Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide for Foodies 2021

With Christmas creeping ever closer I thought it was about time to design my Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide for Foodies.  It’s packed full of great gift ideas for the Foodie in your life and there is something for every budget.  From stocking fillers for beginner chefs to interesting new foods and snacks to more expensive ideas for the Gourmet Masterchef.  If you have someone special in your life that likes to dabble in the kitchen or loves to eat, you should treat them to one of these surprises!

All my recommendations are listed on my Amazon Shop Page so check it out – I hope it helps!…

Under £20 Stocking Fillers

Nuts – …”chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”  Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without some nuts (and I don’t mean your family members!)  I love nut butter, I make most of my baked goods with it (grain-free bread, pumpkin butter muffins, and peanut butter cookies – recipe coming soon) to name just a few!  I always make sure to use nut butter that contains just nuts and that is where Nut Blend comes in.  They have created the first range of flavoured nut butters that don’t contain any sugar or sweeteners, no palm oil, and no added salt. Their nut butters are a blend of just nuts and a pinch of natural spices – literally nothing else!  The flavours sound delicious… Cinnamon Hazelnut Almond Butter anyone? and I can personally vouch that they taste as yum as they sound!

You can buy them online in 200g jars priced at £5.99 or a whopping 1kg jar at £23.99. For anyone that fancies tasting them all before choosing their favourite, there is a taster pack priced at £22.00 which has all four varieties in 200g jars. 

I couldn’t decide whether to put this next offering in my Wine Gift Guide or My Foodie one but ultimately I settled on this one, although the brand is called Made for Drinks!  Not being able to eat sugar, grains, or gluten I tend to find my snack choices pretty limited.  I can’t eat potato chips or corn chips but Made for Drinks have created some delicious nibbles that I can have with my glass of wine in the evenings! Their chorizo and salami chips are made from top-quality sausages and then roasted to dry them out and make them crunchy!  Each nibble comes with a recommended drink that it should be paired with – chorizo with a glass of rioja sounds like an ideal pairing to me!

You can buy them in bulk online on their website (for around £2 a pack) or they’re available in plenty of other places – Waitrose, Sainsbury, Wholefoods, Fortnum & Masons to name a few!

Kooky Snacks are a new brand bringing exotic superfruit snacks to the UK market.

Their range includes some really different products such as freeze-dried jackfruit, mango, and mangosteen, and gently dried, soft, and chewy banana and dragon fruit. I’d never even heard of mangosteen before and I thought jackfruit was only good as a meat replacement in curries and stews!  All the fruits are delicious but the stand out is the dragonfruit – it’s sweet and chewy with an almost nutty type, sesame flavour!  A great and delicious way to get some extra superfoods into your diet!

Everything is available on their website (£9 for a variety box featuring a bag of each fruit) or also via Amazon!

As sweet stuff is usually off the menu for me I gravitate towards cheese as a dessert and this new Blackwoods Cheese is something I’m really excited about.  It’s called Graceburn and is the UK’s first rich and creamy feta-like marinated cheese made from raw cow’s milk.  Best described as a creamier version of Feta it’s made from fresh organic milk sourced from a local dairy herd.  It comes in 3 flavours and each jar is £7 (or 3 for £20):

Original – Raw cow’s milk cheese marinated in cold-pressed British rapeseed oil with aromatic flavours of garlic, thyme, and pepper.

Truffle – Raw cow’s milk cheese marinated in cold-pressed British rapeseed oil with luxurious black truffle.

Chipotle and Lemon – Raw cow’s milk cheese marinated in cold-pressed British rapeseed oil with chipotle chilli and lemon zest.

And once you’ve eaten all the cheese you can use the delicious oils in your cooking – the truffle one is amazing in a mushroom risotto!

This Christmas, instead of smoked salmon and champagne as a starter for your Christmas lunch, why not combine the two and opt for boozy salmon! The Pished Fish takes sushi-grade, Scottish salmon and gives it a more outlandish booze-infused persona, courtesy of Sussex’s best kept secret smokery, which is partnering this venerable fish with an audacious array of high-quality spirits and treasured botanicals,  before gently smoking it in small batches over an array of British grown, aromatic woods.  The fish start at £7.49 for one flavour and you can choose from:

£20-£50

I love cookbooks (I have a whole shelf full) and love looking through them for inspiration about what to make next.  I read them like other people read novels and I love flicking through the pages on the sofa after a long day. This Christmas, Sous Chef has come up with a great idea for that foodie in your life.  You can buy them a cookbook and with it comes some of the harder-to-source ingredients that are used in the dishes.  I love this added touch as there’s often a recipe I love in a book that I know I’ll never make, just because an ingredient isn’t widely available

There are plenty of cuisines and chefs to pick from- Ottolenghi and Dishoom, Mexican or Korean, to name just a few ranging from £35 to £50. Take a look at the Sous Chef website and see what whets your appetite!

Over £50

No Ultimate Gift Guide for Foodies would be complete without a Le Creuset Signature Casserole Dish.  Quality doesn’t come cheap but there is a reason that Le Creuset is so famous.  With a lifetime guarantee, their range is durable, beautiful, and perfectly designed.  I use my casserole dish for everything, from making soups and stews to slow-cooking meats.  It’s the best way of making my Sticky Chinese Chicken Thighs and on the lowest heat, it will rival any Slow Cooker!

A big investment maybe, but I just wouldn’t be without my Kenwood Multi.  When you think about everything that it does, it’s such fantastic value.  One kitchen gadget that replaces a mixer, food processor, blender, liquidiser, mincer, grater, citrus juicer and so much more.  It’s fairly compact and so won’t take up much room in a small kitchen.  I use mine every day from blending soups to mixing cake batter to making my Haricot Bean Houmous.  It’s expensive at around £280 but I use it every day and it will last for years!