fish Fritters I'm Making for All My Friend's This Holiday Season
With crispy edges and tender, slightly dense centers, bacalaitos, Puerto Rican fried salt cod fritters, are a great snack or appetizer to feed a crowd.
Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms
One of nature’s miracles is that mushroom caps make a perfect vessel for stuffing. They are most commonly stuffed with a simple mix of bread crumbs, butter and herbs. Beyond that, there are many ways to sweeten the pot, like these crab-stuffed mushrooms. They are easy to make using canned crab meat (though you can use leftover crab or lump crab meat if you like), garlic, fresh herbs, Parmesan, panko and just enough cream cheese to bring everything together and add tang. The flavor of the crab is the star of the show and it nicely compliments the juicy, earthy flavor of the mushrooms. Feel free to swap in crushed butter crackers for panko or use hot sauce instead of Worcestershire for some heat. Whatever you do, don’t skip the squeeze of lemon juice for a perfect hit of brightness before eating.
Tortitas de Espinaca (Spinach Fritters)
Tortitas are Mexican fritters that are great as an appetizer or as a meal served with a vegetable side or salad and are always enjoyed with a spicy hot salsa to dip and pour over. They can be made with whatever you like or have: mashed potatoes, shredded chicken, chorizo, sautéed mushrooms, squash, greens. They’re a great way to use up leftovers; just throw them in a bowl with eggs, cheese and flour or bread crumbs and fry them up. These spinach and cheese tortitas are incredibly comforting and come together fast enough for a quick and easy weeknight meal.
Caviar Pie
This retro dish looks spectacular and stretches a few ounces of caviar or other fish roe so you can feed a crowd (plus, it goes great with icy martinis and chilled champagne). It's not literally a pie but rather a layered stack of all the best things to eat with caviar: minced hard-boiled egg held together with melted butter, diced peppery shallots, and cream cheese blended with sour cream and chives. With so much going on, you can opt for an inexpensive caviar, paddlefish roe, trout roe or even tobiko. For the cleanest look, set the components in a ring mold. However, you can also layer everything in a shallow bowl or freeform onto a plate. Have fun and serve it with anything crunchy, like potato chips, flavored tortilla chips, radishes and endive.
Leafy Winter Salad
Bitter winter chicories are balanced with some endive and cress, and sweetened with a honey-spiked dressing. It makes a refreshing side to any rich wintry dish. As vinegar and honey can vary wildly in flavor, dip a leaf into your dressing jar to check it for seasoning and balance, adjusting as needed before tossing it through the salad.
Shorbat Adas bil Hamod (Lentil Soup With Greens)
This traditional Lebanese soup is as simple as it is special. “Hamod” means sour in Arabic and, in this case, refers to the generous amount of lemon juice that brightens the lentil soup at the end. This acidity, paired with the flavorful garlic and cilantro oil that's poured all over the top, is what makes this otherwise humble soup stand out. If you don’t have brown lentils, then green ones will do. You can also swap out the chard for another leafy green like spinach, and play around with the spices. If you prefer a thinner soup, add in a splash more stock or water to your desired consistency.
Beef Dumplings With Zucchini, Tofu and Chives
These beef dumplings are packed with zucchini and tofu, which keep the filling tender and juicy. The ground meat is lightly marinated before mixing with plenty of buchu, a lovely allium with long flat leaves and a mild garlic flavor. (You can find these fragrant Korean chives in any Korean market). There’s a hidden surprise here, too: Buttery pine nuts get tucked into each dumpling before enclosing them.
Baked Brie Puffs With Chile Crisp
This flaky, creamy, sweet and spicy appetizer shrinks baked brie into single-bite, snackable sandwiches. (It’s hard to eat fewer than five.) They’re made by filling small squares of seeded puff pastry with a combination of Brie, raspberry preserves and chile crisp. The assembly is repetitive but not difficult — enlist friends to help, and they can be made up to 1 hour ahead of serving. If you want to serve the puffs warm, stick them in the oven for just a minute or two until the brie is gooey. If you have extra filling, add more to the puffs or save it to spread on tomorrow’s turkey sandwich. If you have extra puffs, eat them on their own as crackers.
