Christmas Appetizer Recipes

This smoked salmon platter requires little effort but the spread makes a big impression. Served with all the fixings--capers, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber and more--a smoked salmon platter is the ultimate make-ahead appetizer. Lay out everything listed in the ingredients below or just a few of the elements along with an assortment of crackers, cocktail bread and/or sliced baguette.

Turn classic chicken parm into meatballs with this easy load-and-go appetizer recipe with a cheesy surprise inside. Making meatballs for a party? Switch your crock pot to "warm" for serving all party long.

Stuffed shrimp make a quick and easy appetizer perfect for holiday parties. The trick to great stuffed shrimp? Make sure your shrimp are large enough to hold the filling. We recommend jumbo shrimp, which easily encase the savory filling of scallions, breadcrumbs and bacon with just a hint of spice from cayenne pepper.

These bite-size pimiento cheese balls from Jamie and Bobby Deen are a huge hit with kids (of all ages). They're the perfect appetizer to bring to a summer picnic. Jamie and Bobby share a passion for great home-cooked food with a Southern flair with their celebrity-chef mom, Paula Deen. These brothers are following in their mom's footsteps with their own TV shows, books and website. Our favorite part of what they're up to: healthy makeovers of some of Paula's recipes! Recipe adapted from The Deen Bros. Get Fired Up, by Jamie & Bobby Deen and Melissa Clark (Ballantine Books, 2011).

A cheeseboard is an ideal stationary hors d'oeuvre for holiday entertaining. Select a variety of cheeses, making sure to include an aged variety, a creamy cheese, a blue cheese and perhaps a smoked cheese. Round out the platter with cold cuts, bread, an abundance of seasonal fruits, dried fruit, crudité, nuts and olives. We even included some dark chocolate to cap it off!

This creamy, crowd-pleasing dip comes together with ease in your crock pot. Leave it in the slow cooker all party long to keep it warm for serving with perfect, melty cheese in every bite. Whole-wheat bread and raw veggie dippers allow you to dig in without the guilt.

These meatballs are flavor-packed--thanks to a little sausage added to the ground chicken mix--and all-purpose: serve them with spaghetti for a healthy dinner, on a toothpick with dipping sauce as an easy appetizer or stir them into a soup to make it more satisfying.

Take your veggies and dip to the next level with this colorful crudité wreath. This vegetable appetizer is a stunner with white cauliflower, red tomatoes and green broccoli, green beans, snap peas, kale and Brussels sprouts. It's also a delicious way to start your celebration with veggies (which there are rarely enough of at parties and holidays). The homemade ranch dip, which uses nonfat Greek yogurt in place of sour cream, takes just a few minutes to make, or you can use a healthy store-bought dip.

This crab-stuffed mushroom recipe is perfect for Christmas, New Year's Eve and other holiday parties or any other time you need a quick and easy appetizer. The filling is light and fresh thanks to hearts of palm, a tender vegetable with a mild flavor (similar to artichokes) that doesn't mask the rich, sweet flavor of fresh crabmeat.

This easy holiday appetizer calls for lobster tails, the meatiest part of the lobster, which you can buy fresh or frozen. We've also included three easy and delicious compound butters to choose from to pair with the lobster meat: this recipe makes classic lobster thermidor butter, with the rich mix of Parmesan cheese, herbs and brandy; see Tips (below) to swap in an earthy porcini mushroom butter or a bright fennel and lemon butter.

Need a super-easy holiday-party hors d'oeuvre? These tasty little cream cheese and cherry pepper tartlets come together in a snap, thanks to premade pie dough, which is pressed into a mini muffin tin to make the tart shells--then all you have to do is fill the cups with cream cheese and chopped cherry peppers. Chopped herbs add a nice hit of color, but these are just as tasty as-is. Consider making a double batch--these bites are sure to go quickly.

This is not your grandma's cheese ball. It has all the flavor of an everything bagel without all the carbs and with just 3 ingredients! Want to emphasize the bagel taste? Serve it with bagel chips and some raw veggies for dipping to keep things healthy.

These bite-size tarts turn traditional holiday stuffing into a clever appetizer, with an easy homemade crust and a quick sausage-mushroom filling. Prep the crust and filling in advance, then bake just before serving.

Crisp little phyllo dough shells get a creamy pumpkin filling.

Let your slow cooker do the work of making these tasty appetizers.

Mix chopped dried cranberries together with your meatball mixture to add a hit of sweetness in every bite. These meatballs start in the skillet but finish in the slow-cooker, making them an easy make-ahead meal.

Make a double or triple batch of these savory nuts to give them as gifts for the holidays.

Cherry preserves, tomato paste and chipotle chile pepper combine for an unexpected sauce that provides sweet heat.

Crab and chutney on top of the deviled egg mixture make these appetizers doubly delightful.

Spicy seasonings add a bit of zing to roasted nuts for an appetizer that's perfect for any occasion.

This easy-to-make shrimp sauce is the only recipe you need for a shrimp cocktail appetizer that will be devoured every time. Our tried-and-true sauce is the perfect balance of sweet and tangy.

Chile and horseradish add a spicy kick to this mayo- and yogurt-based yum yum shrimp sauce. This recipe comes together in a pinch for an updated shrimp cocktail appetizer--and will be devoured just as fast at any party.

Bitter crunch from the Belgian endive is a foil for the creamy, peppery egg salad and briny caviar topping in this healthy appetizer recipe.

Don't let the fancy French name for these cheese puffs mislead you--this is an easy appetizer recipe. They're traditionally made with Gruyère or Comté; we couldn't resist turning to our Vermont roots and using good old Cheddar instead.