Snacks for Dinner: Small Bites, Full Plates, Can't Lose – A Creative Grazing Cookbook with 100 Wholesome Recipes

by Lukas Volger

The author of Start Simple redefines "dinner" in this creative cookbook that elevates snacks and grazing foods to main-course status, filled with 100 recipes and 75 color photos.

We've all been there. Pressed for time, patience, or the will to cook yet another meal, we turn to eating snacks for dinner. While these "meals" are often thrown together, there is no denying that grazing on smaller bites is less stressful and often more pleasurable than planning and preparing a traditional meal.

In Snacks for Dinner, Volger transforms carefree noshing into nourishing meals with recipes to inspire your own make-from-scratch snack spreads that are not only quick to makes, but also deeply satisfying. The perfect snack-y dinner revolves around 7 main components:

Crispy-Crunchy: Savory Bites

Tangy-Juicy: Pickles & Marinades

Scooped and Smeared: Dips & Spreads

Centerpiece-ish: A Little Heartier

Small but Mighty: Spoon Salads & Soup Shots

Vessels: Crackers, Breads, & Chips

Sips-Sweets: Drinks & Desserts

Volger shows how these flavorful components can be mixed and matched to create a palate-pleasing meal. Following Volger's guidance, you may start out with a few Smoky Glazed Pistachios for crunch and add some zesty Orange & Mustard Marinated Asparagus with a side of Honey Pickled Shallots. Craving something creamy? Try a Toasted Walnut and Feta Dip or Gingery Green Tahini with homemade Nut & Seed Crackers or crudités. The possibilities are endless. Best of all, many of these bites can be made ahead and stored in the fridge or pantry for easy assembly.

With Volger's simple, wholesome, recipes and pairing guidance, snacks for dinner is no longer shameful--but a healthy, fun, and respectable choice.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Cooking, Food and Drink, Foodie, Reference

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 3, 2022

About the author

Lukas Volger is the author of four cookbooks, including Bowl, Veggie Burgers Every Which Way, and the forthcoming Start Simple. He co-founded and serves as the Editorial Director of the award-winning queer food journal Jarry, and previously founded the small-batch, premium veggie burger line Made by Lukas. His accessible, whole foods–based approach to vegetarian cooking has been featured in the New York Times, Time, The Splendid Table, among other national print, radio, television, and online, and his writing occasionally appears on Taste and Epirious. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. For more information, follow @lukasvolger on Instagram or visit LukasVolger.com.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sounded like a great idea, but each of those "snacks" required more work than I wanted to put in, or ingredients that I wasn't interested in.

[Maree Silver · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love to eat like this, also works well for picky eaters

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's so difficult to rate cookbooks because there usually creative and inventive recipes included, and that's certainly true here. My rating comes because very few stood out as recipes I want to make right away.

[Shipshapeeatworthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiration often presents itself in the unlikeliest of places, and for Lukas Volger, the inspiration for his latest cookbook, Snacks for Dinner, happened while on vacation in California. He and his husband, Vincent, went for lunch at a friend's home and what started with an assemblage of things -- cheese, cut vegetables, dips, salads -- ended up being a pleasantly memorable and satisfying meal. Volger immortalizes "Leslie's Lunch" in the introduction and explains how this one, casual meal became the blueprint for how his cooking and eating style -- most importantly, how he viewed dinner -- shifted during the pandemic and beyond. He ends the introduction by describing the process as: "...little bites of a few different things, none of it individually plated, all placed at the center of the table for sharing -- but also satisfying and complete."(2)

I find Volger's approach refreshing and fun -- his reimagining of what a meal can be is original and delicious! He has organized the recipes by trait (flavour, texture, degree of heartiness) so that pulling recipes from each category makes for an interesting and balanced experience. There are 7 categories: 1) Crispy-Crunchy/Savory, Snack Bites, 2) Tangy-Juicy/Pickles + Marinades, 3) Scooped + Smeared/Dips + Spreads, 4) Centerpiece-ish/A Little Heartier, 5) Small But Mighty/Salads + Soups, 6) Sturdy Support/Crackers, Breads + Chips, 7) Sips + Sweets/Drinks + Desserts, with an additional section A Few Favorite Snacky Dinner Menus, featuring some of Volger's favourite go-to combinations. Shopping for ingredients isn't complicated either -- I found that his recipes make excellent use of pantry items and whatever I didn't have on hand could easily be found at the local grocery store or farmer's market. For those wondering, this is a book of vegetarian and vegan-based recipes.

