35 Easy Snacks and Share-ables to Make this Father’s Day

It’s hard to come to a consensus on what Dad actually wants for Father’s Day. The most common recommendations are for beer, whiskey, or a hunk of steak on the grill. But your Dad deserves better than another steak recipe. (Unless it is, in fact, what he wants. If that’s the case, make him steak au poivre, made extra savory with mushroom powder.)

But if he’s tired of the usual manly beef, bacon and bourbon, check out the list below for inspiration. It includes everything from super simple snacks and hearty appetizers to devourer-able desserts.

Quick and Crunchy

Curried Tarka Popcorn

Spice up your popcorn. Tarka is an Indian technique that blooms herbs and spices in hot fat, infusing it with bold flavors and aromas— as it turns out, it also makes a great popcorn seasoning. This recipe offers two varieties, a savory blend of curry and cumin or a sweet and spicy alternative with cinnamon, brown sugar, and cayenne pepper.

Spicy Cashews

This cashew recipe also utilizes hot oil and a plethora of spices. Whole cashews are combined with mustard seeds, chili powder and fresh herbs, then fried briefly in ghee. Cashews are a sweeter nut, which we accentuate with some brown sugar to balance the spices.

Spiced Fried Chickpeas

Crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside, these pan-fried chickpeas add satisfying crunch and spice to hummus, soups and salads, and make a satisfying snack on their own. We love the earthy Mediterranean flavor profile of smoked paprika and warm cumin, but you can also change it up with Chinese five-spice, Ethiopian berbere, or zesty za’atar.

Fried Onion Strings with Rosemary Salt

These quick, feather-light fried onion strings are the elegant answer to thick, greasy onion rings. In Italy’s Campania region, chef Geppino Croce taught us his method of slicing the onions paper-thin, tossing with semolina, and giving them a quick deep-fry—the result is golden brown and crackling-crisp, but incredibly airy. We season our version with fresh ground rosemary and salt, with an optional sweet-tart drizzle of syrupy balsamic to cut through the salty-savoriness.

Produce-Packed Snacks

Fig-Olive Tapenade

Did you know that figs and olives are a fabulous combination? In this tapenade, briny olives and capers balance the sweetness of the figs, while anchovies bring the umami. Chili flakes add a kick, and orange zest brightens the whole mix. Throw it together in the food processor, proceed to spread it on everything.

Honey-Roasted Fig Prosciutto Bruschetta

A savory-sweet take on bruschetta. We learned this recipe from Chef Nicoletta Franceschini, who roasts plump green figs with local honey, fragrant herbs and garlic, then spoons the fruit and its juices over prosciutto-topped toasts.

Roasted Tomato Bruschetta with Taleggio and Herbs

Pumpernickel bruschetta—an even more flavorful version of Italy’s crowd-pleasing finger food of soft roasted tomatoes, cheese and arugula on toast. Pumpernickel adds sweet-sour depth to offset the rich, concentrated tomato-y flavor, with pungent, soft taleggio cheese.

Mexican-Style Corn with Chili and Lime (Esquites)

One street vendor told us that esquites—Mexico’s brothy bowl of corn—is the “most delicious thing you can try in Mexico City.” It is, for sure, the perfect vehicle for summer-fresh corn layered with pops of Mexican flavors: a smoky char, herbs, lime juice, chili, and cheese. We learned a simple, home cook-friendly recipe from Jorge Fritz and Beto Estúa at the Casa Jacaranda cooking school.

Salt and Vinegar Smashed Potatoes

Salt and vinegar chips reimagined as a smashed potato. Creamy on the inside with a perfectly crisped exterior. These potatoes incorporate the punchy vinegar flavor in four different ways, including an ultra tangy vinegar-spiked sauce.

Easy and Cheesy

Spinach and Cheese Gozleme

Spinach and melty white cheese—one of the world’s most satisfying vegetarian combinations—make a rich base for Turkish gozleme, flatbreads folded around a savory filling and toasted til crisp and golden.

Brazilian Cheese Bread (Pão de Queijo)

These tasty puffs, Brazilian cheese bread (pão de queijo), are enjoyed as a breakfast snack with coffee, as bar food and as sandwich bread. Tapioca flour gives them a chewy, pull-apart texture—a perfect consistency for extra-savory cheesiness.