Parmesan and Crispy Prosciutto Tower
Add drama to appetizer hour by making a tower of crispy prosciutto, Parmesan and crackers. Here, the crackers are made of puff pastry triangles sprinkled with black pepper, rosemary and sage leaves, then baked into herbaceous, flaky wafers. Shingle the crackers, oven-crisped prosciutto and Parmesan shavings into a tower, as if you were playing a delicious game of Jenga, but reduce the number of crackers each round so it peaks to one or two crackers at the top. Light in feel but hefty in flavor, with pops of salt, herbs and black pepper, this tower is exactly what you want from cheese and crackers, but in an altogether new, eye-catching format.
Ginger-Scallion Squiggles
Crunchy, flaky and aromatic with ginger and scallion, these squiggles are a fun twist (pun intended) on the classic cheese straw. Instead of cheese, these puff pastry appetizers are studded with ginger, scallions, nori, peanuts and red pepper flakes — and instead of straight sticks, they’re curved and curled to make snake-like squiggles. Serve them at your next cocktail party, as an afternoon snack to visitors or as an appetizer before a bigger meal. They’re the most crisp the day they’re made, but can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one day.
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Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Latkes Recipe
Sweet potatoes, Granny Smith apple, and onion come together in these crispy latkes.
White Bean Dip With Cumin-Chile Oil
This silky white bean dip has a crowd-pleasing, hummus-like appeal, but it’s seasoned with toasted cumin, lemon zest and chile flakes instead of tahini. Drizzling warm cumin oil over the top brings out the earthy flavor of the beans and adds a richness that makes the dip even more velvety. You can make the dip up to five days ahead (store it in the fridge), but don’t add the cumin oil until right before serving for the most pronounced contrast of flavors and textures.
Halloumi-Stuffed Sweet Peppers
Mini peppers make adorable, colorful wrappers for cheese in this sweet and savory recipe that’s extremely easy to make. Just stuff the diminutive peppers with chunks of cheese (halloumi, or paneer also works), some garlic and herbs, then roast until they collapse into soft, caramelized heaps filled with salty, not-quite melted cheese. You can serve these on crostini or lettuce to make festive finger food, or plop them on salads, rice dishes, eggs or beans.
Loaded Focaccia
Beautiful to behold, fun to eat and a snap to make, these loaded focaccias are like charcuterie boards, but with an edible base. You can use any kind of flatbread to make them, but thick pieces of focaccia work particularly well, holding their own against whatever is on top. The key here is to choose a few toppings that work well together, like figs or persimmons, blue cheese and walnuts, or Parmesan, arugula, salami and pepperoncini. Or, use one combination of ingredients for one side of the focaccia and another for the other side. Just bear in mind that keeping things simple will look and taste the most harmonious.
Saltfish Fritters
A festive fixture in the Caribbean, these fritters — which are sometimes referred to as stamp and go in Jamaica — are fun to eat, relatively easy to make and best served piping hot. The rewards for a direct line from pan to plate are crispy edges and fluffy, chewy centers, thanks to a little lift from baking powder. For entertaining success, prepare the salt cod and seasoning ahead of time, and then simply mix and fry the batter as guests arrive. If possible, use coconut oil for frying to add an additional layer of tropical aroma. Serve fritters as is, or with a spicy dipping sauce like pepper sauce.
Paneer Pakoray (Paneer Fritters)
Paneer, a mild and firm cheese widely used throughout South Asia and beyond, makes the perfect base for this salty, spicy snack or starter. The addition of rice flour to the batter for these bite-size fritters makes for an extra crispy coating. Chaat masala, a funky, umami-rich spice blend readily available at Indian grocers, adds notes of sour mango and earthy cumin — perhaps the defining flavors of this ultimate fried cheese snack. Homemade or store-bought paneer works for this recipe, although the latter tends to vary in consistency. If the variety available is on the firmer side, soak the cubes in warm water for 10 minutes and drain before using. Serve with store-bought or homemade mint or mango chutney.
Endive and Arugula Salad
This simple salad is meant to accompany a main course, served alongside a hearty stew like this lamb version with rosemary and olives. Toss the salad just before serving, and if you like — and arugula is less to your taste — you can use spinach, small mustard greens, watercress or more arugula, if you like.
Shrimp Cocktail Trio
Ditch the boring cocktail sauce! These 3 globally-inspired dipping sauces (harissa, sweet chili, sun-dried tomato) will elevate your shrimp cocktail.