Healthy Dinner Party Guide

Once upon a time the thought of being invited to a healthy dinner party would have most people running for the hills while frantically trying to think up excuses about why they were busy that night.

Today, more people are likely to turn down invitations to a dinner party if they think the food served up is not going to be healthy enough. The great news for anyone who wants to host a great healthy dinner party is that there are so many tasty food options that dinner parties can be fun as well as healthy. To help you host a healthy dinner party that will be remembered for the great taste of the food, as well as how healthy the meals were, we’ve put this healthy dinner party guide together that includes all our top tips.

Tip 1 – Serve food on Platters

Serving your food on platters allows people to eat as much or as little food as they want while giving them an opportunity to test everything on offer. If they find something in particularly that they absolutely love, they can have some extra serves of that food if they like.

Ideal types of foods for platters include finger food type items like healthy Vietnamese Spring Rolls. And this type of food is really easy and convenient to make in large quantities, all you need to do is slice up the ingredients, make a dipping sauce and then cook up some meat to put in the rolls – they even work great with seafood.

Tip 2 – Downsize your Plates

One of the problems with offering platters and buffet style food is that it’s easy to have larger portions, and as we all know portion control is one of the keys to eating healthy and losing weight. One way to help people keep their portion control in check is to use smaller plates for your guests to use.

This tip is clearly also very relevant if you are offering specific courses or in a buffet style.

Tip 3 – Serve Healthy Salads

Make sure to serve your guests healthy salads as part of your dinner party. There are so many healthy salad options today that you’re sure to be able to add a tonne of flavour while catering to the preferences of a range of palettes and preferences. As a guide, a healthy plate of food for dinner is made up of at least 50% salad or vegetables. Make it easy for your guests to get this much salad and vegetables on their plate by providing a couple of healthy salad options.

Tip 4 – Let Colour by your Guide

A healthy plate of food is a colourful plate of food. Make sure your dinner party guests can bring their plates alive with vibrant colours by offering them a range of healthy ingredients. Colourful ingredients typically pack both flavour and nutrients, which are both crucial elements in hosting a healthy dinner party.

Tip 5 – Serve Tasty and Healthy Desserts

One of the highlights of any dinner party should be dessert. And healthy dinner parties should be no exception. The good news is that there are hundreds of healthy dessert recipes that you can choose from, and many are so simple and quick to prepare that you can offer your guests at least a couple of options. And healthy desserts don’t just need to contain fruit to be healthy.

Tip 6 – Test all Recipes before Serving

People love to try new foods at dinner parties, but this should apply to the guests, not the host. The host may want to share amazing new foods and recipes with their guests, but they shouldn’t treat their guests as Guinea Pigs and being cooking meals and recipes for the first time at their dinner parties if they want to make them a success.

In addition to all the great entertaining recipes on this site, one of Tanya Whitfield’s, Retreat Director from OnTrack Weight Loss & Fitness Retreat, favourite healthy dinner party recipes is this great Chicken San Choy Bau Salad:

This Recipe Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 cos lettuce
• 500g lean chicken mince (or finely chopped chicken pieces)
• 5 spring onions finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic crushed
• 3 teaspoons grated ginger
• 100 g water chestnuts finely chopped
• 2 grated carrots
• 2 grated zucchini
• 8 button mushrooms finely chopped
• 1 tbsp. salt reduced light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
• Fresh bamboo shoots

Method:

1. Take finely chopped whites of the spring onion, plus the garlic and ginger and fry in a lightly sprayed wok for 1 minute
2. Add the chicken mince and stir fry until cooked through
3. Add the water chestnuts, carrots and zucchini and button mushrooms and fry for another minute
4. Finally take off heat, add the sauces and stir through.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes and add bamboo shoots.  Share chopped lettuce across plates, add a lettuce bowl to each plate.  Spoon chicken mix into the lettuce bowls. 

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