Upside-Down Cambozola Tarts with Hot Honey

Upside-down Cambozola onion tarts, with a hot honey flourish, are so much better than cheese and crackers. The sweet caramelized onion is complemented by Cambozola’s hint of blue and uniquely creamy melty-ness, with a drizzle of spicy-sweet hot honey to bring them to another level. Our new replacement for cheeseboards.

Beer Cheese

Melted cheddar that's as creamy as Velveeta—seems like a far-off dream, but it's easily achieved with a little sodium citrate. Our digital editor Claire Lower nerded out over this ingredient, which sounds like a scary lab chemical but is actually just a melting salt that’s the byproduct of baking soda and lemon juice. You can serve it with pretzels (like our Three-Seeded Beer Pretzels) or store-bought chips.

Fritters Three Ways

Indonesian-Style Corn Cakes or Fritters

These food processor-friendly corn fritters are light and airy, punctuated by plump kernels of fresh corn, savory shallots and fiery chilies, all held together with only eggs and flour.

Rice Pakora

These rice and chickpea flour fritters are a common snack in South Asia. This recipe comes from Milk Street Facebook Community member Pragya Chandra, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She combines the rice with aromatics, chickpea flour and a little water, then deep-fries the batter into lacy-surfaced fritters. Chandra recommends serving the pakora with cilantro chutney and spicy ketchup.

Baked Zucchini Fritters with Feta-Yogurt Sauce

Turn your summer zucchini into crispy fritters! This easy recipe uses panko breadcrumbs for lighter fritters and pairs them with a tangy, cooling sauce of yogurt, feta and fresh mint.

Fried Chicken Favorites

Japanese Fried Chicken (Karaage)

This take on Japanese fried chicken gets loads of tangy, bright flavors and delicate crispness, thanks to a quick ginger-spiked marinade and seasoned cornstarch coating.

Korean Fried Chicken (Dakgangjeong)

Korean fried chicken is everything you want—and like none other. When editorial director J.M. Hirsch tried this chicken served up by street vendors in Seoul, he observed: “the coating is ethereally thin, yet as satisfyingly crisp as the perfect potato chip. The meat is so moist I have to check myself. Was it fully cooked? It was! And that sauce ... It hits every note, high and low, in that maddeningly delicious way that keeps you going back for more.”

Crispy Sichuan-Chili Chicken

This crispy, tongue-tingling chicken is one of the kitchen’s favorite recipes of all time. That’s partly because we discovered that deep-fried chicken can, in fact, be airy! Substituting flour batter with an egg white-based marinade and a coating of cornstarch creates light crispy outsides, while toasted Sichuan peppercorns lend fragrant spiciness. Like a great chip, once you start, you can’t stop.

Oven-Fried Sweet Chili Chicken Wings

No more dull, one-note wings! These easy, Thai-inspired sweet chili wings build layers of sweet and spicy, tangy and garlicky flavors, with just a couple ingredients. (And no deep fryer.)

Harissa Hot Wings

We up the game on crowd-pleasing Buffalo-style hot wings with a Middle Eastern makeover. Swap out spice-laced harissa for the hot sauce dip, plus za’atar to the chicken coating for high-impact flavor. Roast them in a hot oven for crispy outsides, without the mess of deep frying.

Don’t Forget the Dips

Charred Guacamole (Guacamole Tatemado)

Char your guacamole! Charring vegetables to deepen their flavor is a pretty common practice, but Chris Kimball hadn’t seen it applied to guacamole until a recent trip to Mexico City, where you might also find it studded with peanuts or seafood. The result isn’t just smoky—it’s also fresher, more flavorful, and complex. It’s a technique we love for salsa and tomato sauce, and in most cases when working with so-so produce.

Red Chili and Roasted Peanut Salsa

Peanuts might seem like an odd choice for salsa but, trust us, it works. We heat dried guajillo chilies and, once rehydrated, blend them with peanuts, honey and lime. Spicy, earthy and bright— with just a touch of sweetness.

Avocado and Poblano Salsa with Toasted Cumin and Almonds

This salsa melds aspects of Spanish mojo verde with Mexican guacamole. We toast poblano chilies to add smoky flavor and depth. It’s creamy and rich, but gets a bright lift from the lemon and cilantro.

