Appetizers, Dips, & Snacks

Who doesn’t love a good snack?? I’ve got some of the best appetizers, dips, & snack recipes to get any party started, or just make Sunday afternoon awesome.

Maybe you’re looking for something fancy to serve before dinner or an indulgent snack. Maybe you believe guacamole is a meal in and of itself (no judgment here). Regardless, I’ve got you covered.

Here are a few of my faves to get you started:

You can see the full recipe index here or a more visual index here, or you can browse the archives below. One note, I haven’t included soups and salads here, but you can find them in the Side Dishes & Veggies section.

The Best, Simple Burrata Caprese Salad (…& How You’ve Been Doing Caprese Wrong)

June 15, 2021

It’s caprese season!!! One of my quintessential summer food pleasures is a really good caprese salad, particularly when the tomatoes and basil are at their peak. But once you’ve have a burrata caprese salad, you realize you’ve been doing it all wrong with boring mozzarella!

What is burrata?? For the uninitiated, burrata is a soft cow’s milk cheese and from the outside it looks kind of like buffalo mozzarella. It’s made of mozzarella and cream, and has a smooth outer skin but then a creamy, slightly tangy middle. It is REVELATORY.

That tight ball of bland mozzarella will be gone forever once you’ve had burrata. It pairs wonderfully with things like tomatoes, peaches, and melon, and many people also put prosciutto crudo with it.

It’s bomb on a good Italian-style pizza or stirred into a pasta dish. You can learn more about it here.

One thing that’s critical—the simplicity of this dish means that you need to use the highest-quality ingredients you can find to make it amazing. In particular, using really good olive oil, flavorful tomatoes, and a good sea salt will make this great.READ THE POST

Socca (Chickpea Flatbread) with Roasted Veggies & Goat Cheese

December 30, 2020

Be honest…if I say “chickpea flatbread”, does it give you immediate cravings?? I’m guessing that’s a NO. But it should. Socca has been on my radar for several months, but for whatever reason I kept putting off giving it a try.

Then last week I was starving, needed something super healthy, and had nothing in my fridge…I’d gotten back in town late Christmas Eve so everything was closed. I had some veggies clinging on for dear life in my fridge and that was it. So I decided that socca needed to happen immediately.

What is socca?

Socca (called farinata over the border in Italian Liguria) is a traditional Provençal flatbread and street food, somewhere between a pancake and a thick crepe. It’s crazy simple, made with chickpea flour and water, with a little salt and olive oil for flavor.

It’s naturally gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free, and high in protein from the chickpea flour. Cooked under the broiler, it’s got a charred top and golden, crispy outside, with a soft creamy inside, perfect for topping with whatever your heart desires.

Personally I love garlicky roasted vegetables and soft, salty cheese, but you can top with eggs, fresh veggies, meat, or anything else, or just slice it up into wedges and eat hot and fresh.

It’s satisfying, one of those healthy recipes that still feels a little indulgent. And perhaps most importantly, socca is flexible…as long as you have chickpea flour on hand you can make it, and then just figure out what your refrigerator has to offer for toppings.

I use a small 5-inch cast iron skillet for a single portion of this socca breakfast skillet. You can double or triple it for a larger pan to feed more people, but it’s so easy and fast to make that I wouldn’t try to use it for leftovers. It’s definitely best fresh.READ THE POST

Subtle & Delicious Salted Honey Custard

November 15, 2020

Y’all, I feel so fancy. After a billion hours of watching Great British Bake-Off, I actually undertook the omnipresent pastry cream or “creme patissiere” myself with this absolutely delish salted honey custard.

And here’s the thing—IT’S SHOCKINGLY EASY. (Side note, why don’t American desserts have more pastry cream?? Missed opportunities…)

Now granted, this recipe uses cornstarch (or “corn flour”, as the Brits call it), which Mary Berry seems to consider a cheat for the skill levels of GBBO contestants.

