This New Year's Eve, Forget the Knife and Fork

There are lots of different ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Maybe you’re dancing the night away in a club or freezing your toes off waiting for the ball to drop. Perhaps you’re celebrating at 8pm so your little ones can go to bed on time. For us, good friends and great food are the best way to celebrate. That’s why this year’s New Year’s Eve spread is filled with hearty appetizers that are best shared. And while we love a little glitter and glitz, we’ve gone casual. At our table, everything’s meant to be eaten with your fingers. 

That said, we didn’t skimp on decadence. 

Cheesy Meatball Sliders with Caramelised Onions — These flame-fired meatballs are smothered in sweet onions and provolone  before getting the slider treatment between our buttery, homemade Parker House rolls. 

Pizza Crostini Trio — Blind-baked pizza dough serves as the crunchy, blistered base for this trio of “crostini.” Each is covered with something more fabulous than the next. Think ricotta, marcona almonds and speck; ricotta and broccolini; and burrata topped with trout roe. 

Hot Crab Dip — While indulgent and festive, this luxurious-feeling appetizers best eaten with an inexpensive bag of ridged potato chips. After all, if there’s not an oily potato chip fingerprint on your champagne coupe, did you even do New Year’s Eve?! 

Hot Crab Dip Pizza — At a party full of finger foods, we would never forget pizza, the ultimate handheld meal. On our table this year is a crab dip pizza sprinkled with fried shallots. Ooni HQ Test Kitchen recipe developer and culinary advisor Kelsey Small spent more than ten  years working in restaurants, where in his experience, fried shallots were “always the first thing to get eaten back in the kitchen.” After we tried his recipe, we understood why. Crispy, delicate and delicious, these tiny onion rings make the crab dip pizza special. We wouldn’t fault you for whipping up some extra and putting them out right on the cheese plate. 

So join us, why don’t you? This year, we’re bringing out the napkins, the Champagne and the good vibes, but losing the cutlery and the sit-down dinner. Here’s to more fun and less fuss next year!