Anywhere in the world, a graze board is great-looking party food that offers lots of options to choose from. And it’s an ideal way to serve Greek mezedhes—the appetizers and small plates enjoyed in Greece. In fact, you can even include bite sized sweets to make it a whole meal from start to finish. (On our tray above, sweets make up the top third.) Our Greek graze board includes:

  • Greek olives
  • Spanakopita triangles. You can find these, and other phyllo-dough-wrapped pites filled with cheese or mushrooms at at Greek shops near you or frozen at supermarkets including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Target.
  • Feta cheese (you might try other Greek cheeses such as haloumi, kasseri, graviera)
  • Souvlaki—ours is made with chicken meatballs but any souvlaki (the Greek term for food on a skewer) works, whether it’s pieces of chicken, meat, fish, or vegetables
  • Pita bread and dips (we went for tzatziki yogurt dip and hummus, but you could also tray melitzanosalata eggplant dip or taramasalata fish roe dip), and also some orange pepper slices for dipping
  • Dolmades—rice-stuffed grape leaves
  • Traditional walnut baklava
  • Honey and walnuts—dip in the nuts or top a piece of pita bread with feta and honey
  • Kourabiedes (the powdered sugar-covered cookies)
  • Pistachio Baklava
  • Koulourakia—the braided Greek cookies that go so well with coffee
  • Apricots

When setting up your board, you can identify items with our olive-branch labels, and top things off with Greek-flags, or toothpicks topped with a speech bubble bearing the Greek exclamation of joy, “Opa!”

To make the paper decor, you’ll need:

Step 1: Download and print out the labels of your choice, then cut out.
Step 2: Attach cut-outs to toothpicks with tape, and spear into food.

Now all you need to do is learn the Greek phrase for “bon appetit”: Καλή όρεξη! (Kalí óreksi!)

photo credits