Fabulous picnic side dishes - Savvy Sassy Moms

Summer appetizers and dessert recipes you’ll adore

Once you’ve determined your favorite BBQ recipe, you need to find your perfect picnic side dishes. Whether you’ve volunteered to make an appetizer, bring a salad or wow your friends with an amazing dessert, our picnic dishes roundup is your go-to recipe source for the whole summer.

In case you missed them, we shared our 13 favorite, fabulous barbecue recipes!

[scrollGallery ID=184]

Simple sides for your summer cookout

Stuffed mushrooms can be tweaked to match a variety of menus, and the BBQ Chicken Pepper Jack Stuffed Mushrooms from Life as a Strawberry are the perfect fit for your picnic menu. With only five ingredients, these don’t take long to prep at all, but the flavorful appetizer makes you seem like a gourmet in the kitchen.

Grilled Artichokes are simple, amazing and something special when you pop them on the grill. Haaps and Barley shares her tips for making sure you get them right every time — veggies have never been so in-demand.

Homemade Barbecue Potato Chips are easier to make than you would expect — and a delicious alternative to any barbecue chip you can find in the store. Chocolate Moosey offers both baked and fried versions of the tasty treats, so you can decide on the cooking method that works best for you.

No picnic is complete without baked beans, and Spoonshine will help yours shine with her recipe for Pork Belly Baked Beans. The hearty version of a picnic classic uses crisp pork belly— and you can vary the beans you use to tailor the recipe to your tastes.

Simply Sated offers another alternative to traditional baked beans. Her Apple Brown Sugar Baked Beans are filled with flavor — and bacon — without veering too far from a traditional recipe. Simple to prepare, these special beans will become a barbecue staple this summer.

Summer side salads you’ll love

An Easy Bean Salad is the perfect dish if you need to toss something together at the last minute. Food Fanatic‘s vinaigrette makes this salad special — and you can add feta cheese if you want another layer of flavor at your barbecue.

Black Bean and Mango Quinoa Salad from Chelsea’s Healthy Kitchen combines sweet and savory in a lovely summer salad. The quinoa pumps up the filling factor of the salad, so it can work as a side dish or a complete meal for your vegetarian friends at your summer cookout.

The Orzo Cucumber Salad from Where is My Spoon? is a light — but filling — summer pasta salad that pairs well with anything you’re grilling. Using orzo is a fun twist on traditional pasta salads, and this one pops with summer flavor.

The Wright Family Table brings you a Carmelized Leek, Bacon, and Goat Cheese Potato Salad. While potato salad is definitely a picnic staple, traditional versions with mayonnaise can seem heavy during sweltering days. This version is light and packed with flavor, making it a healthier — and delicious — alternative to your classic recipe.

Picnic desserts to satisfy any sweet tooth

Sugar Apron shares her Strawberry Shortcake Kabobs, and they are going to be a dessert you make over and over again. The light dessert can be prepped ahead of time, which is key in the summer when you find your schedule interrupted by impromptu games outside or trips to the park.

Blackberry Cornmeal Shortcakes from Ashley Marie’s Kitchen take full advantage of mouth-watering summer blackberries.The cornmeal adds a bit of crunch to traditional shortcakes, which takes the simple dessert to a new level of deliciousness.

Glazed Orange Poppy Seed Bars from Sally’s Baking Addiction boast an unbeatable combination of white chocolate and fruit flavor. A cross between a blondie and a cake, these delectable bars will disappear quickly — make a double batch so everyone can try them.

Every summer cookout needs cupcakes, and the Lemon Lime Refresher Cupcakes from Virtually Yours are a refreshing take on a super sweet cupcake. The tartness of the lemon and lime flavors keep these cupcakes from being overly sweet, so they’re an ideal dessert for hot summer days.

Orange Infused Sweet Ricotta Peach Cookies from Mitzy at Home are a little more complicated than your basic chocolate chip cookie, but the end result is definitely worth it. Peaches conjure up the essence of summer, and everyone will want this recipe the first time you bring them to a picnic.

Do you have a favorite barbecue side dish? We’d love to try it!

Meet the Author | Angela Amman

Angela Amman is a short story and essay writer. Collecting her family's stories is a gift-in-progress for her daughter and son, and she blogs at Playing with Words, capturing the craziness and beauty that weave together to create something extraordinary. As the co-director of Listen To Your Mother Metro Detroit, Angela is thrilled to bring others' stories to the stage and to celebrate the magic of words, storytelling, and the courage to share that magic with an audience. When she should be sleeping, she works on her latest short story collection. Her writing has been featured on Mamalode, Peacock Journal, and Scary Mommy. Her personal essays and short stories have appeared in her collection, Nothing Goes Away, and various anthologies.