Easy Dinner Party Meals for the Time-Challenged Mom! (A 3-Course Dinner Party Menu in under 30 minutes)

In this article, we will explore some ideas for easy dinner party meals that won’t burn up your time or cost you a fortune. Hosting a dinner party can be a lot of fun and enhance not only your life but the lives of others.

 

 

Having children PLUS a career can pose extra challenges for enjoying those luxuries in life, like fitness and glamor – and don’t forget that ultimate luxury, the ability to give a memorable dinner party.

As a foodie myself, some of my most pleasurable memories are of dinner parties, not only where I was a fortunate guest, but those I threw myself. Yes, it can be a great pleasure to host a great dinner party, IF it doesn’t leave you frazzled and exhausted. Trust me, I’ve held dinner parties where I felt like the exhausted but stressed help and more recently, simple fabulous dinner parties that were effortless, and I was able to dress properly and enjoy my guests. I definitely preferred the latter!

The trick to easy dinner party meals is to select simple but elegant recipes, especially if you can do most of the work in advance (and even more so if those meals are really fast to prepare beforehand).

Note: The recipes below are for 4 people. If you are feeding more, then just multiply (and enjoy any extra leftovers for another meal)!

Easy Food for a Dinner Party 

This first recipe is really fast, easy, and delicious – great easy food for a dinner party and you will have an amazing cream of vegetable soup that would make a French chef proud (in fact I learned this from a French chef while living in France)!

Cream of Zucchini and Onion Soup 

 Serves 4 – duplicate for larger parties

 Ingredients

• 1/3 lb onion (about 1 small onion)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 lb zucchini (about 2 whole zucchini)
• 1 cup cream (or coconut cream) optional

 

Directions

1. Chop onion into big hunks and put into a pot with the salt.
2.  Cover with enough water to cover the onions and bring to a boil.
3.  Immediately turn down the heat, cover the pot, and allow the water to simmer for about 10 minutes, until the onions are very soft.
4.  When the onions are very soft and transparent, add the zucchini chunks and cook with the lid on until they are soft all the way through but still bright green (about 5-10 minutes). This step is critical, so stay by the stove, keep stabbing the zucchini with a fork, and pull off the heat as soon as they are soft all the way through, but still bright green. That is the exact moment to stop cooking the zucchini.)
5.  Blend the soup until it is completely smooth.
6.  Taste and add any needed salt. If you added salt, blend some more to make sure it is dissolved in the soup. Add the optional cream at this point. This will make your soup really luxurious!
7.  Serve with freshly grated pepper on top.

 

Slow Cook Party Meals 

Here’s an amazingly simple but impressive slow-cook party meal that will fill your home with the sophisticated aromas of wonderful home cooking that will greet your guests as they arrive.

French Beef Stew in Red Wine

Serves 4 – duplicate for larger parties

 Ingredients 

• 1 1/2 lbs beef chuck roast, cut into about 2-inch chunks
• 1 onion, peeled and cut into 8 pieces
• 1 medium carrot, top removed and carrot cut into about 1 1/2-inch slices
• 7 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme for beef (for lamb you can use thyme or rosemary)
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• 1 cup red wine (Merlot is recommended, or Pinot Noir but any dry red wine would be OK)
• 1 cup beef stock

 

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350%F.
2.  On your stovetop, in a Dutch oven, or heavy-bottomed pot, quickly brown the meat on all sides using a little bit of olive oil.
3.  Add everything else except the liquids and quickly stir. After the salt and pepper, pour the wine and stock over the salt and pepper to mix it in, put on a tightly fitting lid, and put onto the middle rack in the oven.
4.  Let your main course cook for about 2 hours, pull it out of the oven, and put a fork into the meat to test if it is cooked. If it is fully cooked, the meat will be very soft and will probably fall apart. Taste the juice.
5.  Serve with French bread or sourdough and green beans. You can also serve it with mashed potatoes or fettuccini.

 Note: This recipe can be made up to 5 days in advance and be warmed up in an oven for about 25 minutes (at 350ºF) in advance.

Make Ahead Meals for Entertaining – Dessert! 

Here is one of my favorite dessert ideas: A Fruit Cobbler (or Crumble as we called it in England where I grew up).

The recipe is so simple, it isn’t even necessary to create a recipe for it (but I will at the bottom of this post but you don’t have to use the same ingredients or ratios).

To prepare that delicious topping, which is so crumbly and tastes like shortbread, simply mix flour and a sweetener, then combine the mixture with salted butter.

I personally enjoy the keto diet, so I’ll use almond flour and real 100% monkfruit (as it is completely natural, free of calories, and tastes decent, even if not as good as sugar). For the sweetener, you can use sugar, coconut sugar (which is even better tasting and more healthy than regular sugar) or xylitol (which is better tasting than monk fruit and still keto but not natural or as good tasting as sugar). Then for the butter, I personally invest the extra money in salted Kerrygold (or Anchor if you are in Europe) as the butter is so creamy a delicious but you are free to use any other butter. If you have a Costco card and can find their Kirkland New Zealand butter, this costs less and is just as superb.

