With the rising cost of food and daily living increases due to inflation, preparing a holiday meal that feels special yet is cost-conscious might seem challenging.
However, you don’t have to sacrifice taste when pinching pennies. It just takes discerning where to be frugal and where to splurge.
While the dishes in this holiday menu sound and look impressive, they use affordable core ingredients available at most grocery stores. To make the gathering feel extravagant, recipes include a few reasonable splurges, mostly upgrading with specialty produce, like mandarin oranges, endive or peeled baby carrots with trimmed stems.
A couple of dishes splurge with time and effort. Quick-blanching vegetables to saturate their color is an easy cooking technique to upgrade baked pimento cheese without expense. A tricolor potato pavé takes two days to make, although the refrigerator and the oven do the bulk of the work. The investment in time is worth it.
And your loved ones will taste the love.
Chadwick Boyd is a food and lifestyle expert, magazine contributor and cookbook author. Find his work at chadwickboydlifestyle.com.
RECIPES
This year’s holiday meal can be fancy without breaking the bank. These frugal yet festive recipes include classic pimento cheese transformed into a bubbling, crowd-pleasing appetizer, an eye-popping crispy potato pavé, an elevated spiral-cut ham, and elegant cheesecake with tangy buttermilk and hints of mandarin orange.
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Baked Pimento Cheese
This is the kind of golden, bubbling appetizer that guests fawn over during the holidays. The chopped pecan and crushed butter cracker crust elevates the dish with little fuss or expense.
Surround the pimento cheese with specialty crackers, like Italian mini Croccantini or Raincoast brand crackers, found in the deli section of the grocery store.
Quick-blanching carrots with trimmed tops, cauliflower or sugar snap peas for just 1 minute in boiling water then cooling immediately in ice water intensifies their color and makes the overall presentation noticeably fancier. Crisp endive, gem lettuce, radicchio or radishes with their leaves scattered around the dip step up this appetizer, too.
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Tricolor Potato Pavé
Potato pavé, the French word for “paving stones,” is a decadent dish long reserved for fine dining. This year, though, thanks to British cook Poppy O’Toole and her TikTok video, the recipe has inspired home cooks around the world.
This recipe takes traditional potato pavé up one more notch, using three different colored potatoes to create a tricolor effect. Its preparation spans two days, so plan ahead. The effort creates a showstopping potato dish.
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Stuffed Spiral-Cut Ham with Cranberry Barbecue Sauce
A spiral-cut ham for Christmas has been a tradition in many homes for years. This recipe, with additions ranging from mandarin orange to ginger ale, brings big flavor, whimsy and beauty to the holiday table with minimal additional cost and effort. The barbecue sauce can be made several days ahead and stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. Bring it to room temperature before serving.
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Credit: Brooke Slezak
Buttermilk Cheesecake Tart with Gingerbread Crust and Bay Leaf Caramel Sauce
The tang of the buttermilk with hints of orange zest adds an elegance to classic cheesecake flavor while the gingerbread cookie crust brings a festive holiday touch.
A 9 1/2-inch tart pan with a removable bottom is optimal, though it can be made in a 9-inch pie plate.
If desired, garnish with sugared bay leaves and fresh cranberries, but remove prior to eating. To make sugared bay leaves: Brush bay leaves with beaten egg white, sprinkle with granulated sugar and let dry on a baking rack for 1 hour.
Caramel Sauce with Bay Leaves
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