Dinner Parties on the Cheap: Setting the Menu

Hosting a dinner party is a great way to get together with friends in a relaxed environment. It can also save you a significant amount of money over going out for dinner. However, it can also be an expensive venture if you don't follow some basic money-saving tips. Remember that what your guests will remember about the party later is the good friends, good conversation, and tasty food. They won't remember that they ate $16.00 per pound sirloin steak. Here are some excellent ways to stretch your dinner party budget and have a memorable time.

1. Incorporate meat into a main dish.

Rather than having meat be the main star of the meal (as in a roast beef, pork tenderloin or grilled shrimp), incorporate the meat into a dish that includes less expensive ingredients. For example, include shrimp in a pasta primavera or bake individual chicken pot pies. Your guests will get the full impact of the meat but you will use much less of it and spend less money on it.

2. Have guests bring the wine.

Your first instinct as dinner party host may be to have everything provided for your guests. However, dinner party guests often want to bring something to the party as a hostess gift and are not sure what to bring. Asking guests to bring their favorite bottle of wine helps you both out. It keeps the party bill down for you, gives guests something of their own choosing to drink, and allows them to bring a thank you gift to the party.

3. Make it a good old-fashioned pot luck.

You may think that pot luck dinners went out of fashion in the 1960's but they are even more relevant today and are picking up steam. Pot lucks require that each attendee bring one dish to share with everyone. Some pot lucks are a free-for-all, where there is no direction as to what to bring. Often, these are the parties that end up with two batches of deviled eggs and three bean salads.

To make it fun for guests and to ease your planning concerns, you can have a themed party and designate certain guests to bring different parts of the meal, such as salads, side dishes or desserts. Often in a pot luck meal, the host makes the main dish. Make it something inexpensive and filling, like chili or stew.

4. Have one focal dish and build around it.

If you love to cook, it is more than likely that you will put far too many complicated recipes on your dinner party menu. Wanting to try out a bunch of new dishes at the party is a recipe for an empty wallet and too much time in the kitchen and not enough with your guests. Aim for a single unusual and impressive dish and build your menu around that. Your dinner party guests will remember the star of the show because it stood out.

5. Plan ahead and freeze what's on sale.

The longer you have to plan your dinner party, the more time you have to buy ingredients on sale. For example, if chicken breasts are on sale for half price, pick them up and plan your dinner around them. For example, if there is a sale on chicken thighs, you could make a very elegant chicken cacciatore for your dinner party and then plan the side dishes around it.