Get festive with these New Year’s Eve Food ideas

Recently, I was talking with a neighbor about a dilemma she was having for New Year’s Eve: her and her friends need some sort of dinner, but nobody wants to cook and their group is too big for a restaurant reservation.

I’m guessing this could be quite a common issue, so I figured I would put together a board of New Year’s Eve appetizers that eats more like a light dinner, with cheese AND charcuterie AND seafood AND sweet treats AND even a simple homemade appetizer, if you want. 

While this board of New Year’s Eve finger food looks pretty epic, it actually consists of one item I made, a few things I heated up in the oven, and 98% stuff I bought at the store.

This post will give you a ton of ideas to put together the New Year’s appetizers spread of your dreams. The board pictured here is for a big crowd, but if your gathering is a little smaller, just cut it down to a few of your favorite things.

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This Lasagna Recipe with Cottage Cheese has been in my family for generations!

Today, I’m sharing my family’s recipe for lasagna with cottage cheese. My mom got the recipe from her mom, and she often made this for Christmas day when I was a kid (and sometimes my birthday, too!).

First things first, let’s get this out of the way: Is this lasagna recipe with cottage cheese authentically Italian? No. Is it delicious? Absolutely.

YES, as the name makes crystal clear, this is lasagna without ricotta, and it uses cottage cheese instead. Yes, I know that ricotta is more traditional in authentic Italian food.

But hey, this recipe is from the Midwest (ope!), where cottage cheese is readily available, affordable, and delicious, and I am here. for. it.

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This Baked Chicken Caprese is bursting with flavor!

If the word “caprese” makes your mouth water, this is the perfect chicken recipe for you.

While caprese salad is best at the height of summer when tomatoes are at their peak, this Baked Chicken Caprese uses grocery store grape tomatoes any time of the year.

This skillet baked recipe uses simple ingredients to make succulent chicken breasts topped with a sweet burst tomato sauce and gooey cheese.

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This chicken pizza recipe has layers of flavor!

A recipe with this much flavor is usually one that involves hours and hours to develop that flavor (totally true of my fettuccine bolognese).

But, just like my gyro pizza, this chicken pizza recipe uses shortcuts from the grocery store to achieve a gourmet pizzeria flavor in just about a half an hour.

With unique, chef-inspired ingredients like roasted garlic, fresh mozzarella cheese and everything bagel seasoning, this will be the best chicken breast pizza you’ve ever made at home.

The recipe card includes instructions for cooking it in the oven OR on the grill (a perfect summer meal).

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The BEST Veggie Lasagna Recipe

We’ve all had bad banquet food. In my experience, it involves a choice of overcooked chicken or bad vegetable lasagna. The lasagna is mushy and overcooked. And unlike it’s meatier cousins like Greek lasagna, it’s usually runny and watery.

One of the few banquets I’ve been to that has had great food? My culinary school graduation, of course. My instructors knew what they were doing when it came to banquets. Not only did they offer up lamb lollipops and the best vegetarian quiche, but they knew that vegetable lasagna can be great if it’s made well.

And it turns out that making it well involves a secret ingredient. An ordinary item you can find at any grocery store, but it has a magical purpose when it comes to veggie lasagna.

Read on to find out what this item is, and why it guarantees that you’ll soon be enjoying the most flavorful, cheesiest, well cooked, NOT WATERY vegetable lasagna you’ve ever had.

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Am I the only one that considers ordering pizza to be the weirdest, most awkward social experiment? By nature, it’s designed to be shared with a group. But that also means that you and your friends all have to agree on toppings.

I don’t know about your group of friends, but mine have pretty varied tastes. One person wants mushrooms, somebody else stand them (too bad, because they’ll miss out on chicken stroganoff!).

Somebody else wants olives, but another person would rather have anything but olives. Oh, and then somebody wants a chicken pizza and the pepperoni lovers give them the side eye.

This usually results in ordering ALL of the pizzas and having leftovers for days (and spending way too much money).

