Hosting A New Year's Eve Party? Here's How To Feed Everyone Through The Night

If you're hosting a New Year's Eve party you should plan on it being a late night. Your guests will at least be staying until midnight, but it can easily go much later when everyone is in such a festive mood. So how do you keep everyone happy and fed throughout a long night? To find out the best tips, Daily Meal spoke with an expert: Karen Akunowicz, a James Beard Award-winning chef, restaurateur, and television personality.

Akunowicz recommends setting up a grazing table that you can update throughout the night. The chef says, "Start with lighter fare like cheeses, charcuterie, shrimp cocktail, and oysters, then transition to hot hors d'oeuvres or sliders around 9 p.m." The hot hors d'oeuvres may include dishes like baked ham and cheese sliders or even truffled French fries.

Then, Akunowicz suggests setting out the desserts just before midnight — she recommends sweets such as cookies, chocolate truffles, or mini cannoli. To finish off the night, she says, "Consider a late-night savory snack like arancini or Sicilian slices of pizza to sustain guests into the early hours."

The evolving grazing table is a great way to keep up a variety of foods throughout the night to keep guests happy and interested, but it does mean that you'll need to prepare multiple dishes. With that in mind, it's best to stick to simple dishes that won't take up too much time and energy.

Karen Akunowicz says, "Crowd-pleasers like crostini with seasonal toppings (like ricotta and honey or fig jam and prosciutto), and skewers with mozzarella, or mini meatballs are perfect." Then, she suggests integrating in some store-bought items, such as marinated olives, antipasto trays, and nuts to fill out the grazing table without any extra work on your part.

Another easy idea that combines homemade with store-bought? Chips and salsa. You can easily make big batches of salsa ahead of time. Offer a variety of homemade salsas like roasted garden salsa, salsa verde, and pico de gallo for a colorful spread. Plus, you can't go wrong with fan-favorite dips, such as a slow cooker buffalo chicken dip, which can be paired with sliced bread or crostini.