Today I am kicking off a series on what to bring to holiday parties. I'm a food blogger that realizes that not everyone who loves food knows how to make it. With that in mind, today I am talking about my favorite store bought treats to bring to a party. The What to Bring to a Holiday Party series will continue over the next couple of weeks with options for halfway homemade desserts (dessert recipes that use a store-bought mix as an ingredient) and desserts made from scratch. So no matter what your skill level in the kitchen is, I have easy and wallet friendly options of you.
What do you bring to a holiday party if you can't - or don't want to cook? My recommendation is that you can't go wrong with chocolate. Wrapping store-bought chocolate in a festive red bow and bringing a holiday card is a wonderful (and easy!) hostess gift and/or party contribution. You should always bring a bottle of wine too.
You don't need to break the bank. I recently discovered that Aldi has a major selection of fancy chocolates, cookies, and wine. I have personally fallen hard for their Dark Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Caramels (I eat about 3 per day) and their Cocoa Dusted Truffles. The caramels are a winter seasonal item that cost only $2.99, and they are deliciously addictive. There is something about the combination of dark chocolate, smooth creamy caramel, and sea salt that's magical. The rich cocoa dusted truffles are just $2.49, and they are melt in your mouth chocolatey heaven.
Bring a wine that pairs well with chocolate. If you are shopping at Aldi I recommend pairing chocolate with either the Vina Fuerte Tempranillo ($4.99), the Intermingle Red Blend ($5.99), or the Flirty Bird Syrah ($3.99). The wines are fabulous and no one would suspect that you spent under $6 on them. If you show up at a party with red wine, caramels, and truffles everyone will be happy, and you will have spent under $13. This combination of items would also make a great gift.
If you are hosting the party, you can absolutely use store bought chocolates to add to your dessert selection, just take the chocolates out of the packaging and arrange them on a fancy platter like I did. Adding some store bought items to your spread is an easy way to save yourself some time while creating a plentiful dessert table.
I discovered these delectable holiday treats last week when I paid a visit to Aldi's test kitchen with a group of the nicest food bloggers. While we were there we did some side by side taste testing - something that I had never done before, but I found it to be really fun. Aldi has a simple rule, their own products need to be as good or better than the national brands. We sampled a variety of Aldi products like orange juice, crackers, cheese, guacamole, and yogurt. Everyone selected which product they preferred and when the results were revealed it was clear that most people preferred the Aldi products - which cost about 30% less. The bottom line is that you can save yourself money - and time - by picking up your holiday party contributions at Aldi.
And if you bring truffles, caramels, and wine to my party, I will love you forever. In case you are curious - the caramel marshmallow brownies and the turtle brownie pops in the photos are halfway homemade desserts that I made with mixes from Aldi. Keep your eye out of those recipes next week!
This post was sponsored by Aldi, but as always, the opinions expressed are my own.
