Memorial Day Picnic Ideas

By Food & Wine
Updated May 21, 2019
Greg DuPree
Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial start of summer—cue beach days, frozen drinks, and basking in the sun. It’s also a great time to dine al fresco, whether you host a barbecue in your backyard or spread out a blanket for a good old-fashioned picnic. If you go with the latter, we’ve got several recipes that go beyond your typical cheese and fruit spread, including a light antipasto salad and bacon, cheddar, and onion quiche. Check out all 14 dishes below, and start planning your picnic now.
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Strawberry Crème Fraîche Biscuits

JOHN KERNICK
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Abigail Quinn laces her buttery, tender, crisp biscuits with fresh strawberries and serves them with sweet and tangy strawberry-swirled crème fraîche.

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Antipasto Salad

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At tiny Frasca Food and Wine, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson (an F&W Best New Chef 2005) is famous for his Friulian food. When Frasca moves to a bigger space later this year, he'll open a casual cafe serving dishes like chopped salads made with greens grown on the roof.

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Red-and-Green Coleslaw

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This classic coleslaw dressed with mayo and sour cream is excellent on its own or piled onto pulled pork, brisket or smoked-meat sandwiches.

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Bacon, Cheddar and Onion Quiche

MICHAEL TUREK
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"To make a proper tarte flambe, you need a wood-burning oven with a stone floor," explains Jean-Georges Vongerichten of the thin-crusted Alsatian pizza topped with bacon, onions and fromage blanc. Here, he folds those same basic ingredients (replacing the fromage blanc with cheddar) into a light custard and bakes it in a buttery pastry crust. "Not everyone has a pizza oven at home, so I decided to make it in the form of a quiche."

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Classic Potato Salad

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Baby potatoes have a naturally sweet flavor and creamy texture that's delicious in this classic recipe.

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Carrot-and-Chickpea Salad

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Chef Charles Kelsey of Cutty's in Brookline, Massachusetts, tosses chickpeas and carrots with a deliciously unusual combination of smoked paprika, cumin and cilantro.

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Beet Hummus

© Adrian Gaut
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This stunning magenta hummus is all about the beets, and, though it’s made without chickpeas, it’s flavored with tahini, garlic and spices, like traditional versions.

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Baby Lettuces with Feta, Strawberries and Almonds

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This salad is an extraordinary combination of ingredients that wouldn't seem to go together: feta, strawberries and almonds.

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Riesling Sangria with Lychees

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"Our consulting beverage director, Peter Vestinos, makes fun of my drinks because they're always a little sweeter than he likes," says chef Bill Kim. Kim's fruit-filled sangria is a bit sweet, yes, but it's also refreshing, thanks to the lemon juice.

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Sweet and Tart Lime Bars

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Ludovic Augendre, executive pastry chef of the specialty food shop Fauchon in New York City, makes his Key lime tart with two layers: The bottom is an almond-based cream and the top is a puckery lime curd.

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Smoked Fish Dip

Greg DuPree
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Smoked fish dip is a summer staple on the Georgia coast. This creamy mayonnaise and whipped cream cheese dip, seasoned with lemon juice, mustard, horseradish, and Old Bay, is inspired by Griffin Bufkin’s smoked fish dips at Southern Soul Barbeque on St. Simons Island.

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Chicken Caesar Skewers

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F&W’s Justin Chapple quickly marinates chicken in a Caesar-inspired marinade flavored with garlic and anchovies before skewering and broiling. He serves the chicken with lettuce leaves for wrapping.

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Vegetable Sandwich with Dill Sauce

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Stacked high with slices of tomato, onion, cucumber, avocado, and provolone cheese, this is a vegetable sandwich that even confirmed carnivores will love. You can add or substitute other fresh vegetables; radishes, spinach, or grated carrot go particularly well here.

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Viet Rice Paper Rolls

Greg DuPree
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Practically any ingredient can fill a rice paper roll so long as it’s soft or thinly cut so it can be easily manipulated and contained. Use this recipe as a road map for quantities of ingredients and assembly instructions. Once you learn the basics of rolling, swap the shrimp for pork, chicken, or tofu, or the fresh carrots and cucumbers for sautéed shiitake mushroom caps.

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