The Clever Hack To Turn A Baguette Into Party-Sized Bread Bowls

We tend to associate bread bowls with a few specific things: clam chowder, sometimes chili, and often Panera Bread soup. Usually, we picture big bowls made from sourdough loaves, which is the classic way to make a bread bowl. None of these make sense as a party dish — unless it's an outdoor barbecue, where chili is a great side dish. But you can actually make smaller, handheld bread bowls using sliced baguettes, which work great at parties.

If you're looking to set out some interesting hors d'oeuvres, try taking a store-bought baguette and slicing it into small chunks — just a few inches wide, similar to how you'd serve bread and butter as an appetizer. Then, lay your baguette slice flat on a plate, take a small glass (like a shot glass), and press it down into the center of the bread slice. While baguettes have a hard crust, which any bread bowl needs, the inside is soft enough that the glass will tear it off and press it down, forming a makeshift bowl. What you put in next is up to you.

What goes well inside bread bowl hors d'oeuvres? The answer can be anything small that goes well with bread, which means you have lots of options. So long as it's not too messy, because your guests should be able to hold it without spilling — which means soup may not be the best choice even if it's otherwise a bread bowl staple.

You could fill your bite-sized baguette with spinach dip, which is a simple concoction of spinach, mayonnaise, and sour cream. Soft or lightly-melted cheese bread bowls are also an easy choice that takes very little prep time. Bacon bits with cheese or lettuce and tomato can resemble a potato skin without the potato.

If you're willing to spend a little extra time baking, you could go in a sweeter direction and make a little apple pie inside the bowl using apple slices, sugar, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Just make sure it's served at the dessert table and not alongside the more savory appetizers.

Alternatively, instead of cutting the baguette into pieces and making several horizontal bowls, you could slice the baguette into a few large pieces and create a "canoe" style bowl. Just set down the entire baguette and slice a "V" shape out of the top, turning the baguette into a long trough where you can add ingredients. This works better for a smaller and more intimate party as the dish takes longer to eat and requires an extra hand to hold it, but the result is essentially a baguette egg boat.

If you're looking for the classic way to make a bread bowl, it's usually done with a roll or round loaf. You simply take a knife and slice off the top of the bread, and then use your fingers or a spoon to carve out the center, leaving some bread on the sides to support the crust. Depending on the firmness of the bread, you could still press an object down to hollow it, but you'd need something larger than a shot glass. A small ceramic bowl would have the size and weight you need to press your bread into a quick bowl.