A festive appetizer helps to differentiate a Sabbath meal from a weekday family meal. Each of these hors d'oeuvres is parve so it can be served with a meat or dairy meal. Enjoy these favorite Jewish holiday and Shabbat first courses.
Cook with your child and put delicious, healthy food on the table at the same time with this easy Grilled Vegetable Platter recipe. I cut the various vegetables into pieces. Then my daughter arranged them in fun patterns on baking sheets. This was meant to be a side dish for Sabbath dinner, but it became an antipasti appetizer as everyone ate it before Shabbat dinner was even served.
Artichokes make a wonderful first course, especially for the Sabbath lunch meal. Children love to pull off one leaf at a time until they get to the heart of the artichoke. What a fun and healthy way to start a festive family meal together!
The classic Chef's Salad recipe, which includes meat and cheese, is not kosher. Fortunately Susie Fishbein has created a kosher recipe for Chef's Salad. Susie's Kosher Chef's Salad taste wonderful, and it makes the perfect appetizer for a Sabbath meal. Mix the salad right before the meal and serve portions on individual plates. Easy, delicious and kosher!
At the time of the Mishna (200 CE), rabbis deemed it meritorious to eat fish on the Sabbath. Due to the plethora of rivers in Europe, Ashkenazi Jews tended to cook with freshwater fish. Eastern European Jews would make a mixture of chopped fish, stuff it back into the skin of the fish, and boil it. The word gefilte means "stuffed" in Yiddish. For a traditional Sabbath meal, you can serve this class gefilte fish as the first course.
Hummus, made from garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas), is served as an appetizer, side dish or main course in Israel. Today grocery stores in Israel sell a variety of hummus spreads (with pine nuts, with olive oil and paprika, with zaatar, with tahina...), but none of them compare to fresh, homemade hummus. Your Sabbath guests will love eating this homemade hummus with fresh challah as an appetizer.
These Mushroom Blintzes are my favorite Friday night appetizer. I make a large batch, and then store them in the freezer. When Friday night rolls around, I have delicious and festive appetizer that can be easily defrosted, heated and served.
This Tuna Mousse is a great Shabbat appetizer as it looks so appetizing when made in a pretty mold. As this recipe freezes really well, I suggest preparing it ahead of time so you have less cooking to do right before the festive meal.
Vegetarian Chopped Liver is very frequently served as a Sabbath appetizer in Ashkenazi homes. There are many versions of pareve chopped liver, but this one made of onions, peas, beans, nuts and hard-boiled eggs is one of the most popular. Vegetarian chopped liver is lighter and healthier than real chopped chicken livers, but the taste is quite similar.
