Potluck fails - help

[Anonymous]

Petty but hear me out. Nothing I take for a potluck gets finished. I use recipes and tips from America’s Test Kitchen and Cooks’ Illustrated and use ‘high’ quality ingredients but they turn out pretty unimpressive. I am an immigrant and don’t have recipes passed down from my family and didn’t grow up eating these foods (I’m Peruvian). I tend to use online sources. So help me out - what are good sources to make crowd-pleasing recipes. To give you an example this is what I made recently that didn’t go over well.

Dessert - peanut candy-marshmallows-pretzel squares with Guittard chocolate chips for a 4th of July themed potluck.

Pasta salad - pasta cooked soft per recipe, with sundried tomatoes, olives and marinated stuff, dressing made with olive oiletc.

[Anonymous]

My son has an anaphylactic allergy to peanuts, OP, and I know a few other kids like him. I NEVER bring nuts to a potluck.

Pasta and potato salads are usually never the most popular items, because everyone has preferences as to ingredients. There isn't ONE favored recipe.

[Anonymous]

I'm an immigrant too, and I would have eaten your pasta salad.

Your dessert sounds like something my ILs would put out on 4th July and none of us would eat because it's too sweet.

I really think that it depends on the crowd that you are feeding. I've been to 4th of July meals where the food has been fantastic (IMO), and other meals where everything is made with canned soup and topped with cornflakes and marshmallows (SIL's house).

[Anonymous]

My pot luck go-to’s:
-7 layer cookie bars (cut them into small diamonds for a lil bit fancier presentation)
-pesto pasta (I make this GF nowadays, and my family always made it with walnuts)
-cut watermelon
-cut oranges
-meatballs in bbq sauce in a crockpot
-caprese salad skewers
-bacon wrapped dates
-flavored seltzer cans (think la croix or spindrift) for beverages (make sure to bring chilled)
-ice
-Ghirardelli brownies (or I like the King Arthur boxed mix for GF)
-spinach dip with crudite or chips
-Queso dip with chips
-7 layer dip with chips
-hummus and veggies
-Whole Foods guac and chips

[Anonymous]

PP here again.

Foods that have gone down well with my American ILs:

Grated carrot salad with raisins, lemon juice, olive oil, cinnamon and ginger (it's Middle Eastern, but I call it carrot cake salad).

Baked New York cheesecake (even my FIL ate this one). Recipe from Cook's Illustrated.

Feta and watermelon salad (easy on the feta).

Melon wrapped in Parma ham (even the kids loved this).

Potato wedges with steak seasoning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Petty but hear me out. Nothing I take for a potluck gets finished. I use recipes and tips from America’s Test Kitchen and Cooks’ Illustrated and use ‘high’ quality ingredients but they turn out pretty unimpressive. I am an immigrant and don’t have recipes passed down from my family and didn’t grow up eating these foods (I’m Peruvian). I tend to use online sources. So help me out - what are good sources to make crowd-pleasing recipes. To give you an example this is what I made recently that didn’t go over well.

Dessert - peanut candy-marshmallows-pretzel squares with Guittard chocolate chips for a 4th of July themed potluck.

Pasta salad - pasta cooked soft per recipe, with sundried tomatoes, olives and marinated stuff, dressing made with olive oiletc.

OP both of those are fine. But honestly, I personally would not eat the candy one. I don't eat peanuts or marshmallows in candy. But that is just me.

Pot lucks are like this. Especially nowadays.

If you go to another one you should just remember most likely not getting eaten. You are there to have fun. Yes, wasting ingredients possibly but it's a risk.

[Anonymous]

Make a Peruvian dish! I would much prefer trying that than traditional American potluck fare.

[Anonymous]

I take lemon bars for dessert and they are usually eaten.

[Anonymous]

I am always asked to take deviled eggs and even when I bring six dozen, they are all eaten. Brownies and cookies are a hit. Macaroni and cheese. Meatballs in a sauce made of chili sauce and grape jelly. My friend had a Thai peanut sauce chicken on skewers recipe that’s a major hit. Another friend makes quesadillas. They’re good unless they get soggy. Your choices wouldn’t have been hits at the pot lucks I go to. Pastas just aren’t that popular and the dessert sounds too sweet and messy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make a Peruvian dish! I would much prefer trying that than traditional American potluck fare.

This-and if you brought me ceviche, I'd die and go to heaven!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make a Peruvian dish! I would much prefer trying that than traditional American potluck fare.

+1 Bring something you know how to make that can sit out for a couple of hours. Don't try to recreate 1950s American dishes.

As a bonus, this way if nobody eats it you can just tell yourself they're provincial, not that it was bad.

[Anonymous]

People have strong feelings about carbs, especially in the summer, OP. A lot of people are on low-carb diets, and there's always the risk of food poisoning is those mixtures.

The dessert sounds sickly sweet.

Like a PP, I make lemon bars that are quite popular. My husband makes bratwurst that are always gobbled up.

[Anonymous]

Are you going to pot lucks that do not have the same participants? If so, ask the maker of a popular dish for the recipe and take that dish to a different potluck with different people.

When you ask for the recipe, explain what you did here and also assure the person that you will not make the dish for potlucks the person will be attending so they know you aren't 'stealing' their recipe - you'd be surprised how possessive people can be about common recipes. Be complimentary and self-effacing and hopefully the person is nice enough to want to help you; I would.

[Anonymous]

Never peanuts. Sundried tomatoes are very passe. You are right to be asking for current suggestions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make a Peruvian dish! I would much prefer trying that than traditional American potluck fare.

This is what I was going to say!!