17 Graduation Party Food Ideas Guaranteed to Make Your Party

This post shows you graduation party food ideas.

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Graduation season! You just graduated high school, and I bet the last thing you want to do is plan a huge party for essentially everyone that knows you.

In my opinion, planning food was probably the hardest part of the party. In fact, my family made a ridiculous amount of food and we still ran out.

This post shows you the best graduation party food ideas, guaranteed to make your party amazing. All of these graduation party food ideas are super popular, ensuring your guests will be obsessing over them!

This post shows you 17 food ideas perfect for your graduation party.

Graduation Party Food Ideas

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1. Taco Bar 

A taco bar is a perfect idea for a grad party!

Keep these as an appetizer alongside your main food, or use it as the main dish.

2. Tiered Fruit Display

Fruit is a staple at every graduation party. Would it even be a grad party without it?

In my experience we always saw fruit assorted in tin serving trays. This is perfectly functional, but I think displaying fruit on tiers is just so much cuter.

Here's some display tiers that I think would be perfect for displaying fruit.

3. One Smart Cookie

Such a cute way to display some cookies!

4. Wine Glass Desserts

I thought this was such a cute idea!

Fill plastic wine glasses with chocolate covered candies and top with a cupcake.

Try and coordinate the colors to match your grad parties theme!

5. Veggie Dip

Have veggie dip to go along with your vegetables?

Use a hollowed out bell pepper to hold your dip. A bowl works perfectly, but this is such a cute and innovative way to display your vegetable dip, and let guests know exactly what it's for!

Related: 19 Dazzling Graduation Party Decoration Ideas For The Best Party On The Block

6. Candy Bar

A candy bar is a a very cute idea to display candy at your graduation party. For a perfect DIY candy bar, fill tall glass vases with the candy of your choice, and add some cute signage with tons of puns!

7. Root Beer Float Bar

A root beer float bar is such a good idea for a dessert bar, and isn't something that's super popular!

8. Nacho/Potato Bar

Similar to a taco bar, this is an immediate crowd pleaser.

I grew up in wayyy northern Minnesota (we actually live so far north we have Canadian accents) and the grad parties I would go to sometimes had some pretty interesting foods.

Everyone had a weird obsession with potatoes, and this ended up resulting in a lot of grad parties having baked potato, mashed potato, and tater tot bars.

The idea of a nacho or potato bar is actually genius, and pleases everyone - just make sure to have a wide variety of toppings!

9. Buckets of Candy

Here's another example of a cute way to display candy at your high school graduation party. Just like the idea of adding candy into the tall glass vases, this is a great option for a more rustic or vintage graduation party.

10. Refreshments

Every grad party displays their drinks differently, but I always thought that the grad parties that had drinks in dispensers looked the prettiest.

Related: The Most Fun Activities For A Graduation Party To Make Sure It’s One That Won’t Be Forgotten

11. Rustic Display Plates

Rustic graduation party themes are becoming more and more popular. In fact, my graduation had a rustic element to its theme.

Displaying food in baskets and on wooden plates is not only cute, but can add a very nice rustic element to any graduation party!

12. Fruit Kabobs

Fruit kabobs is a cute way to display fruit in a rainbow fashion.

These are tedious, but they're very aesthetically pleasing and great for little kids!

13. Strawberry-Brownie-Marshmallow Kabobs

These are a perfect dessert, especially for a grad party!

Similar to fruit kabobs, these are more tedious to make but can be worth the work for such a photo perfect end result!

Make the brownies in the mini muffin tin linked above. 

14. Jalapeno Poppers

Jalapeno poppers are a staple for party food.

Even though this is only a grad party, jalapeno poppers can be a perfect spicy addition to your main course.

If most of your foods aren't spicy, this is a perfect spicy option for people who love spicy food! This also helps ensure everyone was happy with all the food options.

15. Lots of Dip

Are you even hosting a graduation party if you don't have some kind of dip everyone scoops onto their plate?

16. Caprese Salad Skewers

Caprese anything is a very refreshing addition to heavier foods usually at a graduation party.

These kabobs are easy to make! Just get pearls of mozzarella, grape tomatoes, and fresh basil leaves. Add them to kabobs, alternating the three ingredients and finish the platter off with a drizzle of thick balsamic vinegar.

17. Vegetable Display

This vegetable display is very practical and includes dip in the bottom of the serving cup!

Copy the vegetables in the picture above, or add some of your own.

This post showed you 17 graduation food party ideas guaranteed to make your party.