Our Master Smorgasbord List: A Grazing Guide for Dinners, Parties and Happy Hours

We’ve been smorgasbording at Glover Gardens for a long time.

And yes, we’ve decided that smorgasbord can absolutely be a verb.

In the Glover Gardens sense, a smorgasbord is a generous grazing meal made from small bites, spread across boards, platters and bowls. Sometimes it’s one beautiful board. Sometimes it’s a full table of little dishes that creates a sense of plenty and promises a feasty good time.

This post is our master guide to building one: a menu of possibilities for a grazing meal, party spread, holiday table, happy hour, travel-day dinner or relaxed snacking feast. It isn’t a prescription, and the idea certainly isn’t to use everything. Instead, choose a balanced mix that fits the moment: something salty, something creamy, something crunchy, something fresh, something pickled, something sweet and something surprising.

Then let the smorgasbord become what it wants to be.

This post is a collection of our smorgasboard and grazing board tips and knowledge, starting with our list. But you can jump to anything you need on the list here:

• A Grazing Meal Formula
• Our Master Smorgasbord List
• What Makes a Great Grazing Meal?
• Our Grazing Meal Rules of Thumb
• The Backstory: Built Over Time, Documented on the Road
• The Best Part

A Grazing Meal Formula

When I’m planning for a gathering or standing in the grocery store trying to make decisions, this simple formula helps. Before you dive into the full list, here’s the simplest way to build a Glover Gardens-style smorgasbord: choose a little something salty, creamy, crunchy, fresh, pickled and sweet — then add one or two delicious wild cards. Choose:

• 1–3 meats or seafood items
• 2–4 cheeses
• 1–2 pickled or briny things
• 1–2 fresh fruits or vegetables
• 1–2 dips, spreads or condiments
• 2 breads, crackers or other delivery devices
• 1 crunchy extra, like nuts
• 1 sweet little finish
• 1 or 2 special “why not?” items that jumped into the cart
• Whatever leftovers you have that complement the meal

That’s enough to create variety without turning the whole thing into a catering operation.

Of course, if it’s a party-party, go bigger. If it’s just for two (which is often the case at Glover Gardens), go smaller. If something wonderful jumps into your cart or an online recipe tantalizes you, let it.

Our Master Smorgasbord List

We created this list on a long drive as a way to document and provide some repeatable order for our celebrations. You can use it as a reference, like we do, not a rulebook. Choose a few items from several categories, add what looks good wherever you’re shopping or selecting items from your kitchen and pantry, and let the season, occasion and people at the table guide you.

This is not a shopping list. It’s a memory-jogger for building your own perfect spread. Here we go!

Meats

• Prosciutto
• Mortadella
• Soppressata
• Hard salami
• Sausage sticks
• Pâté
• Turkey
• Ham
• Roast beef
• Chorizo
• Boudin

Fish and Seafood

• Sardines or other tinned fish
• Shrimp, cocktail-style or marinated
• Smoked oysters
• Smoked salmon
• Smoked, grilled or pickled fish
• Caviar

Cheeses

Soft Cheeses

• Brie
• Boursin
• Camembert
• Cambozola
• Goat cheese
• Port Salud
• Burrata or fresh mozzarella pearls

Hard Cheeses (Cubes, Slices, Wedges or Whole)

• Smoked goat cheese
• Merlot-soaked white cheddar
• Parmesan or romano
• Sharp cheddar
• Manchego
• Swiss
• Smoked gouda
• Havarti
• White cheddar
• Provolone
• Blue cheese / gorgonzola
• Other: your faves!

