With Christmas trees atwinkle and New Year’s parties and brunches comin’ up quick, it’s likely that you’ll find yourself needing to whip up a few festive snacks and sippers for the peckish peeps in your life. These are our go-to recipes for dips, desserts, drinks, and snacks to help fuel your next seasonal fête.
Be good to the Earth, Beanies. We’ll see you in 2024.
For dipping
Lemony Dill Butter Bean & Artichoke Dip
The best thing about this brightly flavored alternative to hummus is that it’s packed with filling protein, fiber, and fats, making it an excellent way to kick off the evening if you might be overindulging in adult beverages. Butter beans make this dip especially creamy, but any white bean will do—and if you don’t have dill, try alternative herbs like parsley, cilantro, or mint.
Cashew Butter ‘Cheese’ Sauce
For fabulous “queso” in five minutes flat, look no further than your pantry—as long as your pantry holds a few basics like cashew or sunflower butter, nutritional yeast, and miso paste. It’s worth keeping these items in stock, because this near-instant nibble is going to knock your Christmas stockings off and leave you wanting more.
Any-Greens & Artichoke Dip
This plant-based take on party-perennial spinach-artichoke dip is as easy to make as it is to scarf down atop pita chips or crostini. Best of all, it’s eminently adaptable and a great way to use up what you’ve got rather than running to the store for new stuff. No spinach? Use kale, collards, or chard—and plenty of the other ingredients are probably already lurking in your fridge or pantry.
For snacking & sipping
Crispy Potato & Pea Cakes
You can add any leftover veggies to these zero-waste crowd pleasers. In our version, leftover peas and mashed potatoes transmogrify into crispy, samosa-inspired skillet cakes to dip in a delicious cilantro-peanut chutney. They can also get dressed up with various toppings (à la blini or latkes). As written, the recipe yields eight generous cakes, but if you make them silver dollar size, they’ll go further.
Hearty Stuffed Portobellos
Stuffed mushrooms are a cocktail-party classic, and this amped-up holiday version is extra sumptuous and satisfying because its filling incorporates oysters, our favorite sustainable protein superstar. Sprinkled with the most delicious plant-based “parm” topping, these fantastic fungi pair perfectly with a glass of bubbles. The recipe calls for four large or eight small shrooms; go with the littles if your goal is bite-size canapes.
Pine Barrens Cocktail
Cranberry and pine are the flavorful focus of this Yuletide intoxicant from bartender Danny Childs. The ruby-red tipple is tarted up with cranberry—homemade jam, a dollop of cranberry sauce, or (heck, we won’t tell) a simple splash of juice if that’s all you’ve got. Amaro and gin lend the piny botanical notes, and you can forage for the evergreen-sprig garnish in your wreath or tree.
For dessert
PSL Cheesecake
Before we jettison the pumpkin-spice everything until next fall, let’s indulge in one last, luscious hurrah in the form of this plant-based cheesecake from our best baking bud over at . Her PSL on a plate is the holiday treat that keeps on giving, in that the caffeinated whipped topping will keep you alert till the end of the party.
Brown Sugar Apple Galette
Good plant butter is the secret to a tender, flaky crust in the easy, adaptable rustic tart known as the galette. Whether you use apples, pears, or any other fruit, the resulting free-form pie comes together in a fraction of the time (and with a fraction of the effort) of a regular pie.
Peppermint Bark Brownie Cookies
A trio of seasonal staples come together in this date-sweetened holiday cookie mashup. Date purée stands in for white sugar, which gives the already ooey-gooey treats an extra dose of brownie-like fudginess. Finish ’em all off with a bath of white chocolate and a sprinkle of crushed candy canes to round out the bark-brownie-cookie trifecta.