Finger Food Recipes

Jen Pelka of San Francisco's The Riddler loves serving Champagne with playful bite-size foods like pigs in a blanket. To take them up a notch, she brushes the puff pastry with a tasty mix of honey, mustard and fresh black pepper before rolling up with the hot dogs and baking.

These terrific little pastries, stuffed with spinach and two cheeses, are made throughout the town of Chania in Crete. Every cook has a version (some use onions; some don't). Chef Evelina Makrinaki adds a splash of brandy to the dough, making it a little fluffy.

This recipe is based on the Arabic lamejun, a thin piece of dough topped with minced meat, then baked. Here Grace Parisi flavors ground lamb with cumin, mint and pine nuts.

At Trummer's on Main in Clifton, Virginia, Clayton Miller makes a highly seasoned, Indian-inflected tomato jam with ginger, cinnamon, cumin and cayenne. It's a terrific accompaniment to his hush puppies—cheekily nicknamed "shut-your-piehole puppies" by the cooks in his kitchen.

This timeless tapa from Spanish cookbook author Penelope Casas has everything going for it—it's sweet, smoky and savory, all in one bite.

Smoky Spanish pimentón makes these eggs distinctive. It is available at specialty food stores.

This fun, high-brow take on pigs in a blanket swaps spicy andouille sausage for the hot dogs, with sweet mustard chutney as a condiment.

In this imaginative party snack, addictive garlicky bread sticks and marinara sauce resemble french fries and ketchup.

These light and cheesy fried potato croquettes are breaded twice: They’re dredged in bread crumbs, dipped in beaten eggs seasoned with mustard and garlic, then dredged in bread crumbs once more. The payoff is a supercrisp, flavorful crust for the filling of soft mashed potato and melted cheese.

To create these wonderful tapas, José Andrés makes a batter with crunchy nubs of chopped cauliflower florets, fries spoonfuls in a skillet and then tops the fritters with yogurt sauce and a dollop of caviar.

"In these cookies, you start with a sweet dough and the sesame seeds push it over on the sweet-savory continuum," says Dorie Greenspan. Blending ground almonds with the flour emphasizes the nutty sesame flavor.

Strips of prosciutto top each toast and are topped in turn with a mound of creamy white beans and sprinkling of crisp red onion. If you like, serve these with the Bruschetta Duet to make a tantalizing trio.

Mixing popcorn with glazed pistachios creates a sweet-salty snack that's fantastic with cocktails.

To make these addictive peanuts extra-tangy, Chris Yeo soaks them in lime juice before frying them and tossing them with tart shredded lime leaves. He served them at the Atlanta party because Georgia is the peanut capital of the country.

Olives marinated in citrus juice, garlic and spicy crushed red pepper become a sensational cocktail-party snack.

The key to these delicious bruschetta from chef Nancy Silverton is lots of olive oil. After she bakes the chickpeas with a variety of flavorings—including onions, pancetta and carrots—she purees them with a good amount of oil, spreads the puree on toasts and drizzles with a little more oil.

The secret to Boston chef Matt Jennings’s four-ingredient mignonette is cava, the Spanish sparkling wine.