Potluck BBQ ideas for the summer
It’s summer, the sun is high, the grass is long, and the conversations make you smile. So what’s to stop you cooperating on a BBQ with your friends? The idea for a potluck BBQ is simple: everyone simply brings along a BBQ ready dish of their choosing, and hopes that what they have created will go down best. Because it is a BBQ, some meaty or veggie dishes will need to be ‘finalised’ on the grill, whereas other dishes, like salads and side dishes, can come pre-made. Depending on the number of people attending the BBQ, it is wise to designate people to bring different kinds of dishes, because as lovely as grilled bacon wrapped sausages are, you really don’t want everyone turning up with them, convinced that their idea is unique…
To avoid this, and depending on how many people are attending, we recommend assigning the following roles:
- Appetisers
- Meaty dishes
- Veggie-friendly mains
- Sides
- Salads
- Drinks
People always have different availabilities (not to mention cooking skills!) so for those with less time to prepare (or who claim they are busy to hide their lack of food skills), we suggest you assign them with the drinks. Apart from this, depending on whether there are vegetarians attending, veggie-friendly dishes could also be dropped, however Froodini does not recommend this because we can’t resist some juicy grilled vegetables!
What should you bring along to a Potluck BBQ?
We have already told you which courses you need, so now let’s get down to the details! Here are the dishes Froodini reckons you just can’t do without.
Appetisers
Baby corn with butter and spices
For this simple starter, just bring along some carefully-wrapped baby corns and some decanted spices. The fancier the containers for your spices, the better, so we suggest mini jam jars. The spices we recommend are cumin, paprika, and pepper, but as always, feel free to bring more along. Finally, also bring some almond butter – by smearing this onto the roasting hot baby corn, the spices can adhere to it better. If you want, you can even make the almond butter yourself!
Sides
Halloumi burgers
Everyone is picky about their side dishes, so why not make the one you bring along customisable? With halloumi burgers, you can. All you need are bread rolls, halloumi, salad leaves, sliced onions, tomatoes, ketchup, and any other ingredients you choose. Then sit back as your guests build their own sides, meaning that you dish can never receive any complaints!
Main
Meatball Salad
There are lots of different meatball salads to be found online, most of which involve making the meatballs from scratch. We thoroughly recommend this, but understand also if you have not done this before and would therefore prefer to test the food out on yourself first! For this reason, we recommend buying meatballs and then basing a salad around them. Ingredients which go well with meatballs include Greek yoghurt, lemon juice, tomatoes, olive oil, and mint. A simple salad which most people won’t have tried before.
Easy Potluck BBQ side dishes
From salads to snacks and from fast food to healthy bites, there is a seemingly endless supply of side dishes you can choose from. Therefore, Foodini is bringing you three of our favourites.
1. Homemade Chips
Cutting potatoes into shapes which vaguely resemble chips can be quite hard, so we recommend perhaps buying a potato cutter first which does this first time. Failing that though, who cares? The chips are homemade anyway, so some wonky ones will always be accepted. To complete the whole thing, why not make your own tomato sauce too? A way to thoroughly impress the other guests.
2. Quinoa and Vegetable Salad
The perfect thing about this salad is that it doesn’t matter if it is served cold or hot, so if you live a while away and have to transport it, you’ve nothing to worry about! Simply roast a selection of vegetables in the oven, making sure to include onions and garlic, and then put the quinoa on at the same time. Afterwards simply mix all the vegetables and quinoa together, and drizzle everything with lemon juice, and add feta and parsley. Unbelievably tasty.
3. Mac and Cheese
For something a little more filling, mac and cheese will have you covered. With mac and cheese, portion size is the easy part, because of how little preparation time is required! Doubling the portion size hardly adds to the overall preparation time, which means this dish can always be adjusted depending on the size of the party. What’s more, it can be re-heated seemingly indefinitely!
Potluck BBQ invitation wording for your event
As with all invites, the more personal the better. So unless you are planning a massive party, then writing a personal and non-generic message will always encourage your guests to actually turn up! At the same time, you can also sneakily tell them which area of the meal they should focus on, just to ensure you don’t get 10 quinoa and vegetable salads! (But would you really complain? Okay, you might.)