Favorite Appetizers + Best of 2016
Listed below are some of my favorite appetizers (I love appetizers!) as well as the top recipes of 2016! Enjoy!
I love New Year’s Eve for the appetizers. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could eat appetizers day in and day out. They are my kind of food. They speak my language. I love ’em.
I have lots of appetizer recipes posted over the years but below are my very favorites (you can see all my appetizer recipes here).
How are you celebrating the holiday? Or rather, what food are you making and/or eating on New Year’s Eve?
My Favorite Appetizers:
Also, as a little bonus to today’s post, I wasn’t planning on doing a roundup of my most popular recipes for 2016, but on Instagram a few days ago, many of you asked and begged and pleaded for one, so without further ado, here are the most popular posts of 2016! I love seeing the recipes you loved the most. I have a few of my own personal favorites (my family does, too) that didn’t make this best of list; I’ll share those next week!
Those cashew chicken lettuce wraps are sooo good!
I made the chicken bacon bites the other night they were great!! Thankfully the husband liked them because he had to have them as left overs the next night. Unfortunately I came down with what my kids had over Christmas now he’s been on his own for a week having to cook for him and the kids. 🙁 thanks for him a great last meal !!!
Happy New Year, Mel! Our whole family is looking forward to a year full of more great recipes from you. Your chewy pretzel bites are a family favorite now and we make them often, along with many, many of your other recipes. I am curious to know though, what are some of YOUR favorite cooking blogs?
I’m excited for this year, too! It sounds a little funny, but I really don’t check that many food blogs…not for lack of wanting…but because I just don’t have time and try very hard to seriously limit my social media/internet time other than getting stuff up on my own blog. Having said that, here are a few blogs I try to check in on because I make a lot of their recipes: Smitten Kitchen, Good Dinner Mom, Our Best Bites, Budget Bytes, A Bountiful Kitchen, Simply Recipes, Favorite Family Recipes, The Girl Who Ate Everything, 5BoysBaker…there are several more but that’s a good start. 🙂
Thanks Mel! Yours will always be our favorite go-to site, but some days it’s nice to know you have an arsenal of backup if needed!
Ooh- I could live off appetizers (and desserts, obviously) forever! And I will say that that lemon blueberry cake was probably the best thing I made all year. My immediate and extended family all loved it and I still dream about it!
I’ve made the bacon jalapeño cheese all three times this season. It is by FAR my favorite homemade cheesecake. I probably won’t make another.
Growing up (50 plus years ago), we had shrimp cocktail and then steak for New Year’s Eve. It was always just my immediate family – 1 brother and Mama and Papa. It seemed a very festive and adult dinner to me!
Now, some years I do the same as a good memory but this year it IS to be appetizers and on my list: I am still eating smoked salmon from a Christmas gift certificate order … Vital Choice: https://www.vitalchoice.com/product/smoked-king-salmon-4-8-oz, I am planning on some mini turkey meatballs with a soy-ginger sauce and I’m thinking about those pretzel bites on your list!
New Year’s Day: Black eyed pea salsa! (years ago I started with a PWoman recipe and now make it with whatever I have that sounds good-usually tomatoes/onions/jalapeno and the peas…no sense tempting fate!!)
I’ve been thinking I need to incorporate a black-eyed pea something into our New Year’s festivities! The turkey meatballs sound amazing!
href=”https://smittenkitchen.com/2011/12/scallion-meatballs-with-soy-ginger-glaze” target=”meatballs”
Our tradition is a bit backwards. We have appetizers for Christmas Eve dinner. It’s the best and the majority of our recipes are from you! The list has evolved over time but has settled to include: Spinach Artichoke Dip, Classic as well as Sweet Berry Bruschetta, Bacon Jalapeno Popper Cheeseball, Hot Pizza Dip Bites and the Bacon Wrapped Chicken Bites. All so yummy!
I LOVE that tradition!
Yum, great ideas! I (like almost everyone I know) got an instant pot for Christmas. I want to try making black-eyed peas for New Years, but I’ve don’t have a black-eyed pea recipe and I’m still pretty clueless using my new toy. Any suggestions?
I just did a quick google search…here’s a YouTube link to a promising recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id9xnXCQHIk
We always cook ours with a ham bone, and it gives them a delicious flavor!
Fun to see what type of readers you have…a lot of sweet-tooths for this year. I mainly look for main dinner ideas and then breakfasts. I simply love your recipes and am glad to see the cashew chicken one make the list since it looks easy and healthy. Can’t wait to see your families favorites. That is a really fun post that I use to try the missed recipes out on my kids and hubby.
What a great post!! I’m with you on the appetizers…. There are 5 things on you appetizer favorites that we have already made and devoured in the past week. My 14 year old son is so in love with bacon wrapped chicken that he volunteered to make it himself this year on Christmas Eve and he made a double batch. I think we will be making it again for New years. It’s always fun to see what the virtual world considered their favorites, but always way MORE fun to see what your family favorites are!! I’m super excited to see those next week. Happy New Year !!