Relishes and Vegetables

Pickled, Briny and Tangy

• Kalamata olives
• Stuffed green olives
• Cocktail onions
• Cornichons
• Bread and butter pickles
• Pickled vegetables, like tiny corn
• Pepperoncini
• Giardiniera
• Capers
• Pickled okra

Jarred and Marinated

• Roasted red peppers
• Peruvian Pearl peppers
• Peppadew peppers
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Artichokes
• Marinated mushrooms

Fresh / Raw

• Snow peas
• Carrots
• Celery, stuffed with cheese or plain
• Green onions
• Broccoli
• Bell pepper
• Grape tomatoes, possibly with vodka, salt and pepper
• Cauliflower
• Cucumber
• Radishes
• Belgian endive

Dips, Spreads and Condiments

(hyperlinked where we have a recommended recipe)

• Chimichurri
• Hummus
• Fiesta grilled shrimp dip
• Jalapeño popper dip, baked
• Texas-Tuscany goat cheese spread
• Smoked salmon spread
• Pimento cheese
• Horseradish dip
• Golden onion dip
• Zippy Sicilian white bean spread
• Pesto (nutty or cilantro)
• Bruschetta topping
• Pico de gallo
• Salsa
• Pepper jelly
• Honey or hot honey
• Fig jam (or any jam!)
• Garlic mayo or regular mayo
• Dijon or horseradish mustard
• Tabasco or other hot sauce

Breads, Crackers and Delivery Devices

• Dark rye
• Cocktail breads, like pumpernickel or rye
• Sliced baguette
• Crostini
• Water crackers
• Wheat Thins
• Butter crackers
• Saltines
• Bagel or pita crisps
• Bread sticks
• Everything crackers
• Focaccia slices
• Pita triangles
• Tiny cornbread muffins
• Chips, when they fit the spread

Nuts

• Marcona almonds
• Mixed nuts
• Pistachios
• Spiced pecans or walnuts
• Cashews
• Candied nuts

Fruit

• Grapes
• Apple slices
• Pear slices
• Melon
• Kiwi
• Berries, such as blueberries and raspberries
• Pineapple
• Mandarin oranges
• Dried fruit, such as apricots, figs, prunes and dates

Sweets

• Dark chocolate squares
• Truffles
• Rum balls
• Cookies or brownies
• Chocolate-covered nuts, raisins or banana chips
• Cake slices
• Anything homemade that’s bite-sized

Leftovers

• Anything tasty that you can eat with your hands or put on a cracker!

Garnishes, Complements and Finishing Touches

• Fresh herbs: parsley, mint, basil, oregano, cilantro, thyme (whatever you’ve got)
• Leaf lettuce or other greens for lining platters
• Bamboo skewers or cocktail picks
• Small bowls for dips, nuts, olives and wet things
• Pretty serving pieces of all shapes, sizes and colors
• Nice salt and pepper grinders, or tiny salt and pepper ‘cellars’ with spoons
• Good wine, festive cocktails and thoughtful nonalcoholic drinks
• Special drinks for non-drinkers or kids, like fancy root beer, ginger beer or sparkling apple cider
• Candles, torches and other table decorations

What Makes a Great Grazing Meal?

A great grazing meal doesn’t have to be fancy, expensive or perfectly styled. In fact, I like it best when it looks abundant and inviting rather than staged.

It’s not a museum display. It’s food that’s intended to be shared.

A smorgasbord should make people want to reach in, try something, compare flavors, build little combinations and keep the conversation going. A sliver of smoked salmon on dark rye. A cube of cheese with our pepper jelly. A grape after a bite of salami. A cracker with goat cheese and hot honey. A cornichon tucked next to pâté. A “who brought these and where can I get more?” moment.

That’s the beauty of a grazing meal: everyone gets to create their own experience.

And because it isn’t limited to one board, the grazing meal can grow or shrink to fit the moment. It can be a simple cheese-and-crackers happy hour for two, a full dinner spread across several platters, or a festive party table with little bites tucked everywhere.

Our Grazing Meal Rules of Thumb

Don’t try to use the whole list.
This is a menu of possibilities, not a shopping assignment. Choose a few items from several categories and let them work together.

Think abundance, not perfection.
The goal is to create a sense of welcome and plenty. A smorgasbord should look generous and inviting, not overly precise.