While I followed Volger's method for creating snacky suppers, I also relied on his book for hero recipes -- that one, delicious recipe I could build a meal around. When my sister came to visit, I felt like I had lots of ingredients but was unsure of how to pull a meal from it. So, I decided on making the Smoky Confit'd Beans with Olives which I then built grain bowls around (cooked grains, roasted and raw veg, with a creamy harissa sauce). If you ask my sister, she will say the best part of the meal were the confit'd beans -- she enjoyed them so much that a copy of Snacks for Dinner went home with her! This recipe goes to show that a memorable meal need not be complicated or overly orchestrated. As Volger has illustrated through his recipes, it can be an assemblage of traits.

Hands down, my favourite from the book is the recipe for Farinata (or Socca) with Chicories. The first time I made it, I lamented the fact I only made one batch (In the recipe notes he warns: "You may want to double or triple the recipe and cook them off to order, as they won't last long at the table.") and, I ate it all without sharing. The batter is mixed ahead of time and then left to rest for a couple of hours. It's then baked in a preheated cast iron skillet until browned and crispy along the edge. Chickpea flour has such a beautiful flavour and texture, and I love the addition of the chopped radicchio.

As the fresh, local asparagus began appearing at the market, I made Volger's recipe for Fresh Asparagus with White Beans + Crispy Cheddar. Normally I roast asparagus in the oven, but this recipe has shown me how delicious raw asparagus can be! As he says in the notes, asparagus is "sweet and green-tasting" and it lends itself so well to a fresh spring salad. Instead of using watercress sprigs or baby arugula, I opted in favour of using microgreens from the farmer's market. The finishing touch is a sprinkling of cheese that's been baked in the oven until crispy, then crumbled over the salad.

We enjoy having something sweet after supper and, a simple dessert example from Snack for Dinner are the Dates Stuffed with Sharp Cheddar and Honey. A cinch to make, requiring a few ingredients, it's a delightful composition of flavour and texture. Salty/sweet with an umami hint, the caramel texture of the dates pairs well with the creamy texture of the cheese. Even writing about it is making my mouth water! While there are several other suggestions for stuffed dates in the book, this is by far, our favourite! I've found that it also makes for a delicious afternoon/after-school snack.

Snacks for Dinner offers an original way of looking at what constitutes a meal by creating an array of delicious, individual dishes that can be shared. By drawing from the different trait-categories, the combinations are endless as are the menu configurations. Not only is this a huge plus in my mind, but I also appreciate how versatile the recipe yields are -- as the recipes can be scaled up or down depending on how many people you're serving. Snacks for Dinner celebrates humble recipes and has given them an opportunity to shine!

Please note -- a version of this review is posted to www.shipshapeeatworthy.com

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Harper Wave / Harper Collins Publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book. I did not receive monetary compensation for my post, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read cookbooks like books, and I appreciate the author's approach to telling a story connected to his recipe theme. I think that his veggie-forward recipes are great, and I like to eat vegetarian on a regular basis.

However, I ultimately judge a cookbook on whether it excites me to try it or feels accessible for my needs. I really felt neither things. First, there was only one or two recipes in the book that I could have gone to my kitchen to make immediately. Granted, it's January, and many of the fruits and veggies he used are out of season. However, a lot involved special purchases. Second, I feel like few of these could be work-week meals for my family as they are more involved or I would have to make a large quantity. I also felt like some of the recipes were not snacky. My kids would not see salad or soup as a snack, even though they are fine with both things.

The ideas are there, but I try not to buy too many one-off ingredients so this isn't doable right now. This may be worth revisiting during a summer day when we're planning to picnic.

