Our Best Recipes for a Spring Potluck

Inspired by an Easter basket favorite, these malted chocolate cupcakes are sure to be the cutest dessert you serve this spring.  The moist cake is a fun play on a chocolate malted egg; you can typically find malt powder either on your grocery store’s baking aisle or shelved near the canned milks. Once you top these rich cupcakes with a buttery, bright blue frosting, creating the signature Robin’s egg speckling is easy—and a fun project to let older kiddos help with. You simple thin out your brown food coloring with a little bit of water, dip a paint brush in, and then “flick” the brush’s bristles to splatter the dye on the surface of your frosted cupcakes. 

This salad is a beautiful addition to any table spread with its vibrant orange and deep magenta hues. Hearty radicchio and fennel have real staying power--even after they've been tossed with dressing--which makes this ideal for times when you need a make-ahead salad for a buffet or to take to a potluck. We love the color of blood oranges, but you can use all navel or Cara Cara oranges.

Choose arugula, basil, or mustard microgreens for a pretty and peppery finish.

It doesn't get more Southern than frogeye salad, which can't help but make eaters reminisce on church potlucks or childhood dinners spent at grandparent's house. 

For holiday brunches, overnight company, and any manner of potluck, consider this recipe your secret weapon. Easy as they are to make, these Cheesecake Crescent Rolls will always score rave reviews. 

 For our largely hands-off take on the classic comfort food, we create an intensely flavorful base by first pressure cooking a whole chicken on top of a combination of boxed tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and a handful of flavor power player ingredients.

This vibrant lamb dish features an incredibly vibrant North African-inspired marinade, also known as chermoula. Though simple to whip up, the combination of fresh herbs and bold spices in the marinade help to bring out the richness of the lamb and really make this grilled dish (which became a fast staff favorite in the test kitchen) shine. When purchasing the lamb leg, ask your butcher to go ahead and cut it into your desired portions. And If you have trouble finding lamb, feel free to swap it for beef or pork in this recipe—you’re still going to have a delicious dinner, no doubt. Serve this meaty entree with roasted potatoes and/or grilled veggies. 

This meatless meal definitely doesn't skimp on flavor. With a bright and fresh spring pesto and lots of healthy spinach, getting your greens has never been so easy. 

In addition to being a delicious appetizer that feels special, these Goat Cheese Poppers with Honey make for extra awesome croutons on salads and as "meat" balls for vegetarian pasta dishes.

A toasty twist on the traditional Millionaire’s Shortbread, these decadent layered cookie bars feature toasted sesame seeds in the shortbread, a luscious tahini caramel, and more sesame seeds sprinkled over top for good measure. 

Easy to assemble and perfectly portable, these French Onion Soup bites are the perfect addition to any holiday party spread. They’re like your favorite Trader Joe’s freezer aisle find, but tastier. 

This decadent chocolate-peanut butter banana pudding is easy to make and perfect for a crowd. It’s a staff favorite from The All-New Official SEC Tailgating Cookbook.

Perfect for entertaining or a hearty spread to snack off of all week, this nutritious charred eggplant dip is as easy as to make it is delicious. Roasting the eggplant at a super high temperature leads to a creamy flesh that's the perfect backbone for a your dip. Don't worry if the skin is extra charred and looks burnt—this makes for a more flavorful end product. Mixed with Greek yogurt and tahini, this Meditteranean-inspired spread is ultra rich. Serve it with fresh veggies, warm pita, or smear it across a piece of toast. You could even use it as your sauce for a flatbread or pizza; simply top with roasted or fresh veggies and a sprinkle of crumbled feta or goat cheese.

The beans, chicken, and dressing can all be made a day ahead in your slow-cooker. Assemble this meal in minutes and round out this light summer salad with a loaf of crusty bread. If you have any leftover, it will make a great lunch the following day. Slow cooking requires little fat, so trim the excess from meats and poultry. Preserve the flavor of fresh herbs by adding them to the dish once it comes out of the slow cooker. Removing the slow cooker lid while cooking releases valuable heat, so resist the urge to check on the dish as it cooks.

A heady blend of spices makes these roasted carrots hard to resist. If you can find tender baby carrots, they make a great shortcut; just give them a good scrub—no peeling required. Check the carrots during cooking; smaller carrots could overcook, yielding mushy results. Pair these carrots with roasted lamb or beef or your favorite curry dish.

Classic lemon squares can contain 36g sugar per piece. We put a puckery cheesecake spin on ours--cutting sugar to just 6g per bar--which allows the bright citrus to shine.

Chef Jonathan Waxman taught me how to make this fall salad many years ago. Riff with the ingredients to find the flavor balance you prefer.

Perfect for a graduation party or summer cookout, this impressive dessert offers the ease and crowd-friendly factor that we associate with a sheet cake, as well as a delightful twist of creativity and surprising vibrancy with the incorporation of tahini and fresh berries. If you have a jar of the trendy sesame seed paste hanging out in your pantry, trust us—it’s high time to go beyond hummus and welcome it into your dessert life. Tahini lends a delicious toasty quality to the tender cake while fresh blueberries dotted throughout the batter balance this nutty depth with their bright, juicy sweetness. A simple strawberry buttercream ties everything together and makes for a low-effort, eye-catching presentation. 

