If you are looking for hot starters recipes for a dinner party, buffet or another gathering, you are in luck. There are literally hundreds of hot starters recipes to choose from, including meat, fish, poultry and vegetarian starters. You might fancy making a soup or chowder.
Perhaps you want to make classic hot starters recipes like chicken satay, fish cakes and a dipping sauce or camembert baked in its box with cranberry sauce on the side. Or maybe you fancy trying something new and unusual like tortilla chips with a hot artichoke dip or a hot spinach dip.
So Many Choices
There are lots of different hot starter recipe ideas you can think about, depending on the occasion, your level of cooking expertise and how many people you are catering for.
There are dishes you can make with just 3 or 4 different ingredients if you want to keep things simple. Hot, melted camembert or hot camembert with cranberry sauce takes mere minutes to make but is so good – and there are only two ingredients. Pate with hot toast is another simple starter idea.
It is always a good idea to keep things basic when catering for a group. Trying to do too much or make things unnecessarily complicated can lead to disaster! Easy starter recipes for dinner parties are the best to make. Easy starters can be just as delicious as fiddly ones.
How to Make a Scallops Starter Recipe
Scallops might not sound like an example of a simple starter recipe to you but, honestly, scallops are easy to cook! They are also a very impressive starter idea. Think about serving scallops as a starter – the following delicious recipe might help you to make up your mind.
This recipe serves two people and the scallops are great to work with. You simply sear them for two minutes on each side in hot oil. That is how easy it is to cook scallops! Before adding them to the pan make sure they are dry, else the oil might spatter.
What you will need:
4 scallops
4 slices parma ham
3.5 oz (100g) wild greens
1.5 oz (50g) almond slivers
2 peaches (fresh or canned)
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 tablespoons peach juice or orange juice
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
How to make it:
Mix the sherry, sugar, peach juice or orange juice, olive oil, vinegar and salt together to make the dressing. Peel the peaches if you are using fresh ones, then slice them. Blanch the greens in boiling water for half a minute, then drain well.
Tear the parma ham into small pieces. Heat a little oil in a frying pan. Season the scallops, then sear them for a couple of minutes without moving them. When they are caramelised and golden brown underneath, flip them over and give them a couple of minutes on the other side.
Transfer the scallops to a serving plate, then add the peach slices, parma ham, greens, almonds and dressing. Serve immediately while the scallops and greens are still hot.
This recipe is so good but then so is our camembert with cranberry sauce recipe, so consider the occasion and how much time you wish to spend on the appetizers, and then you can make the best choice about what to make.