But it’s normal in most pastry cream recipes, and is definitely our friend here in achieving a thick, pipe-able pastry cream that is great for filling cakes, cream puffs, and more (you can see it trying to spill out of the cream puffs below).

And let’s talk about this flavor, which is so DREAMMMMMY. It’s sweet enough, but the salt balances it out nicely. Quite subtle. I’m not a caramel person and so have never really understood the appeal of salted caramel. Now I know that *this* is my own personal salted caramel.

I discovered this salted honey custard as a component in the cake I initially made for my birthday…”salted honey orange cake” sounded right up my alley. But I ended up finding that neither the cake nor the frosting really did anything for me.

This custard on the other hand was my everything, and so I did a birthday cake re-do recently—“Elvis” peanut butter, banana, & honey cream puffs with this as the filling.

READ THE POST

Easy, Awesome Homemade Caramel Popcorn

November 10, 2020

It’s weird because I don’t really like caramel, and I’m not super into popcorn…but I’m ALL IN on this homemade caramel popcorn.

My mom’s been making it since I was a kid, and it’s a must-have on Thanksgiving for my family. It’s just SO GOOD! She makes a massive tub and we munch on it all afternoon while playing cards and watching .

It’s also so easy…caramel can feel quite daunting. I’ve watched approximately 1,250 hours of Great British Bake-Off and caramel is always tripping up the bakers.

But the caramel we’re making today is the opposite of fiddly. And the actual hands-on portion of this recipe is quite minimal.

READ THE POST

10-Minute Stovetop Blood Orange Curd

October 31, 2020

It’s like I’m sandwiching the seasons with curd, somehow. I talked about falling in love with my easy pink grapefruit curd as the cool, sunny spring days gave way to summer. And now I’m clinging onto that feeling with this unique blood orange curd, as I cling to denial in a chilly, rainy fall taking a nosedive into true winter.

This recipe is similar to my pink grapefruit curd, in that I use a little less butter and go scant on sugar so as to not overpower the more delicate citrus flavor of the blood orange. While a lemon or lime can really punch through, I find that orange, grapefruit, and blood orange are a little more subtle and need a lighter hand.

I ended up using 2 blood oranges…just the zest of one but most of the juice of both (about 1/3 cup total). A little bit of extra lemon juice can help brighten just a bit, and a tiny pinch of salt just brings everything into balance.

The natural color of this curd will be a duller dark pink, possibly closer to a light brown. You can add a tiny bit of pink or red gel coloring if you want it to be a brighter pink, red, or orange…I didn’t here, but it would be super easy.

READ THE POST

Simple No-Cook Tomato Sauce For Traditional Margherita Pizza

July 26, 2020

Everyone should have a simple pizza sauce in their repertoire, something they can throw together in just a couple minutes from ingredients in their pantry. And for me, there is nothing more perfect in its simplicity than the traditional tomato sauce for margherita pizza.

I’ve been on a grilled pizza kick, both because it’s amazingly delicious, and also because I’ve been trying out all sorts of grilling different techniques to determine once and for all what the best is. And in the process I’ve eaten a loooooott of margherita pizza. So much. But so yumz.

Check out my deep post on how to grill pizza, and the best dough recipe for it!

There are just a handful of ingredients in this super simple pizza sauce recipe, so quality really matters. And all it takes is a quick whiz in the blender, so no heat, no mess, and literally 5 seconds. Then you can make this easy, delicious traditional margherita pizza! READ THE POST

10-Minute Stovetop Pink Grapefruit Curd

June 4, 2020

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am a lover of all things grapefruit. Citrus things in general are up my alley, but there’s something special about a ruby red or pink grapefruit flavor. So after I first tried my hand at a lemon curd and was blown away by its ease and flavor, I knew that a pink grapefruit curd was in my future.

The bright, sweet, soft flavors of this curd are inextricably associated with early spring for me.

As I fiddled with getting this recipe just right, we got a stretch of cool but sunny days, pink flowers popping out on the trees, and the neighborhood lawns turning a rich green. It’s a happy flavor tied to a happy time.