Wrong season, wrong theme, nice goals, nice-sounding author.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m a bit torn on this. Love the concept, but would argue with the title. I’d be inclined to call it small plates rather than snacks. There are a few recipes I’m very interested in trying, but a lot that don’t appeal at all. The dips and pickles look like the strongest choices. Not too sold on much of anything from the centerpiece section. Reading the intro, I was very much looking forward the the spoon salad section, because I’d love to find a way to have an assortment of that sort of thing in my fridge on a fairly regular basis, but I felt like the choices there were pretty weak.

All of this is just based on a read-through, and no cooking yet though, so it may well change once I actually dive in to it. (Except my disappointment in the salad options… I think that’s here to stay.)

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars is probably not a fair rating for this book, but it reflects my disappointment. I love the title and thought the book would be an advisory on how to put foods together to make a quick dinner. Since returning to work, I am looking for fast dinner ideas, but this book is not that. I love to cook, but the recipes were not ones I would try even if I had more time...Charred Allium + Labneh Dip...not for me. The book is pretty with great photos and suggestions for how to put the recipes together. I would love to hear from anyone who made the recipes. This was just not a good fit for me.

[Alexia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snacks for Dinner by Lukas Volger offers a wide variety of recipes that all sound so delicious! I am especially excited to try making one of the cracker recipes and pairing it with a dip or spread recipe! I like his section at the end giving some menu ideas for weeknight and celebratory snacky dinners, bringing a lot of the recipes together for wholesome meal. A big thank you to the publisher for this cookbook!

[Star · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stars given mostly because I think this should be a new genre of cookbook and that we're all in the adult lunchables era of our lives. Unfortunately most of these are preserves or dips, which aren't really...snacks per se, I'd say.

Overall I think it was a bit bougie for the title, and that most of these were trying to be appetisers from high end restaurants and less home-cooked dinner. I'd realistically only try 15% of the recipes.

[Tricia]

Like the idea of snacks for dinner and eager to try these pickles and marinade recipes. I think the biggest take away is this as a framework: crunchy like nuts or granola; something pickled or marinaded like beets, olives or feta; a dip or spread; something hearty like sliders, tart, Maki, arancini or perogies; salad or soup; cracker, bread or chip; something to drink and something sweet like stuffed dates

[Jifu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the premise behind this cookbook, but not so much the execution. For snack-based recipes, many of them seem to require not only quite a bit of work, but also ingredients that need a little more time and money to procure, whereas I think of snacks as more something one can quickly toss together. Writing as someone who's mainly on a constant hunt to spice up weeknight meals, there wasn't really anything here for me.

[Rachel Vannette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the ideas here, perhaps more than the recipes. But some recipes are keepers (focaccia crackers, apples and cheese dessert toasts, some nice quick pickles). I also appreciated that everything was vegetarian (even though I’m not one) and most recipes had vegan options. The styling and photos were nice and the author’s voice felt relatable and sincere.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up. Great idea, but it was hard to find a recipe where I wouldn’t have to make a special trip to the market for ingredients. I tend toward more practical, work with what I have on hand recipes.

[Lynn Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really excellent vegetarian recipes with vegan options too.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not impressed by this book. Snacks hardly…more like mini meals and appetizers.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

You certainly lost me with this cookbook. Fried tofu? Ghee, yuck. I don’t snack much and don’t plan to snack on anything in this book.

[Gotogrrl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelming and less imaginative dinner ideas than I'd hoped.

[Shayna Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad, but honestly, this cookbook is not accessible for ingredients and not snack-focused in terms of something you can quickly throw together. This title and presentation is very misleading.

[Janis Nowak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the concept. The writing was ok. The recipes hard and complicated with some ingredients not usually in my pantry. Glad I read it. I learned something. But not my favorite.

[SassieMolassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found a couple of recipes that appealed to me, but not much else. I liked the look of the book and the presentation. 3.5⭐️

[little free lib-rei-ry (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑ · Rating 5 out of 5]

chronic snacker (and jo) so YAY simple things

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun concept and some creative recipes.

[Alice]

definitely more a charcuterie book than anything else but i’ll make a few things

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful collection of creative and tasty foods. Recommended.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Secretly vegan. All the recipes are pretty basic

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting twist on cookbooks that spotlights smaller fare as the main event. I’ve tried a few of the recipes and so far so good. The book is beautiful with full color illustrations.