Group by type, but distribute the colors.
Put similar things together so people know what they’re reaching for, but don’t let all the dark, beige or green foods end up in one place. Spread the colors around the table or platter.

Mix textures.
Creamy cheese, crisp crackers, juicy fruit, salty meats, briny olives, crunchy nuts and soft spreads make the meal more interesting.

Balance rich items with fresh ones.
Cheese, pâté, smoked salmon and salami are wonderful, but they shine even more with fruit, pickles, crunchy vegetables and bright condiments alongside them.

Use small bowls for anything wet or unruly.
Olives, pickles, dips, honey, mustard, chimichurri and marinated vegetables are much friendlier when they’re contained. This also keeps crackers crisp and cheeses from getting soggy.

Put out more crackers and bread than you think you’ll need.
People always need more delivery devices for the goodies. This is a universal truth.

Make it pretty, make it special.
Use attractive serving pieces. Add herbs, and don’t hesitate to use some fruits and vegetables whole as decoration. Think about color contrast. Below are a couple of different grazing platters I encountered at a chateau outside of Paris that are a master class in beautiful food arranging.

Organize it, but don’t be fussy about it.
I encountered several magnificent spreads in France where every bite was arranged with breathtaking precision. They were gorgeous, but perhaps almost too gorgeous, because I hesitated before taking the first piece and disturbing the perfect alignment. At home, I prefer a platter that looks beautiful but still says, “Please, dig in.”

Let the occasion guide you.
Holiday spreads might get rum balls, truffles and spiced pecans. A mountain-cabin feast might lean into smoked salmon, sardines, cheese, fruit and local wine. A happy hour version might be smaller and simpler. Grazing dinner platters can be big enough to count as the whole meal and on our tables, they often are.

Let strange bedfellows happen.
Everything doesn’t have to match. A smorgasbord can be Italian-ish, Cajun-ish, picnic-ish, holiday-ish or gloriously (hilariously?) mixed up. If it tastes good and you like it, it belongs.

Leftovers are more than welcome.
The thing about a smorgasbordian (I just made that word up!) grazing platter is that anything goes (within reason). That means that tiny bits of treasured leftovers have a place in the world. They aren’t relics to be thrown out like, well, yesterday’s lunch (which they might actually be), but rather tiny supporting characters who have a last chance to add value. We treasure our leftovers here at Glover Gardens, and harness their power daily.

A Few Practical Serving Notes
Start with small quantities and replenish as needed, especially for seafood, meats and soft cheeses. Keep wet items in bowls, or perhaps bell peppers hollowed out to become bowls, provide plenty of cocktail picks and small plates, and stash extra crackers nearby because they always disappear first.

Smorgasbord your beverages, too.
Give the wine drinkers good wine, of various varietals, and the non-drinkers something festive, too, like flavored sparkling water or sparkling cider. These little touches make a no-cooking meal feel like an occasion.

Our Philosophy: Abundance

The Glover Gardens approach to smorgasbording comes straight from my Mom’s legacy of entertaining. Her parties were legendary. She chose great ingredients, arranged them attractively but without fuss and made generous appetizer spreads. She had a collection of baskets that were often lined with plastic wrap and then leaf lettuce, and another collection of colorful ceramic platters, often shaped like fish, that I inherited and use joyfully and often.

Mom had an innate ability to create a sense of abundance and her gatherings exuded warm hospitality.

That’s the goal and the style she taught me: not perfection, but plenty. There’s more about Mom’s philosophy (and artistry) in this post about antipasto platters from 2017. And really, what’s antipasto but another type of smorgasbord??

Antipasto Advice from Mom and Great Tastes from the Texas Coast

I looked back at the post, reread it, and marveled. I really, really like how I captured Mom’s essence when sharing the way she curated those platters. It’s rare that you pat yourself on the back in public (it’s ‘not the done thing’, using British parlance) but I am proud of myself about this description, which so accurately paints the picture of Mom’s appetizer artistry.

