Beads and bling, it’s a Mardi Gras thing. Happy Mardi Gras! There’s no Tuesday quite like Fat Tuesday. Best of all, we have the best Mardi Gras dinner ideas for you. We created a beautiful tablescape, scrumptious menu and served spectacular wine. We did all the work for you. With our tips and tricks, you can host and cook a delicious Mardi Gras dinner at home. We are excited to share our Mardi Gras dinner ideas with you.
What is Mardi Gras?
Everywhere else, it’s just Tuesday. Mardi Gras is a predominantly Catholic holiday as well as an international cultural phenomenon. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday and is also known as Carnival in some countries. For many Catholics, it’s the last chance to splurge before Lent. A Mardi Gras dinner is about enjoying rich, decadent foods. During Lent, observers fast during the 40 days between Ash Wednesday (the day after Mardi Gras) and Easter Sunday. This year, Mardi Gras falls on Tuesday, March 1. Before Covid-19, the biggest Mardi Gras celebrations were held in New Orleans, Rio and Venice.
Mardi Gras Dinner Ideas: Tablescape?
From bead to shining bead. Every Mardi Gras dinner party needs an extravagant tablescape with vibrant masks and beads galore. Our stunning Mardi Gras dinner tablescape featured the traditional colors of Mardi Gras: purple, green and gold. Purple symbolizes justice, green represents faith and gold signals power. We framed our table with a purple, green and gold balloon garland. The party planning hack here is balloon tape and an electric balloon pump. Next we added Mardi Gras in gold letter balloons that we inflated with a manual balloon pump.
I’m kind of a bead deal. We dressed the table with a sparkly emerald green tablecloth and a sequin purple table runner. Each place setting featured a gold charger plate, black, gold and white premium plates, purple sequin napkins and black and gold cutlery. We also scattered beads and masks on the table.
Life of the mardi. The Mardi Gras dinner party centerpiece included yellow roses and mums, green pompton buttons and violet mini carnations. We also added large purple ostrich feathers and small gold ostrich feathers.
Mardi Gras Dinner Ideas: Wine
Let the wine times roll. We paired champagne, red wine and white wine with each course. Make sure to serve champagne in a flute. For the still wines, we used an all purple wine glass.
We kicked off our Mardi Gras dinner party with Nicolas Feuillatte champagne. This is one of our favorite champagnes and if you haven’t tried it yet, you must.
Next we sipped on Robert Sinskey Abraxus and Pinot Noir.
The Abraxus is a blend of Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Blanc. This refreshing golden wine has juicy flavors of tropical fruit, fresh summer peach, green apple and a twist of Meyer lemon. It’s a perfect wine to pair with seafood appetizers.
We paired the main course with Robert Sinskey 2017 Los Carneros Pinot Noir. This red wine has notes of lavender, flowering sage, blood orange and ispice aromas of cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla bean. If you like Pinot Noir, definitely try this wine.
Mardi Gras Dinner Ideas: Food
It’s eggcellent. Mardi Gras dinner recipes are about rich, decadent dishes. We created a Mardi Gras dinner menu with Creole and/or Cajun recipes. We started with curried deviled eggs, topped with chives. These creamy deviled eggs paired nicely with the Nicolas Feuillatte champagne.
Shrimply the best. We also served a rock shrimp salad, and paired this course with the Abraxus. We served it on top of a bed of lettuce and topped with chives.
Our main was a Chicken and Chicken Sausage Gumbo. We made this recipe the night before our Mardi Gras dinner. This recipe was more of a guide verses an exact recipe, so here are our adjustments. We made our roux with 10 tablespoons of flour and 10 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Marc Savoy strongly advises against using olive oil, so definitely use vegetable oil. The Gumbo takes a while to cook. We cooked it for about 8 hours and served it with Basmati Rice and topped with chives and cilantro.
It’s good to be king. Every Mardi Gras dinner party needs a King Cake. This recipe makes two King cakes, has a cream cheese filling and is topped with purple, green and gold sugar. You can buy color sugar or just place sugar in a Ziplock bag and add food coloring. Then mix until you achieve your desired color. Make sure to add a baby in the cake too. The guest that receives the cake piece with the baby gets good luck.
Mask and you shall receive. If you didn’t celebrate Mardi Gras, use this post as a guide to host your own Mardi Gras dinner party. We have all the best Mardi Gras dinner ideas you need to be the hostess with the mostess. Remember there is nothing King Cake can’t fix.
It’s a great party, and anyone who doesn’t enjoy Mardi Gras is not of this world.
Franklin Alvarado
I would love to have a Mardi Gras celebration party and diner and the decor is beautiful! I will have to do this as my sister and I both love Mardi Gras 😉
These are really great ideas! And I love how the table is set up! So colorful and festive!