What to Bring to Christmas Lunch When You Are Not the Cook

By Dewi Salim, Hamper Building Lead at The Gourmet Pantry.

Ask what is already covered, then bring something that needs no oven, no fridge space and no plate from the host's kitchen. A jar, a box of pastry cases and a packet of crackers do it. Set it out yourself and leave the ham to them.

Being a guest is a narrower job than being the cook. You arrive from a car that has been sitting in the sun, into a kitchen where the oven, the fridge and every centimetre of bench are spoken for, so anything needing heating, chilling or building on arrival is a problem handed to someone who has enough. This page is about the plate you were asked to bring. The present you hand over at the door is a separate question, answered in our guide to hostess gifts and by the gourmet gift packs.

Ask what is already covered, before you buy anything

One message, sent in the first week of December: what can I bring, and what have you already got. It sounds like a courtesy. It is most of the guide, because the failure at Christmas is rarely a bad dish. It is a duplicate one, and a second trifle sits out all afternoon beside the first.

Ask for a job, not a category. Nibbles is a category, and three people can bring the same one. Something to go with drinks before we sit down is a job, and only one person has it. If the answer is nothing, just yourself, believe it halfway and bring something that keeps in a cupboard. Most hosts have over-catered by the time they reply, and our guide to how much food to buy per person at Christmas is the arithmetic they are working from.

The three tests a guest's plate has to pass

1. No oven, no cooktop, no fridge. On Christmas morning all three belong to the person cooking. If your dish needs any of them, even for ten minutes, it is not help.
2. It survives the trip. It has to travel in a hot car, sometimes for an hour, and arrive still looking like food.
3. It needs nothing from the host. Bring your own board or bowl, your own spoon, and take the empties home. Asking for a serving dish at midday is the same as asking for a burner.

Very little you would cook passes all three. Nearly everything in a pantry does. What that means depends on what you were asked for.

Four things that work, and what they cost

Pastry cases you fill at the other end. Confiletas mini savoury pastry cases at $9.95 for twelve are already baked, shelf stable and packed in a rigid box, so they travel in the box they arrived in and get filled on somebody else's bench in about five minutes. Fill them there, not at home: a shell filled at nine in the morning is soft by noon. Our guide to Christmas canapes from the pantry has five fillings that come straight out of a jar.

One jar that turns into a plate. Belazu black olive tapenade at $12.95 is Beldi olives crushed with capers and a little garlic. Spoon it into a bowl, pour a thread of olive oil over the top, and it reads as something you made. It is also the filling for half the pastry cases, which is how one jar does two jobs on the same board.

Olives that need draining and nothing else. Kangaroo Island Mediterranean olives at $7.95 come in a 185g jar, tip into a sieve and go straight into a bowl. Take a second small bowl for the pits, because nobody ever puts one out.

A crisp sturdy enough to carry something. Quince and almond seed crisps at $6.95 are dense with seeds and fruit, so they hold a spoonful of tapenade without snapping, and they are worth eating on their own.

Those four come to under $40, fill four bowls and suit eight people standing around with a drink before lunch. Nothing needs a fridge, and leftovers go back in the cupboard.

What travels well in a hot car

Our packing-room rule: if a thing would not survive a courier van, it will not survive your boot. A sealed jar is the most robust item we send anywhere. Open one at home and decant it, and you have made a lid that can leak and a thing that has to stay cold.

Unopened jars, tins and packets travel. So do pastry shells in their box, upright on a seat rather than under a bag in the boot, and crackers and crisps loaded flat and last, on top of everything else. Chocolate does not travel, nor does anything bound with cream or mayonnaise, cut fruit, or a bowl covered in cling film. If you were asked for a salad, carry the leaves and dressing separately, the dressing in a screw-top jar, and dress it there.

If something must stay cold, that means an esky with ice bricks in the footwell rather than the boot, and it still costs the host fridge space on arrival.

Common questions about bringing food to Christmas lunch

What should I bring to Christmas lunch as a guest?

Something shelf stable you can set out yourself: a jar to spread, a packet of crackers or seed crisps, a bowl of olives, and pastry cases if you want it to look like more work than it was. Ask the host first so you are not the second person bringing it, take your own bowl and board, and stay off the oven and fridge.

Is it rude to bring food to Christmas lunch uninvited?

It is not rude to bring something. It is awkward to bring something that has to be served. A dish needing reheating, plating or a place on the table changes the menu, and the host has to make room for it in front of everyone. A jar, olives and a packet of crackers sit on a sideboard, get eaten before lunch and cost nobody a decision.

What can I take to Christmas lunch that does not need an oven?

Everything on this page. Pre-baked pastry cases, tapenade and other jarred spreads, olives, seed crisps, nuts and a fruit paste for the cheese all arrive ready and need a bowl at most. Organise what you will serve it on in advance, because borrowing a board at midday on Christmas Day is its own small ordeal.

Buy this part in November, while it is all still on the shelf. Jars, crackers and pastry cases keep for months in a cupboard, so none of it belongs on a shopping list in the third week of December. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. If you would rather turn up with it done for you, the gourmet gift packs arrive boxed, and our Christmas hampers are packed by hand in the same room.