After lining the basket, she stuffed it full with ingredients from her list, not neatly in little rows or stacks, but bunched together by type in a way that conveyed a sense of plenty and hospitality. She was careful to distribute the colors – a pile of kalamata olives would never be next to anchovies, smoked mussels or marinated mushrooms because those colors would be too drab together. You could almost see her artist’s mind working while she assembled, taking care to mix the textures, too: the kalamatas would go much better next to bright red roasted and marinated peppers, which in turn would be nestled next to generous chunks of provolone with big, fat, garlic-stuffed green olives on one side and her garlicky, pink marinated shrimp on the other. If there was a dip, it would be in a small ceramic bowl and garnished with parsley or dried herbs. Bunches of sliced mortadella, ham and salami would be strategically placed opposite each other, perhaps next to glistening sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, artichoke hearts or fresh, crunchy, pungent radishes. Breadsticks might be vertical in a pretty glass or two, and whole green onions would cut a bright green horizontal swath across the top. Mom would then drizzle a bit of vinaigrette on her masterpiece where appropriate and call it done.

The bottom line: a good smorgasbord should feel generous, welcoming and just a little bit indulgent, like you’re being pampered without anyone having to cook a big meal.

The Backstory: Built Over Time, Documented on the Road

The Grill-Meister and I do some of our best thinking in the car. Long drives are where we brainstorm, plan for the future, imagine new dishes, replay old favorites, talk through projects, dream up party menus and stop just short of solving all the world’s problems.

Somewhere along the way during the 2025 holiday season, during one of those wide-open-road conversations on the way to see our next-gen Glovers, we started talking about what to serve for our almost-Christmas Eve party. Not a sit-down dinner. Not just a few appetizers, either. Something generous. Something festive. A spread that would let people graze and gather and go back for “just one more little bite” as the evening unfolded.

In other words: a smorgasbord.

We started naming all the things we love to put out for this kind of meal: meats, cheeses, fish, olives, pickles, breads, crackers, fruit, nuts, sweets, spreads, dips and those delightful little extras that don’t fit neatly into a category but absolutely belong on the table.

By the end of that holiday drive, we had created the bones of this list in Notes on my iPhone. But as I began writing this post, I realized it wasn’t really new. Years ago, I wrote about our Family Smorgasbord Nights — evenings when we wanted dinner to feel special without cooking a full meal or going out. Back then, I described the concept as “little bites of stuff we like,” and honestly, that still sums it up perfectly.

This master list is the grown-up, more organized version of something we’ve been doing for years, from Family Smorgasbord Nights at home to first-night travel dinners at Little House in the Rockies to party platters inspired by my Mom’s wonderful entertaining style.

It simply gives the tradition a little more structure, reusability and ‘oomph’.

The Best Part is the People

For us, grazing meals are less about the boards or platters and more about the gathering.

The food, arranged in this way, invites people to linger. It creates conversation. There’s room for discoveries, delighted second bites, and “I want to have this at home” moments. Meals like this are relaxed, forgiving and generous. We eat with our hands, and connect with our hearts. That’s why we keep coming back to them, for parties, holidays, happy hours, travel days and relaxed dinners with people we love.

Smorgasbord Grazing Meal with Our Newly Engaged Niece & Her Fiancé

“I know, let’s smorgasbord!” I said, when The Grill-Meister queried about dinner options during our drive to Little House. It was our second day traveling by car, and we never cook on the first night after the trek from Houston to the mountains of Colorado.

So we stopped at a grocery story in Woodland Park and used our master list as a guide. Admittedly, we went a little crazy with the selections, because we wanted to spoil them. Here’s how it went.

It was a smash hit. We grazed, sipped and told stories for hours. There were many stories to tell, and a vast future to imagine, as these two just got engaged in March and are planned their lives together.

A family smorgasbord grazing meal was exactly what we wanted with those marvelous people, in that marvelous place, at that special time in our shared history.

So here’s to smorgasbording!

And yes, around here, that is definitely a verb.

©️ 2026, Glover Gardens