The small pieces of appetizers go a long way in making a meal memorable and are a great way to bring out the best of flavors and options. However, many of us find ourselves limited when we think of appetizers, working with only a couple of recipes.
Well, these easy appetizer recipes should bridge that gap with some inspiration, ideas, and wholesome deliciousness. So, whether you’re hosting a party or just want a nice meal for the family, take a look at this inspiration to up your game!
Wholesome Appetizer Recipes That You’ll Love
1. Pimento Cheese Pinwheel Sandwiches
This simple appetizer has quite the style and spirit. Despite the name, this one doesn’t use bread; you’ll be making the sandwich with tortillas instead. Other key ingredients include a good helping of shredded cheddar cheese, some pimento for heat and flavor, cream cheese, minced onions, and mayonnaise, if you so prefer.
Add seasonings of your choice, and though this one doesn’t need a dip, you could add some hot sauce to the mix.
2. Bacon Wrapped Little Smokies
These little smokies sausages covered in bacon look like just the right thing for making a lovely appetizer. Another feather in the cap for this recipe is that the ingredient list is super simple. Apart from the bacon and sausages, it needs maple syrup.
Serving makes use of toothpicks. This way, the bacon can stay wrapped on the smokies sausages. Also, it’s way easier to pick up the bite-size appetizers and enjoy them with convenience and ease. Just remember to keep count! These things disappear from the plate pretty quickly.
3. Easy Bacon Jalapeño Poppers
The serving style can often be the heart of a recipe. In the case of this recipe, the little boats made by hollowed and cut jalapeno peppers form a lovely base for a filling of some bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, cream cheese, and seasonings of your choice.
While the peppers provide flavor and heat, they also work as a base that makes it convenient for you to just pick up these appetizers and take a bite! The recipe requires a bit of baking, with some care required to ensure you don’t overbake.
4. Italian Stuffed Stromboli
Stromboli shares some of its styling and cooking with pizza. Indeed, it’s often made with pizza base and can include the usual ingredients you’d find on your pizza, giving both a similar flavor. This recipe banks on, and highlights this connection to whip up a wonderful, pizza-styled stromboli that’s a treat worth loving.
It has quite an extensive ingredient list and will take some time to whip up. However, once it’s cooked and on the table, the stromboli is tough to beat as an appetizer.
5. Burrata With Tomatoes And Pesto
The elegance and style of this recipe is sure to win hearts with its simplistic cooking and eye-catching serving. Garlic toasts are an absolute delight in this dish, providing texture and a depth of flavor that goes remarkably well with the other ingredients.
Speaking of, other key ingredients for this recipe, the highlights are cherry tomatoes, burrata, pesto, your choice of seasonings and some other ingredients. The recipe suggests serving and garnishing the dish with basil leaves. It’s a good choice that makes the recipe look great, while also adding some freshness.
6. Crescent Rolls With Cream Cheese Filling
Crescent rolls are a good snack and appetizer any day of the week, but this recipe gives them a special twist. The serving styling makes them the right fit for an Easter-themed appetizer.
Much of the heavy lifting for the theme is done by the fresh parsley leaves sitting atop the crescent rolls. Of course, the rolls being in the shape of carrots adds to the whole appeal and styling. Now that’s a treat the easter bunny would love!
7. Boursin Puffs
Whether you’re making a small appetizer treat for yourself, or for a crowd gathering to enjoy a meal, these boursin puffs could potentially be a hit item for the table.
The ingredient list is quite simple, and includes puff pastry, boursin cheese, an egg, onion chutney or a caramelized yellow onion, and seasonings if you prefer. A little bit of preparation and baking goes into bringing all the ingredients together, leading to a lovely and flavorful appetizer.
8. Potato Lollipop
Here’s a simple, but delicious recipe that’s fit for any occasion and can be a star appetizer. The potato lollipop is quick to prepare and is a versatile recipe that you can modify to your preferences. So, whether you want to make it more spicy or add other flavors, the mashed potato batter can change to your requirements.
Then, it’s off to some deep frying to get that crispy, golden touch. To complete the lollipop style, impale them with a toothpick and you’ve got the appetizer good to go!
9. Cheddar And Jalapeno Stuffed Dates
This is a lovely appetizer that’s fit for several occasions and perhaps the colors are suited for Christmas as well. It’s a sweet and savory combo with a rather unique and interesting texture. It helps if you’re used to cooking with dates, so the recipe flows more easily.
The recipe suggests using medjool dates, preferably pitted, or you can pit them yourself. Fill the pitted dates with cheddar and jalapeno and wrap them up in strips of prosciutto. Dates are sticky, so the prosciutto should stay in place, but if you want to go the extra mile, use a toothpick to secure the prosciutto in place.
10. Bruschetta With Tomato, Anchovy And Garlic
Here’s another simple and quick recipe that’s good for any occasion. I sometimes prepare this or something similar when watching the super bowl with friends or other small gatherings. And the reason is that it’s simple to make, can be made in good quantity, and if necessary, another batch can be whipped up quickly.
It can start with Ciabatta bread, though the baguette works as well. Grill the bread, rub it with fresh garlic, and add diced tomatoes, herbs, and seasonings of your choice. Canned, salt-cured anchovies are a great addition too, and bring more flavor to the recipe.
11. Copycat Chick Fil A Sandwiches
Love Chick Fil A sandwiches? Well, you can make them cheaper at home with copycat recipes like this one! Some of your cooking skill will go into deciding whether the sandwich can be better than the original!
The recipe makes use of hamburger buns. You can fry them the old-fashioned way or use an air-fryer so that it uses less oil. There are quite a few ingredients here, and it will take some time to put it all together. So prepare to put in some elbow grease!
12. This Super Bowl Sunday Snack Bowl
This is a lovely snack board full of appetizers that go just the right way for the super bowl. The football in the center ties it all together for the occasion, though I guess you could get creative and use the same skills to suit other occasions as well.
It’s quite a spread with nugget steak bites, salami shrimp skewers, snacks, fruits, and more finding their way into the snack bowl.