How to successfully cook and host for the holidays — according to chefs and food people
Around the holidays, it’s a chore to wade through the many articles and guides to hosting the perfect soiree, nailing your yule log technique like a pro, and how to set the perfect table for Christmas dinner. And year after year, the same advice gets recycled.
If the past few years have taught us anything, though, it’s that change is inevitable, and that’s not a bad thing if you embrace it. In that spirit, we’ve compiled a few unconventional and unexpected holiday cooking tips and opinions on hosting from some chefs, bakers, and other food world people who know their way around a cookie table.
How do you host a perfect holiday party?
1. Don’t be afraid to simplify and outsource with pre-made or catered items
When you’re playing host — whether to a simple holiday party with a grazing table or a Christmas dinner with the whole family — it’s easy to get caught up in crafting the perfect menu and making every recipe from scratch.
However, that’s a recipe for burnout and overwhelm, and you don’t need to take everything on yourself. Bronwen Wyatt, the New Orleans-based baker behind the wildly popular cake business and newsletter Bayou Saint Cake, has revealed that rather than spend their holiday grunting and laboring over a plucked bird, she and her wife prefer to outsource their Thanksgiving turkey to a local fried chicken restaurant that offers five flavors of whole deep-fried turkeys.
In her newsletter, Wyatt wrote, “When you don’t roast your own turkey, you can dedicate your time and oven space to the sides, which are, after all, the best part. When we’re nearly done cooking our stuffing, casseroles, and vegetables, I’ll crank the oven to 400 and flash our fried turkey to re-crisp the skin and warm the meat. In that same vein — a high quality store bought gravy is also fine!”
The same idea works for other winter holidays. Whatever time-intensive centerpiece food you’ve envisioned for your party or dinner, it’s really not a big deal to pay a local professional to handle it for you so you can focus on the accoutrements — and dressing glamorously.
2. If you’ve been invited to someone else’s celebration, don’t show up empty-handed
“Rent and food costs are too (expletive) high to show up empty-handed,” chef and cookbook author Angela Davis writes on Instagram. It’s not exactly unconventional advice for many people who have grown up with the parental expectation drilled into their brains that you always bring something as a gift for the host.
However, we think it bears mentioning. Even if your friend issues that dreaded line: “no need to bring anything, just yourself,” you should still find something thoughtful to bring that won’t outshine the meal or festivities they have in mind, require fridge space, or create extra work for the host. Something like a nice bottle of wine, specialty ingredient like a fancy salt, spice, oil, or vinegar, or treat from a local bakery would be a safe bet.
3. Don’t stress over whether your guests will like your cooking
Easier said than done, but home cook and recipe blogger Jessy F. says it’s helpful to reframe your mindset before inviting guests into your home. In a TikTok, she said that she thinks something that intimidates many people when it comes to hosting is the fear that people won’t like their food.
“Terrible thought, right?” she says. “I cook for a living and I still get that kind of imposter syndrome.” But she urges people to reframe the negative thoughts, accept them, and move on, because “what if your family and friends love your food? They want you to succeed.”
4. If you’re tight on space, transform your bathtub or sink into a drinks cooler
Chef and cookbook author Alison Roman is the queen of cutting out unnecessary steps and foofaraw from hosting and cooking for a crowd. When it’s party time, she said in a New York Times story that she either stores cold beverages on her fire escape, or fills half her bathtub or an extra sink with ice and keeps bottles and cans in there.
She realizes it’s not a technique that works for everyone, but added, “You have to admit, it’s resourceful.”
5. Create space in your fridge by temporarily storing nonessential ingredients somewhere else
When the “Dining In” and “Nothing Fancy” author lived in a New York City apartment, she had a smaller-than-average refrigerator, so another hack she swears by is clearing out everything that won’t be used for the party or meal you’re hosting.
“Instead of tossing everything,” she wrote in The New York Times, “I pack a cooler with ice and use it to store all the weird mustards and miscellaneous condiments I refuse to part with. I also adjust the fridge shelves to clear space for the turkey and the 29 sticks of butter I’ll be buying.”
6. Think up ways your guests can ‘help out’ in advance
It takes a bit more planning and thinking ahead, but if you’re the type of person who struggles to multitask and has a brain freeze when guests arrive while you’re still in kitchen mayhem mode, it’s a good idea to anticipate the inevitable “what can I do to help?” question.
Tessa Velazquez, the Washington, D.C., restaurateur behind A Baked Joint, la Betty, and YESBABE, said in a blog interview that she circumvents this situation by “simply setting various food and drink stations around my home that require a *tiny bit* of DIY.”
“For example,” she says, “a drink station that has a premade martini, but cocktail shakers and garnishes to finish. Or a grazing table with all the snacks, cheeses, and spreads for you to assemble into your perfect bite. It forces people to move around the space and make connections organically.”
Giving people a little interactive task creates an “easy conversation entry to bond over your love for tinned fish or offer to make someone a martini,” she says. “From there, I see my guests go into deeper conversations and just let it flow.” Velazquez reassures readers that you don’t need a large living space to pull something like this off, either. She says she’s done it with parties of 20+ people in her 400-square-foot living room.