With game day coming up, I came up with a fun option where everybody can get their way. It’s not quite the same as a regular pizza, but this crostini pizza bar is a fun appetizer to pair with other game day food like healthy buffalo chicken dip and my football themed charcuterie board.

By the time you load your plate up with snacks, you pretty much have a meal, right?

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DIY Charcuterie Cup Ideas

All the way from a Thanksgiving charcuterie board to a charcuterie chalet and many stops in between, there’s no denying that this time of year is perfect for as many fun charcuterie board ideas as you can dream up.

Whether you’re entertaining a crowd with a wine and cheese board or just having some snacks at home, this type of food is probably at its most popular during the holidays, so you can have a cranberry rosemary cocktail or grapefruit mule in one hand, and a snack in the other!

And sure, I’ve already done jarcuterie, and I know you’re thinking that this charcuterie in a cup really isn’t much different. And you’re right – it’s not! I’m just publishing these mini charcuterie cups to give you even more inspiration for single serving charcuterie this holiday season.

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This Spooky Pasta Salad makes a great Halloween Side Dish!

As you know, I am having the MOST fun with Halloween food this spooky season. Sure, Halloween dirt cups and Halloween cake pops are certainly not what I went to culinary school for, but who cares?

My husband and I have always loved Halloween, but having a little kid running around has made it even more fun. Truly, seeing Halloween joy through her eyes is even more magical than Christmas for us!

One thing I don’t see much of on the internet is Halloween side dishes! But everybody needs to eat dinner on Halloween to get their energy up for trick-or-treating.

Usually, I will serve something easy like crock pot beef stroganoff or a slow cooker soup for an early supper right before trick-or-treating. But I never knew what to do about a side dish until this year.

Enter this fun and colorful Halloween salad recipe. With pepperoni bats, spooky tortellini and mozzarella cheese skulls, it’s just as delicious as it is perfect for All Hallows Eve.

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Do you have “clean out the fridge” meals once in awhile, or even weekly?

Pizza is frequently on our menu for that type of meal, because pizza (and even a crostini pizza bar) is great as a vehicle to use up extra odds and ends hanging out in the fridge (like rotisserie chicken for chicken pizza or cheeseburger pizza made with leftover ground beef).

Often, these leftover ingredients are from two or three recipes I’ve made for work, resulting in one big Frankenpizza (which is honestly how the crab rangoon pizza came about).

Celery, grape tomatoes and odds and ends of cheese often need to be used up. And we always have shrimp of some kind in the freezer, because it’s one of my daughter’s favorite foods.

While shrimp is great for an appetizer or a seafood pasta salad, you might not generally think of it for pizza. I’m hoping I can change your mind with this buffalo shrimp pizza recipe.

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My family is still doing mostly carryout for restaurant meals these days. We eat on outdoor restaurant patios when the weather is warmer, but since we live in the Midwest, it’s takeout throughout the winter.

And I can’t say that I’m not sick of it. I am!

While some food is fine for carryout, like maybe lasagna cottage cheese or beef stroganoff from our favorite local hole in the wall, other food just does NOT carry out well. Particularly anything where the crispiness is really at it’s peak straight out of the fryer, like fried chicken.

And don’t even get me started on carryout brunch of any kind. I’ll stay home and make my own vegetable quiche, bacon in the oven and bloody mary with an epic garnish for a bloody mary, thanks.

But probably my least favorite dish to attempt to do carryout for is nachos. Nobody wants soggy chips, and they certainly don’t survive the trip home.

So, I’ve been making nachos of all kinds at home, where we can enjoy them fresh out of the oven, immediately.

We’ll do the classic ground beef/cheese/lettuce/tomato/tortilla chips variety quite often, or sometimes make them topped with my fajita vegetables recipe, but once in awhile we change it up and get creative.

These Wonton Nachos are inspired by the flavors of a pork banh mi sandwich, but turned into a crispy, crunchy plate of finger food.

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