Starter Recipe Ideas For a Dinner Party

If you are having a dinner party, you might be wondering about starter recipes. You probably already have the main course in mind and, whether that is going to be beef, chicken, something Chinese, fondue or something else, how do you choose which starter recipe to make? Actually it is not that hard to find something delicious.

With a dinner party, the idea of a starter is to whet the appetites of your guests. You do not want to fill them up because that would spoilt their appetite for their main course but you want to give them something tasty, appealing and the right amount of food to whet their appetite and make them want more, without filling them up too much.

Contrasting the Starter Recipe with the Main Course

When thinking about starter recipes ideas for dinner parties, you can break the different starters down into categories. Do you want to serve a hot starter recipe or a cold one? Do you want to serve meat, fish or vegetarian starters?

If you are serving chicken as the main course, for example, what about making a fish or seafood starter? If you are serving roast beef for the main course, you could serve a chicken starter recipe or something with fish. If you are making vegetarian food, you can serve a vegetarian starter.

Try to contrast the different courses. As much as your guests might love the chicken main course which you have been making, they will not want a chicken starter recipe before it. If you are serving lobster for the main course, you should choose something other than seafood for the starter, unless you are having a seafood themed evening!

A Few Easy Starter Ideas

A soup or a salad makes a good starter and there are lots of types of soups and salads to choose from. There are hot soups, warm ones and chilled ones and there are all different kinds of salads too.

You can make a simple soup or an easy, basic salad and this makes a perfectly adequate starter. Another easy option is garlic bread. Cut a baguette loaf into pieces, crush some garlic into some oil and spread the mixture over the bread, adding some finely chopped fresh parsley to the mixture. Put it under the grill until it is golden brown and serve that.

There are plenty of easy recipes for starters and you might want to make a classic recipe or something a little more unusual. Try to find out in advance if your guests have any preferences or allergies, so you can choose something they will love.

Bacon Wrapped Starter Ideas

You can wrap bacon around banana chunks, dates or prawns and deep fry them for a couple of minutes until the filling is hot and the bacon is crisp and golden brown. Grilling works for this too and these are starters which will smell incredibly good.

To make bacon-stuffed dates, which are really tasty, you need to remove the stones from a pack of dates, stuff blue cheese into them and wrap bacon around them. Use toothpicks to secure them and deep fry them or put them under the grill until the bacon is crisp. This is a really delicious recipe for a starter.