Muhammara

In this muhammara (from the Arabic word for “reddened”), roasted red peppers make the punchy base, heightened with fragrant toasted cumin, and thickened simply with rich, fatty walnuts and bread. (We often use bread as a thickener; it doesn’t mask the flavors, and the starch adds silky smoothness to soups and dips.) Drizzle with pomegranate molasses and scoop up with pita.

Sunflower Hummus

It’s as whimsical as it sounds! This hummus swaps the well known sesame flavor from the tahini for the nuttier, more savory sunflower seed. We learned this recipe at Craft Wine Restaurant in Tbilisi, where chef Giorgi Andghuladze makes hummus with sunflower seeds in place of tahini. We developed a version that uses sunflower butter in place of the sunflower seeds to streamline the process.

Turkish Hummus

A shock of red oil and a garden of toppings defined an incredible, silky-smooth hummus that Chris Kimball was served in Istanbul. Heaped with a garden of toppings—tomatoes, pickles, red pepper, raw onion, walnuts, parsley, and spices—it was creamier and more potent than the Middle Eastern-style hummus that we know and love. It was nuttier with tahini, spiked with cumin, more lemony, and topped with spice-infused oil. Plan ahead and soak fresh chickpeas overnight—the flavor is worth it!

Spicy Feta Dip (Tirokafteri)

Once upon a time in Greece, we encountered a feta dip that was inexplicably creamy. This came not just from feta, but from goat cheese and red peppers. Tangy yet briny, spicy yet vegetal, creamy and savory, this dip has it all.

Small Bite Sweets

Brown Sugar Butter Mochi

Butter mochi is a sweet and chewy rice cake that is a bit more rich than traditional Japanese mochi rice cakes. We use browned butter, coconut milk and brown sugar to give these sweet rice cakes a deeply caramelized flavor. They’re chewy and sticky, with a sprinkle of shredded coconut to add some texture.

Chocolate Meringue Cookies

Can a chocolate cookie be fudgey, airy and crispy at the same time? After much experimentation, we were delighted to find that the answer is yes. These flourless chocolate cookies, which combine the crackliness of a brownie with the airiness of cake, are a combination of two chocolate desserts we love: Claudia Fleming’s uniquely light brownies and François Payard’s light, flourless cookie. We don’t mind saying that the result is a textural triumph.

Buttermilk Monkey Bread

Monkey bread is typically a pretty bland tangle of sticky-sweet bread balls, but we love the fun of a big loaf, composed of tear-able rolls. This is our more tender and nuanced version, which tamps down on the sweetness and adds a little acidity with buttermilk. We coat the dough nuggets with browned butter, infused with vanilla and warm spices, which calls to mind freshly fried doughnuts.

Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are a favorite around the Milk Street Kitchen. Not your basic oatmeal cookie, they're packed with flavor from toasted oats and pecans, browned butter, and chunks of both bittersweet and milk chocolate. We even use some of the toasted oats as flour to infuse more nutty flavor.

Lemon and Pistachio Bars

Olive oil and lemon are practically a single ingredient, so of course olive oil belongs in lemon bars. We balance the bright acidity of lemon by adding a little fruity, savory olive oil throughout, plus buttery pistachios for a richer, nuttier crust, with added citrusy fragrance from lemon zest.

Salty Honey and Browned Butter Bars

Butter bars are a Southern classic. We adapted ours from a Cheryl Day recipe. Browned butter adds toasted notes that balance the sweetness. They’re gooey, salty, and sweet. A perfect bite.

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Willow Montana

Willow Montana is the Production Manager of Digital Media at Milk Street. Willow spends their days coordinating and planning video shoots, managing schedules and overseeing the execution of digital projects. They studied Baking and Pastry Arts at Johnson and Wales University and worked in restaurants while putting themself through six more years of college. They hold a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in English Literature and a Master’s of Fine Arts in Publishing and Writing. Willow is a firm believer in living a slow, quiet life and making things by hand. When they aren’t following the developers around with a camera at the Milk Street office, they may be found at home shaping loaves of sourdough, caring for dozens of houseplants and, occasionally, out in the wild at a punk rock show.