This pink grapefruit curd is a super simple adaptation of this simple lemon curd recipe. The technique is exactly the same, but I had to tweak the ingredient amounts slightly for both this and my blood orange version.

Because the grapefruit and the blood orange are softer, sweeter citrus flavors vs. the intensity and tartness of lemon, you need to back off slightly on both the sugar and butter in order for the real flavor of the fruit to shine through. It pairs really well with strawberries, raspberries, and the like.

Naturally this curd will be yellow, because the pink juice can’t win out against the egg’s yolk. If you want it to be pink, just add a TINY drop of food coloring (I prefer this gel coloring set and use it all the time). READ THE POST

10-Minute Stovetop Lemon Curd

April 15, 2020

The real question for this week is, why have I not made lemon curd before?!

I feel like you all are terrible friends for not making me try this earlier. Because, GUYS, this lemon curd is so easy and so delicious, and takes less than 10 minutes. You can do it while you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, or…other things that take around 10 minutes? I don’t know at this point. Regardless, it’s fast.

This lemon curd is quite sharp, but light and creamy. It’s perfect as a filling in simple crepes, topping a pavlova, or swirled through yogurt. Go nuts…layer it between cakes, spread it on toast, top coconut milk ice cream with it.

You might also like this pink grapefruit curd and blood orange curd!

In doing some research, I picked up a couple tips that were helpful (and mentioned in the recipe card below). First, don’t use aluminum cookware because it reacts with the lemon juice. I used a small stainless steel saucepan, which works perfectly. It’s important not to use too much heat…a good medium flame should work.

And then I recommend stirring together the sugar with the egg, and then add the juice right as you’re putting on the heat. If you add the juice to eggs without the sugar, the acid in the juice will “cook” the eggs and you’ll get those little white bits.

READ THE POST

A Fall Classic: The Best Homemade Apple Butter Ever

January 12, 2020

The very first time I made this recipe was many years ago, when the leaves were turning all shades of fiery red and orange, signaling a gorgeous Georgia fall. There was a chill in the air, co-workers arguing over SEC football, and comfort food cravings were haunting me.

You know what else says “fall”? Apple butter. Well, technically anything apple + cinnamon, but apple butter is definitely high up on the list. My mom had shared a homemade apple butter recipes from our family friend, Louise, and I decided to give it a try…and it’s become one of my favorite recipes of all time.

Since that time many years ago, making this apple butter has been a rite of fall. I’ve made it, without fail, every single year for going on a decade. I share jars with friends, co-workers, family…this stuff is legendary. And all the better because it’s so easy.

One of the best parts?? No peeling necessary–you keep the peels on your apples, because the pectin in the peels helps it thicken up. The combination of spices and brown sugar makes for a complex and warm flavor, completely adaptable to your own preferences. This is one of those great things that bubbles away on the stove, but takes very little hands-on time and effort.

I’ve posted the original homemade apple butter recipe as I was given it below, but when I make this I make one major tweak—the amount of sugar it called for seemed extreme, so I decrease it significantly. It lets the natural sweetness of the apples as well as the spices shine through, and makes it healthier overall.READ THE POST

Absolutely Addictive Marinated Feta Cheese

October 4, 2018

Marinated feta where have you been all my life?!

That was basically what my brain was yelling the first time I made this. It was meant to be just an ingredient in garlicky farfalle with marinated feta and arugula (now a fave of mine), but I pinched a little bite while I was cooking the pasta, and my mind was blown.

Easy, Amazing Marinated Feta Cheese | finding time for cooking blog

Since then I’ve made it on its own, either for tossing in a salad, for eating on crackers, or for just obsessively snacking on by itself. The key to making it especially amazing is to use a really good block feta (not the pre-crumbled stuff). Any block will do—and don’t go fat-free, bring on that fat—but I recently fell in love with the Pastures of Eden feta at Trader Joe’s (and wherever else you can find it). Amazeballs.