Occasion · 11 recipes
Picnic and BBQ Recipes
Picnic food has one job that indoor food does not: it has to ride in a car, sit on a table, and still taste good an hour later at a temperature nobody planned. Every recipe in this hub was picked and written for that job. Pasta salad that stays dressed instead of drinking its dressing. Egg salad tucked into sturdy bread. Bars that cut clean and stack in a container without turning to rubble.
The same rule applies to the BBQ side. The sloppy joes hold in a slow cooker for serving whenever people drift by. The desserts, lemon bars and cereal treats and peach cobbler, all behave at room temperature, because nobody is plating cobbler with a torch at a picnic table.
Food safety travels with the food: keep cold things cold with ice packs, keep hot things hot, and get perishables back inside within two hours, one if the day is over 90°F. The recipes note where that matters.
Photo: @Ella Olsson from Stockholm, Sweden / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Who it is for
Anyone packing a cooler this weekend. Park afternoons, beach trips, backyard cookouts, potluck tables, and the office picnic where the sign up sheet has your name on the salad line. The common thread is food that travels and a crowd that serves itself.
How to choose
The salad line? Classic Pasta Salad or Mediterranean Chickpea Salad, both made to sit.
Sandwich duty? Chicken Caesar Wrap or Classic Tuna Salad, packed separately from the bread.
Meat for the grill or the slow cooker? Easy Sloppy Joes or Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos.
The dessert table? Classic Lemon Bars, Marshmallow Cereal Treats, or Easy Peach Cobbler.
Something to nibble all afternoon? Rainbow Mason Jar Salads, packed with the dressing at the bottom.
The recipes
11 recipes here
Questions cooks actually ask
How do I keep pasta salad from drying out on the drive?
Dress it while the pasta is still warm so it absorbs, then add a splash of dressing just before serving. The Classic Pasta Salad page walks through the timing. Reserve a little dressing in a jar and bring it along, it takes ten seconds to revive the bowl.
Which of these hold best at room temperature?
The salads with sturdy vegetables, the wraps, the bars, and the cereal treats are the room temperature champions. Egg salad, chicken salad, and tuna salad are the two hour limit crowd. Every recipe page states which side of the line it sits on.
Can I make any of these the night before?
Most of them improve overnight. Pasta salad, chickpea salad, sloppy joe filling, and the desserts are all make ahead friendly. The wraps are the one exception, assemble them in the morning so the filling does not soften the tortilla.
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