These adorable, fruity delights are no joke. The blush pink, creamy center is the perfect balance of sweet strawberries and coconut cream, and it's so rich and thick you'd think it were frozen soft-serve yogurt.

Harness beets' striking color and earthy-sweet flavor in this glorious spread inspired by Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. For a little extra heat, use up to 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper. You can try 1 1/2 teaspoons za'atar spice blend as a substitute for fresh thyme, but skip ground thyme because it lends a dirt-like taste. Serve with raw carrot slices, cucumber slices, pita bread, or rice crackers for scooping.

Choose thick asparagus instead of thin for this dish. The wider spears have an excellent sweet flavor and can stand up to the bold tarragon vinaigrette.

This moist, delicious carrot cake has traditional ingredients like carrot, pineapple, and walnuts, with the addition of toasted coconut flakes to dress up cream cheese icing.

We altered this traditional casserole to balance out the sweetness, allowing the pineapple and cheese to really shine. The intense flavor makes it an ideal side dish for baked ham. 

This salad is absolutely chock-full of lovely green spring produce, with textures ranging from crunchy to creamy. You can make the zippy lemon dressing and blanch, drain, and chill the peas and asparagus up to 2 days ahead, but combine all the elements shortly before serving to preserve the color of the avocado and the crunch of the greens. Delicate pea tendrils or shoots would be spectacular here, but watercress makes a delicious peppery substitute. Though you may be tempted to use only one herb, we urge you to use both: The parsley adds a burst of freshness, and the mint contributes deep herbal goodness.

The perfect recipe for spring. This slightly sweet, lemony, and tender braided bread lands somewhere between brioche and challah. Serve the impressive poppy seed-studded loaf with dinner, use it to for sandwiches, or make an unconventional French toast. 

Dotted with pastel Easter candies and drizzled with white chocolate, this easy snack cake is the perfect, simple treat to whip up for an Easter celebration. In fact, the buttery dessert caught our test kitchen crew completely off-guard; it may appear “cute” and unassuming, but rest assured, this snack cake is no joke in terms of being addictively delicious. It’s not a cake you’ll be able to have “just a little piece” of. 

Fresh lime zest adds just enough of a zingy “something special” factor to our foolproof take on the classic pineapple upside-down cake. This easy cake is a fan favorite for good reason—it’s so simple to make and is loaded with a delicious balance of buttery-caramelized and tropically sweet flavors. Pro-Tip: Finish incorporating the ingredients by hand, this will prevent over-mixing your way to a tough cake. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream for a perfect finish. 

A bed of fragrant fresh thyme lends wonderful flavor to the fish. Have your fishmonger remove the pin bones from the fillet, and choose one cut toward the head end of the fish.

Fresh spring produce needs little embellishment, although a quick toss with bacon never hurts.

A light layer of creamy ricotta sprinkled with fresh herbs dresses up store-bought crust in this bread starter. Lemon juice and rind add just the right flavor lift.

Fact: There is no better celebration of just-ripe summer strawberries than this classic berry pie; that’s why we called it perfect. The just-sweet-enough strawberry filling retains an admirable level of juiciness, thickening just enough to allow for a clean slice, thanks to a combination of cornstarch and tapioca. This duo of thickening agents stabilizes the pie filling without erring into goopy territory, as can often happen with all-purpose flour in cooked, fruit fillings. While lemon is the traditional citrus of choice for summer berry pies, we found lime to be an exceptional complement to the sugary-bright strawberries.   

This highly comforting, classic dish has never been easier thanks to your trusty slow cooker. Yielding a creamy, savory potato side the whole family will love, this recipe for crock pot scalloped potatoes is sure to be a new holiday go-to. 

Fresh, hard-cooked eggs can be a nuisance to peel, but steaming them makes it easy. You can cook the eggs and prepare the filling two days in advance, but wait to fill the whites until the day you plan to serve them.

Soft, tender, pillowy, and buttery. What's not to love? Once you go homemade, it's hard to go back to store-bought dinner rolls. 

Whether you consider it a salad, side dish, or dessert, ambrosia is a holiday classic. It's quick and easy to make and can sit overnight if you like. 

Poke cake meets pound cake in this must-make spring dessert. A perfectly moist, dense vanilla pound cake (with a delightful hint of almond) is filled with a fresh strawberry filling—adding to the cake's tender crumb and providing the perfect fruity sweet-tart flavor balance. Finish the whole thing off with an eye-catching fresh strawberry glaze, and you have a supremely awesome cake on your hands. Be warned, if you share this pound cake with friends, you'll need to be ready to share the recipe as well. 

Leg of lamb is an easy yet holiday-worthy roast. Buzz together the flavorful salt seasoning in a food processor, and rub it onto the meat at least 12 hours before roasting. Trust an instant-read meat thermometer to ensure the lamb is the perfect rosy pink in the center.