Hosting parties can be a fun way to interact with friends, family, and your local community. However, it can also be costly. Many people don’t think about the price of having fun activities, food, and drinks, but it can quickly add up. Take pizza, for example; it can be a great way to please a large group of people, but when the rule of thumb is to buy a pizza or two per three people, that can end up hurting your wallet.
If you only plan to offer a few snacks, you risk having a group of people that are hungry and need someone to run out for more snacks. Sure, you can hire a service for a ride, like a New York chauffeur service to go and pick up another round, but it is easier and cheaper to plan it beforehand. These four party foods will feed a crowd, keep them full, and save you some money.
Kebabs
Kebabs put everything your party-goers may want to eat on one stick. There are so many options that make them ideal for appetizers or the main course. You can make fruit kebabs full of fruits like pineapple, grapes, and strawberries for a sweeter treat, or you can do meat and vegetable skewers with chicken or beef and bell peppers. You can even make cold pasta salad appetizers with things like salami and tomatoes.
The benefit of these is that they are easy to prepare in advance, and you can make a lot of different kinds if you have people that can’t eat certain foods or who have allergies. If you want to make your party a little more interactive and ensure that everyone has the foods they enjoy most on their kebab, you can even set up a kebab-making station.
People can make a couple of kebabs they like and then grill them. Some versions don’t even have to be cooked, so people can just grab them as they want them. Kebabs are a fun mix of a full meal and finger food. Throw some bread or other starch on a table nearby, and you have a well-rounded meal. And since you can pick which ingredients you want to use, you can stay easily within your food budget.
Soup
When you think of a party, soup may not be the first thing that comes to mind. After all, for the most part, people tend to have finger food available so guests can walk around and eat without needing utensils. Well, with the right containers, you can do that with soup as well. By putting the soup in small containers like shot glasses, you’ll have single servings that need no utensils. Shot glasses can be pretty inexpensive, and there are a variety of fun ones as well as simple glass versions.
Some popular soup options are minestrone, butternut squash, tomato soup, and chili. There are also a lot of options for cold soup if you want to have them set up in advance and not have to worry about keeping everything hot. Soup can be a unique and creative way to feed a crowd. Put a couple of additions on the side, like pepper, cheese, sour cream, and croutons, so people can customize their little shots, and you’ll have a fun snack. Soup is also relatively inexpensive and easy to make in advance.
Mini Sandwiches
Sandwiches are another option that gives you plenty of variety for a relatively cheap cost. Make fun sandwiches like grilled cheese, BLTs, cucumber sandwiches, sliders, meatball subs, and Ruebens like you normally would. Then, just cut them into smaller sizes, such as quarters. For things like sliders or croissants, there are mini versions available, so you can just make mini sandwiches without having to cut them. There may be better meals for those that are gluten-free, though there are gluten-free pieces of bread available.
But you can make this work with most food preferences, such as vegans, vegetarians, or people who want to have meat available. Sandwiches can be easily made in an assembly-line format, so you can get your whole family involved. And with four sandwiches coming out of every two slices of bread, you can easily make a lot while on a budget.
Chocolate-Dipped Bananas
If you want to add a dessert to your party, look at chocolate-dipped bananas. You can buy them in the store already made, but they are also cheap and easy to make yourself. Just take a lot of bananas, cut them in half, place a toothpick in them, and freeze them for a while. Then you can coat them in melted chocolate and toppings like nuts, sprinkles, dried fruits, or mini chocolate chips. You have a lot of freedom with these, as you can use any kind of chocolate and toppings that you like.
You can freeze them until you are ready to serve them. They work well for parties in summer when everyone wants something cool and refreshing to eat. If you want smaller servings, you can also look at cutting the bananas into thick slices. This gives you more servings and more of a bite-sized dessert instead of something people have to carry around.
Want more than just chocolate bananas? Since you are already melting the chocolate, look at other delicious items to dip, such as strawberries, pretzels, and even little cheesecake bites.
