Susty Friendsgiving: Our Guide to Throwing (Sustainable) Holiday Dinner Parties
Dinner parties have taken social media by storm. As a result of the pandemic and spending less time in public and more time in our smaller social bubbles, dining at home has become a much loved activity. Cooking in general has taken over our socials. Sourdough recipes, creative cakes, and even how-tos for growing your own green onions have populated all of our screens. Instagram and TikTok both feature tons of great DIY charcuterie ideas, themed cocktail nights, and other elaborate dine at home ideas. The rise of “cottagecore” aesthetics on TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest during the pandemic has given this cozy stay-at-home activity even more enchantment. There are tons of sustainable ways to level up your evening meal. To help you plan, we made a guide to hosting a susty dinner party, from the menu all the way to the playlist! Want to get crazy with it? We love going above and beyond at Sustainable Baddie, so check out some of our favorite ways to put together your very own winter dinner party (with a sustainable spin, duh)!
The Game Plan
Credit: Peacock
First things first: decide on your preferred structure. Are you going for an elaborate appetizer, first course, main course, dessert course, and cheese course? Or keeping it simple with dinner and dessert? Maybe a blend? We land somewhere in the middle: first course, main course, dessert course. Be sure to make extra, so that everyone has lots of leftovers for snacking on later. You can opt for making the whole meal yourself (or with a team) or go potluck style and have each friend bring a different element. If you decide on breaking up the tasks, consider transporting your goodies in reusables like Stasher products, in your recycled and reused glass jars, or wrapping them in DIY beeswax wraps. And always bring containers with you for any leftover deliciousness!
The Menu
Credit: tablescapeluvr
Keeping things seasonal is always a solid option for maintaining sustainability where food is concerned. If you’re craving a tropical panna cotta in December, you do you bestie. But if not, lean into what's most available. We love to stock up on our dinner party favs at the farmers market or other local hot spots for freshly grown food. We like to prepare for our farmers market outings by making sure we go into it with a list and a plan for what we will be cooking, and checking the market’s website or socials to make sure our list is in season! Currently, at New York farmer’s markets, tomatoes, squash, and pumpkins rule the stands. Obviously, sometimes we end up picking a few fun things for spontaneity's sake, but going to the market with our recipes ready keeps us from wasting food and wasting money! You could also choose to make the seasonal ingredients center stage and supplement with other ingredients from the grocery store. Soup is always a great first course that can be easily adapted for any season (for our Southern Hemisphere folks, we’re talking Gazpacho). This recipe for Moroccan Kabocha Squash Soup from Nasim Lahbichi is ridiculously delish and very autumnal (if you can’t find kabocha in your area, opt for butternut squash, or try another squash altogether!). Kabocha squash can be eaten with peel and all, making it a low-waste dish too! This soup is spicy, warm, and extra soothing, leaving your guests feeling cozy and at home.
Credit: Morroccan Kabocha Squash Soup from LAHB
Once you’ve chosen your first course, you can channel the same seasonal energy into your main course. Think of something that is easily shared and tends to end up with leftovers for your guests to take home or enjoy in the later hours of the evening! Everything Alex Cooks, a creator in the dinner party world (it’s a thing, we swear), recently cooked this whole fish for a dinner party affair with her friends. We aren’t suggesting that you have to cook a whole fish, but hey, if you’re an advanced cook, or you’re feeling ambitious, go off! For something a little simpler, consider a rice and veggie heavy main that can be popped in the pressure cooker to stay warm when the conversation gets good. We love this cauliflower rice vegetable pulao because you can incorporate different veggies depending on what you find. The meal is filling and will keep its yummy flavor if you end up with extras. Finishing it off with something sweet? Go for this delicious Navajo Cake that is made with simple ingredients you are likely to find any time of the year. Or, take in the last of the fall flavors and try your hand at these adorable single-serve apple cheesecakes.
The Vibes
Credit: tablescpeluvr
We know that when it comes to dinner-partying, the food should be center stage, but we love to take it over the top by curating the ambience of the entire evening. The key to an ideal dinner party is definitely in the details, from designing your own paper menus, to setting your table, lighting some candles, and turning up the music. We love coming up with DIY projects to make these super susty and super special! The table is a great place to start. For Instagram inspo, we love to browse the account @tablescapeluvr. Although most of these settings are professionally curated, you can definitely find a style and vibe that helps you create a vision. Other Dinner Party professionals, like Everything Alex Cooks and The Baodega, are also amazing inspirations for creating stunning at-home vibes. Once you have decided on your vision and concept, sift through your craft drawers, rifle through your recycling, and pull out your old journals to get started on the creation. Making menus by hand using scrap pieces of paper is a great way to get a classy but rustic look, and will make wonderful additions to your post party scrapbook. We love designing simple menus like these and placing one on each guest's table so they can examine before the meal, and take it home as a souvenir of the evening. You can go super simple like this classic colored pencil on paper, or throw in some calligraphy too! We like to pair our menu design with place cards too, so that every guest can have a designated seat at the table.
Another great way to curate your table is by picking a variety of fun dinnerware. Hit up your local thrift stores, flea markets, and estate sales for tons of fun, quirky, and/or fancy pieces. We like having a mix of different dinnerware styles and colors to make the table a bit more eclectic, but often, you can thrift entire tableware sets for a cohesive look too. Check thrift stores for other table setting pieces like taper candles, table cloths, napkins, and more. Your local thrift stores not doing the trick? Depop, Facebook Marketplace, Noihsaf Bazaar, Etsy, and Ebay are also filled with tons of vintage dinnerware. We have been loving the mid-century modern jadeite look, like this cup and saucer from Ebay, or if you prefer crystal, this gorgeous pitcher set from Noihsaf Bazaar.
Finally, it’s time for the finishing touches! Top your table with candles and flowers to bring the look together. You can make your own candles using soy wax which is a more sustainable candle wax option. This guide shows you how to make your own candles from start to finish using materials you already have at home (like those leftover glass jars taking space in your cabinet). Consider adding essential oils, dried herbs, and dried flowers into your candles to make them stand out. We also love having a floral element on the table. Flowers picked up at the grocery store or from a florist are not always the most sustainable, so we like to think of alternatives to these colorful centerpieces. When looking for fresh flowers, opt for in-season flowers that are grown locally. You can often find local flower farms at farmers markets in your area. We also love DIY flowers made from paper, or by knitting or crocheting them! Lastly, don’t forget to create your perfect playlist, or opt for a pre-made one on spotify. We love an upbeat mood with some oldies and goodies, but the Big Night soundtrack is always a classic for something super fancy forward.
Throwing our dream dinner party helps us get over the cold weather blues, and cope with whatever feelings and emotions we experience this time of year. Whatever that looks like for you, the most important element is good company. Having all of your friends in one space, cozied up under candlelight and munching on delicious home cooked meals, is one of the best ways to get through these darker days. All you need is your loved ones, some snacks, a great playlist, and you have yourself the perfect evening. But whether it’s solo or with your chosen family, eating dinner at home is automatically the most sustainable option. When we cook and eat at home, we waste less food, use less plastic and packaging, and often cut down on other things like transportation and energy use.
Credit: ABC
Now that you have all the ideas imaginable for making an Insta-worthy sustainable dinner party, there is nothing holding you back from planning your very own.
What are your favorite ways to curate a susty dinner party at your home?