To mix these three magical ingredients, pulse with a food processor, if you have one, or you can do it the old-fashioned way and rub all the ingredients between your fingers and thumb until the mixture is in small crumbly balls that are all the same color. If you use a food processor, don’t over do it or the crumbles will turn into a lump of dough. (See recipe note on what to do if this happens. It isn’t a problem but will take a little but more of your time.)

This crumbly “dough” can be covered and left in the refrigerator for a week or so (or frozen for months in advance, for that matter). If you did freeze this topping, make sure to leave it out to come up to room temperature a couple of hours before your party (or put into the fridge the night before).

For the fruit bottom, you can use almost anything.

If really want to save time, you can use frozen fruit. I like blueberries and strawberries together (which are lower in carbs, so keto) but peaches are wonderful too.

Traditionally, you would peel and thinly slice raw (not frozen) apples and could add blackberries, which is a favorite thing to do during the fall in England.

Assuming you are going the fast route for this dessert, just pour some frozen fruit (no sugar) into a pie dish that is pretty enough to present at your dinner table, now shake the fruit around the dish to get it all roughly the same depth and leave it uncovered in the fridge for up to a day to defrost.

Just before serving your main course, pour the topping as evenly as possible over the fruit and put it into an oven that is preheated to 350ºF and cook until it is golden brown on top (about 25 minutes).

Then bring it to the table and serve it from your pie dish using a pretty serving spoon. This is great served with vanilla ice cream (that has been taken out of the freezer when you put your dessert in the oven, to soften up a little).

Blueberry and Strawberry Crumble / Cobbler Recipe

Serves 4 -ish

Ingredients

1.  4 oz strawberries, fresh or frozen
2. 9 oz blueberries, fresh or frozen
3. 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice (optional but recommended to add a bit of tartness)
4. 1 cup flour (white flour or almond flour)
5. ½ cup sugar
6. ½ cup butter (cold), cut into big chunks

 

Directions:

1.  Pour strawberries into a pie dish.
2.  Pour blueberries on top.
3.  Sprinkle with optional lemon juice.
4.  In a food processor on high, process the flour, butter, and sweetener for a few seconds, until just combined and looks like sand. If you don’t have a food processor, you can do this the old-fashioned way. First, in a bowl, mix together the flour and sugar. Next, rub the butter into the flour and sugar mixture, between your thumbs and fingertips, until the mixture looks like moist breadcrumbs. Shake the bowl and any big bits will come to the surface – rub them in as well.
5.  Sprinkle the dry mixture over the berries. (If the topping already came together into a big ball of dough, then pull it apart and drop blobs of it into onto the fruit and cover as much as possible (but not too important).
6.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until the top is golden.
7.  Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. (Bring your ice cream out of the freezer right after putting your cobbler into the oven so that it is easy to serve.)

 

Easy Dinner Party Ideas 

With easy dinner party ideas, you can entertain guests with sophistication and flair but have it all come across as flawless!

 

Here are some variations to your easy dinner party meals:

1. Substitute the zucchini for mushrooms, spinach, asparagus or baby peas. (I do this with fresh mushrooms, spinach and spinach but frozen peas as frozen peas are much easier to handle than fresh ones.)
2. Substitute the beef for lamb (but be careful, in the US, many people are not used to lamb and don’t like it, so always check with all your guests beforehand to ensure your party isn’t an embarrassing failure. However, for those who love lamb, this will be a really spectacular and rare treat. If you make lamb, it is even better with white wine. (I like Pino Grigio but any dry white wine would be excellent.)
3. Substitute about 4 oz per person of any kind of not-too-sweet fruit for the Crumble like fresh apples, peaches, or any berries. I wouldn’t try to use pineapple or mango as this would probably be too sweet but that’s just my taste.
4. For those that prefer a low-carb lifestyle (like I do) for the dessert, substitute the white flour for almond flour and the sugar for xylitol or erythritol.
5. Substitute your ice cream with a vanilla keto ice cream (Rebel is my favorite brand of low-carb ice cream)

 

Conclusion

These fabulous dinner party food recipes are easy and fun and can take you as little as 30 minutes to prepare in total time spent cooking and the best part is that most of it can be prepared in advance. Whatever you do, make sure that you start cooking your main meal at least 2 hours in advance (and then you will be free to do other things before your guests arrive, like arranging flowers, setting the table, doing your hair, makeup, and getting dressed (and/or any last-minute clean up of the house)! Just make sure that you have handled all your raw food before getting dressed. (You can make up your crumble and put it into the fridge before getting dressed to make sure your good clothes are not soiled or ruined.)

 

Pro Tip:

Try out and perfect these recipes before your dinner party to make sure you have nailed them before your big day. But as they are fast, fun, and economical, why not!

 

Author Bio
Claire Loré has been cooking enthusiastically since the age of 5 and has been learning ever since. After living (and completely relearning to cook in France, she moved to Florida where she founded and ran a very high-end healthy meal service which she sold recently. She has since been blogging and creating an online cooking school which will be open very soon.