What Should You Put in a Food Gift Basket?

Put in things with a job. A food gift basket works when every item in it has somewhere to go — a jar that seasons Thursday's chicken, one thing she would never spend her own money on, and one thing that makes a whole meal instead of a snack. It fails when it is padded out with a tin of mystery crackers, three ounces of jam and a summer sausage that sits in the pantry until somebody finally throws it away. The test is not how full the basket looks on the porch. It is whether anything in it gets finished.

That is the short answer. The rest of this page is the four slots worth filling, what to leave out, and three baskets we would actually put together this year.

The four slots that make a basket work

Most baskets are assembled by theme. "Italian." "Tailgate." Themes are how you end up with four things that taste the same and none that make dinner. Build by job instead, and four items do more than twelve.

• The workhorse. One thing they will use on a weeknight without thinking about it. This is the item that gets finished, and it is almost always the plainest thing in the basket.
• The splurge. One thing they would not buy for themselves — not because it is expensive, but because it feels unnecessary. This is the item they remember you for.
• The anchor. One thing that makes an actual meal. Not a nibble. A dinner they can see in their head the moment they open it.
• The paper. A card with a recipe on it, in your handwriting, telling them exactly what to do with the other three. Three lines is plenty. This is the slot almost everybody skips and it is the one that turns a basket into a gift.

Four slots. If you want to spend more, spend it on better versions of those four, not on a fifth and sixth item.

What to leave out

Some of this sounds ungrateful. It is not. It is just what happens to food gifts in a real kitchen.

• Anything in a three-ounce jar. Tiny jars of jam, honey and chutney are the most-regifted food on earth. Not enough to cook with, too much to use up on toast.
• Things that need an occasion. Fancy pasta nobody wants to be the one to open. One lovely steak for a household of four. If using it requires planning a dinner party, it will wait for one.
• Perishables you are shipping. Cheese and cured meat are wonderful handed over in person and a gamble in a box in December.
• The wicker basket. Nobody has room for another one. A sheet pan, a mixing bowl or a wooden board holds a gift beautifully and gets used for thirty years.

Build it around one dinner, not one theme

Here is the trick that makes the whole thing easy. Pick one meal you know they like. Put in the things that make that meal, plus the one thing they would not have bought. Write the meal on the card.

Now the basket has an obvious first move. They open it on a Tuesday, read "roast chicken, potatoes, Thursday," and Thursday is handled — instead of opening nine unrelated items and thinking, pleasantly, that they will get to it sometime.

It is also why spices beat most food as a gift. They do not spoil on a schedule, do not need refrigerating, survive a shipping truck, and one jar seasons twenty meals instead of being one. Spices do not go bad so much as they go quiet, and a sealed jar stays loud for two to three years.

Three baskets we would actually send

Real combinations, with what goes in each and roughly what it runs. Every blend below is USDA Certified Organic, gluten free and kosher, with no MSG and no fillers.

For the person who cooks every night

The workhorse is The OG, a 3.4 oz jar for $9.49: sea salt, organic garlic, organic black pepper, and that is the entire label. It ends up living next to the stove. The anchor is Anything With Wings, 2.6 oz for $9.49, because a seasoned roast chicken is a dinner anyone can picture. The splurge is Cocoa Butt'Er, $9.49 for 3.2 oz — organic cocoa and decaffeinated coffee over a pork shoulder. It took first place for best brisket rub in 2019 and it is nobody's idea of a practical purchase, which is the point. All three in a mixing bowl, with a card that says chicken Thursday, pork Sunday.

For the hostess who feeds a crowd

Her problem is not dinner. It is the twenty minutes before everyone arrives. So: The Godfather, our organic Italian blend, 1.4 oz for $9.49, with the card pointing at the bread dip — stir it into good olive oil and it is on the table before the coats are off. Add Rock Yo' Taco, 2.6 oz glass shaker for $9.49, which doubles as the base for a cheese log that disappears every time. Use a wooden board as the container. She will finish all of it before New Year's.

For somebody cooking without the salt shaker

This is the one people get wrong most often, usually by sending something that is mostly salt with a reassuring label on the front. The jar to send is Zilch. Nada. None., $9.49 for a 1.9 oz jar: fourteen organic herbs and spices, onion, garlic, turmeric and paprika doing the work, and no salt at all. Pair it with Tidewater, our organic seafood and crab boil blend, 2.3 oz jar for $9.49, for fish and shrimp. Write the low-sodium holiday plate on the card. If the person you are shopping for is cooking to a sodium limit their doctor set, let them run the actual numbers past that doctor — our job here is just making the food taste like something.

How much seasoning is the right amount to give?

Roughly one jar per person in the household, and no more than three total. A 2 to 3 oz glass jar covers a season of cooking, not a lifetime supply. For someone who cooks constantly, send the 5 oz resealable pouch at $13.49 instead — more in it, and it stores flat in a drawer. One note if you are boxing jars up: our blends have no anti-caking agents in them, so keep the lids down and out of a damp garage and they stay loose and pourable.

Packing it so it arrives in one piece

• Glass jars in the middle, upright, with something soft on all four sides. A dish towel is padding and part of the gift.
• Pouches lie flat along the bottom and brace everything else.
• Skip the cellophane. It looks like a corporate thank-you and hides what is inside.
• Card on top, facing up, so it is the first thing read instead of the last thing found.

If you would rather not assemble it yourself

Perfectly reasonable, especially in December. The Boxed Gift Set is $44.99 for four glass jars, with a pick-your-own-four option if you know which blends they would use — which, having read this far, you do. The Try-It-All Pack is $35.00 for sample packets of all fifteen, and it is right for exactly one situation: you have no idea what they cook. Free shipping starts at $25, so either one clears it. And for the person who already owns every kitchen thing, the cookbook is $14.99 in paperback and fills the paper slot and the anchor slot at once.

Quick answers

What should you put in a food gift basket?

Four things: something they will use on a weeknight, something they would not buy themselves, something that adds up to a whole meal, and a handwritten card saying what to make. Four useful items beat twelve decorative ones.

What food gifts do people actually use?

Shelf-stable things that go into cooking rather than sitting on a cracker: spices and seasoning blends, good olive oil, nice vinegar, coffee, a bag of grits or rice. Tiny jars of preserves and specialty items that require an occasion tend to go unopened.

Are spices a good gift?

They are one of the best, because they do not spoil quickly, do not need refrigeration, ship well, and one jar flavors dozens of meals. Pick two or three the person will realistically cook with instead of a large variety set.

Every Flavor Seed blend is USDA Certified Organic, gluten free and kosher, with no MSG, no fillers and no anti-caking agents, mixed in small batches by our family in Charlotte, North Carolina — which means whatever goes in the basket, you can hand it over and let them read the back of the jar.