Grocery store strawberries are a year round lie. Market strawberries in late June are small, dark, fragile, and gone by Tuesday, which is exactly why a strawberry dinner party menu is the smartest thing a Chicago host can plan right now. Build the whole night around one peak season ingredient and the menu writes itself.
The three course strawberry dinner party menu
First: strawberries with burrata. Halved berries, torn burrata, basil, cracked black pepper, good balsamic, flaky salt. Five minutes of work that looks like an hour. Serve with bread you did not bake, zero shame.
Main: strawberry chipotle glazed chicken. Sweet, smoky, lacquered, and it gives your table something to talk about. Full recipe card below.
Last: macerated strawberries over pound cake. Toss berries with a spoonful of sugar and a squeeze of lemon, let them sit twenty minutes, pile over store bought pound cake with whipped cream you actually whipped. Nobody has ever been disappointed by this dessert. Nobody.
Strawberry Chipotle Glazed Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, about 4 lb, spatchcocked (ask your butcher)
- 2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled
- 1 to 2 chipotle peppers in adobo, plus 1 tbsp of the sauce
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the chicken
- Kosher salt and black pepper
Method
- Blend strawberries, chipotle, adobo sauce, honey, vinegar, garlic, and olive oil until smooth. Simmer 10 minutes until it thickens to a glaze. Season with salt.
- Pat the chicken dry, rub with oil, season generously with salt and pepper.
- Grill over indirect medium heat, or roast at 425°F, skin side up, about 35 minutes.
- Brush with glaze every 5 minutes for the final 15 minutes, until the chicken hits 165°F and the glaze is lacquered. Rest 10 minutes. Carve. Serve with extra glaze and watch it disappear.
Where Chicago hosts shop for a strawberry dinner party
Green City Market in Lincoln Park is the classic Saturday move. Get there before 9 if you want first pick of the berries, because you are not the only one with this plan. Maxwell Street Market runs select Sundays through October 4, and it's the better stop if you want global street food while you shop. Full pilgrimage option: Long Grove's strawberry festival runs June 26 to 28, with strawberry everything in the historic downtown. Worth the drive.
A market haul is just a dinner party that hasn't happened yet.
So pick a Saturday. Shop the market. Cook the menu. Fill the table. And if you want the dinner to survive the group chat, put it somewhere real: a date, a guest list, a plan. That's the whole trick behind the supper club summer everyone's having. The food is the reason. The people are the point.