10 Tips To Hosting Your Best Pasta Bar (2024)

With the holidays quickly approaching, I like the approach of planning out my upcoming parties as much as possible.

So with the everyone stuffing their faces with Turkey, pumpkin, and stuffing the whole entire month of November, my upcoming hosting gig will consist of something different to mix things up. I'm thinking of throwing together my easy pasta bar.

My pasta bar parties are a breeze to put together once you get the hang of a few things and tend to impress the palates of my turkey-overloaded guests. Here's the lowdown....

10 tips to hosting your best pasta bar:

• Candles are a cheap and easy way to set a dinner time mood. Just make sure that if your candles are scented, that they do not clash with the Italian-like smells of your pasta bar. No one wants to smell a vanilla bean, rose, and sandalwood meatball. No one.
• Label label label! Make sure to label all pastas, sauces, food allergy-friendly options. That way, you don't have to stand right next to the pasta bar and answer questions the whole time. Think chalkboard, name cards....

• Don't serve your pasta dishes with the sauce and pasta mix together. Let your guests pick and choose which pastas and which sauces they would like. It helps you as a host out as well, by not worrying if the sauce is becoming cold/chunky/gunky/too much/ not enough.

• Be mindful of the plates that you serve to your guests. Paper plates, while easy to just toss afterward, soak up sauces easily, and may leave a big mess on your table or on your guests. Best to stay away from your basic paper plate and move on to something a little more structured and less soggy.

• Keep napkins and assorted cleaning products readily available for you guests and for yourself in case of spills and casualties. No matter how hard you try not to spill, it's pasta, and pasta makes messes.

• Learn from the pros, those large pasta chain restaurants got something right. Keep extra pasta that is cooked on the ready, by rinsing noodles in cold water {slows down the cooking process of the noodles even after they have been removed from the stove!} and mixed with a bit of olive oil. Then you can store cooked noodles in the fridge and warm them up in the microwave quickly when you need more carbs!

• Have options for those with food allergies, like gluten, dairy, and nuts.

• Make it easy on yourself, and serve premade sauces {like my fav spicy gluten-free one from Ragu! Oh they make it so so easy!} that you can trust and that your guest will love.Try your favorite jar of marinara, or maybe make an easy spicy cream pepper sauce or maybe a garlic avocado sauce.

• Be prepared for what's to come after the pasta bar. Don't forget about after dinner mints. Damn you garlic! I hate love you somuch!

If you think this is a fun remix on your typical holiday party. I am right there with ya! Have any other traditions {especially those Italian ones!} that you'd like to share with others? Ragu wants to hear them! I encourage you to visit Ragu, visit the “Meet our Founders” section on the Ragu homepage and share yourown stories socially! There is a sweeps contest running on Food.com too! The contest is titled Ready. Set. Cook! and it challenges home cooks to create new and unique recipes featuring Ragu sauce plus a set list of other ingredients! Go get 'em!

Thanks for stopping in friends!