By Erin Brighton, www.campbrighton.com
For no particular reason, my middle schooler has been begging for fondue for dinner so, on this last rainy Saturday, we went all in for fondue night. My fifth grader even had a friend over, and he was excited to be a part of our fondue adventure.
If you have ever been to the Melting Pot, this is definitely a scaled down version that’s easy on your food budget but will really score points with all of your family members. We really love anything DIY and serve yourself over here. I have been known to make a cheese board for dinner and call it a day. This DIY Fondue Dinner is basically a slightly scaled up version of a cheese board for dinner.
To start with fondue night, you need fondue cheese. Traditional fondue cheese is usually a combination of swiss cheese and other cheeses like gruyere and fontina. You will also need good wine. I highly recommend you don’t try to buy all of your cheeses and wine separately – keep this easy! Harris Teeter and many other stores sell fondue cheese already melted and ready to heat. So easy. At our Harris Teeter, a package of fondue cheese cost $12.99. I bought two packages, but I probably only needed one. You will spend at least that on cheese if you make your own.
To warm the cheese you have a few options. My friend had a fun ceramic Le Creuset fondue pot and all we needed to do to heat it up was put a can of Sterno underneath it. You can also use a double boiler if you have one. You can also throw caution to the wind and just serve the warmed fondue directly from the stove and reheat it as necessary.
For dinner, cheese is traditional, but we also served chocolate fondue for dinner because: Saturday, global pandemic, no rules.
Speaking of no rules, there really are no rules when it comes to what you want to eat with fondue! I chopped up apples, sliced strawberries in half, and small bunches of grapes for fruit. For veggies, I used snap peas and baby carrots. I also chopped small red potatoes and roasted them in olive oil and creole seasoning at 425 degrees while I prepared the rest of the food. The potatoes were a HUGE hit. I highly recommend roasted potatoes in fondue. Roasted potatoes are an easy go-to for a lot of our family dinners.
I cut up a baguette for my kids who can eat bread and served both regular pretzels and gluten-free pretzels. I also cut up chunks of salami and that was a huge hit!
So … what did I miss? Any other fondue favorites? The kids had a blast. We will definitely do this again.
