D on’t picnics always feel like so much fun when other people are preparing and hosting them? Maybe that’s just us, but there’s definitely a sense that this is a foodie area where it’s easy to get things wrong and, in the process, ruin an entire outing. With that in mind, we’ve dug into The Irish Times archive to find the most foolproof picnic recipes, the ones even we can’t mess up.
Starting simply, we have two extremely straightforward summer dip recipes from our chef columnist, Mark Moriarty. These offer the perfect route to dipping your toe in picnic water rather than going full Champagne-buffet-in-the-sun before you’re ready. The hummus can be served with leftover grilled vegetables from the fridge if you have them, while the whipped ricotta can be jazzed up with some salted preserved lemon if you’re feeling fancy.
When you’re ready to move to the next step and assemble a full food basket, have a look at Lilly Higgins’s picnic advice from 2024, where she outlines the equipment (lidded lunch boxes and melamine or enamel plates and cups) and the basic food requirements. Her picnic key is bread, which she says she usually butters in advance and layers in a bag so everybody can make their own sandwiches at the beach or wherever you end up. She also recommends a hearty, chunky salad, which can be dressed up at will and layered in a jar. Hand-held food is also great for eating al fresco, she says, and recommends a recipe for rhubarb and strawberry hand pies.
Now that you are all set with the groundwork, you can try out Gráinne O’Keefe’s 2023 light picnic recipes for chicken liver parfait with macerated cherries, cucumber, smoked salmon and ricotta roll-ups and raspberry clafoutis with strawberry and balsamic cream. O’Keefe, of Mae restaurant in Dublin, acknowledges that clafoutis might sound fancy but says they’re “pretty much a deep-baked light pancake”.
Paul Flynn of The Tannery in Dungarvan, Co Waterford , is also a picnic fan, telling us in 2022 that there are plenty of alternatives to “jamming chicken fillet rolls, crisps and biscuits into a backpack”. He included recipes for tear-and-share red pepper, red onion and feta scones, a stuffed picnic loaf (with chorizo and red onion) and a pea and poached salmon salad.
Still on hand-held food, in 2021 Aoife Noonan offered the perfect recipe for feeding a picnic crowd with a single dish: picnic pie . This sliceable vegetable pie takes a while to put together, but it can be made in advance and stored in the fridge until you’re ready for the great outdoors.
With these simple recipes for picnic perfection under your belt, you might want to step up your accessories game too. In May, Ella Sloane put together a guide to the latest and most stylish additions to a picnic repertoire , from blankets to baskets to napkins. One top tip on this side of things is to keep an eye on Vinted , where we spied a brand new and smart picnic basket with all the necessary glasses and plates for €55 earlier this week. Charity shops should also provide good hunting ground.
You might also want to bear in mind some advice from further back in our archive. In June 1953, we recommended preparing sandwiches in advance and maintaining an organised picnic basket.
“A well-planed picnic basket should not be heavy or cumbersome, and there are ways to keep sandwiches fresh and crisp all day long. If you make them the night before, place lettuce leaves on top, wrap them in waxed paper, then in a damped towel and put t…