When you are having friends over for a holiday get together, it can get a little stressful trying to plan the food.
On the one hand, you want everyone to have a great time and enjoy the canapés.
On the other hand, you don’t want to undo all your hard work by serving unhealthy food.
Why not consider that you could have both – a good time and good healthy food?
Eating well doesn’t have to mean eating dull food.
Today we have some ideas for some great options that you can use for your next party – and no one will even know that they are healthy!
Tips for party canapés:
- Remember that people will most likely to eating with one hand – so be sure not to offer them something too big
- Less is more – you don’t want to overdo it with too many flavours competing for attention. Keep it simple and let the food shine for itself
- If you are offering canapés in place of a meal, you will need to allow for around 7-8 pieces per person.
- Variety is important – it’s great to try and include different textures and styles of food. Go for some seafood, chicken, meat, and lots of vegetarian options too.
- Hot food first – it’s easier to try and serve the hot food first so that you aren’t spending too long in the kitchen during the party. After the hot food is out you can then take out the cold food and leave it on the table for guests to help themselves.
- Presentation is key – it’s a great idea to use good quality trays, napkins, and toothpicks to serve your food so that guests can see how much effort you have put in.
Some of our favourite healthy canapés:
- Bruschetta – not only does it look quite Christmasy, bruschetta can be thrown together in minutes and is always popular. Try making our Olive, Feta, Tomato and Basil Bruschetta – use a good quality bread and cut each piece into quarters for a tasty bite.
- Rice paper rolls – these are always a hit and allow you to create various flavours (perhaps one beef, one chicken and one veggie option). Here’s a tip – to make them more user friendly for one-handed eating, slice each one into 3 (it will look a bit like sushi).
- Chicken Skewers – these are great as a larger canape and taste great with this healthy dipping sauce.
- Mini Fish Tacos – instead of serving in the traditional taco shell, serve onto a plain natural corn chip.
- Ricotta Stuffed Mushrooms – choose small mushrooms for this dish so that they aren’t too much of a mouthful.
- Little jackets – roast up some new potatoes and top with some light sour cream and pesto for a perfect bite sized nibble.
- Fruit Skewers – these are great to offer at the end of the food service. They can be made to look festive by choosing red fruits (watermelon, strawberries) and green fruits (honey dew, green grapes, apple).
- Waldorf lettuce cups – simply make this healthy Cranberry Waldorf Salad and serve in baby Cos lettuce cups
- Fish cakes – again reduce the size of these Chilli and Lime Fish Cakes from the original recipe so that they are bite sized.
- Asparagus wraps – lightly steam some asparagus spears and wrap with a small piece of prosciutto ham.
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