Easy party food that will wow at an (adult's) housewarming

[PartyStarter]

I moved into my own house just before Christmas and I am going to throw a good old fashioned housewarming! It will be more of a stand up and chat / move around party than a sitting down dinner party but I still need to feed the guests. I could just do picky bits, traditional party nibbles and so on, but is there anything more special or substantial I could do to wow everyone?

What type of foods do your party guests like? My friends would love a hot buffet style meal with big bowls of chilli or cooked chicken drumsticks or hot dogs with corn on the cob, garlic bread, coleslaw, salad.

Stuff they can load a paper plate with and chow down.

Pulled pork done in the slow cooker with rolls, coleslaw, corn on the cob.

This is so simple, but it always goes down a treat with groups.

Sliced baguette on an angle (has to be good quality) with different toppings like cream cheese/cucumber/salami, cranberry jelly/lettuce/turkey/brie, hummus/chargrilled eggplant/tomato, ham/cheddar/mustard/pickle. Really any combo you like.

Not a food one but if you have a slow cooker and like hot chocolate (and think your guests would) setting up a hot chocolate station is a great and very easy crowd pleaser. Lots of examples of this online but in essence you mix up the hot chocolate in the slow cooker (I found it best setting it to high to get the milk/ choc mix warm, then whisking to make it smooth) once hot choc is all mixed and up to a good drinking temperature, set the slow cooker to low and then guests can help themselves with a ladle! 😊 little bits on the side make it extra fun like squirty cream, mini marshmallows, nice grated chocolate in a dish (did this with Terry’s choc orange and went down well!) paper cups and pretty straws for serving
Minimal time/ effort to set up and once done people seemed to enjoy being able to make up their own hot chocolates with different toppings, particularly in the colder/ grey weather (also saves you making endless rounds of cups of tea and coffee lol!)

Personally I'd look at M&S sandwich platters and similar other nice party food bits.

If you want to do it yourself then I would do afternoon tea type sandwiches. Have a look at posh afternoon tea menus for inspiration on fillings. Cut all the crusts off all sides of the sandwich, and then cut each crustless square sandwich into three small crustless rectangles. Keep them covered with clingfilm until the very last minute as the bread goes dry quickly. They look great though. Add little cakes like tiny square flapjacks, brownies etc.

Whichever you do, keep it simple! It can get stressy having too many different options and people generally prefer there to be less choice but lots of it.

Build you own tacos- different bowls of all the stuff and then margaritas/ Mexican beers on the side

One thing I always do when I have people over to mine, is pop in around 11ish a heap of frozen chips into my air fryer. People froth over it.

Thank you so much for the ideas and inspiration! 🥘