My absolute favourite picnic meal is an exceptionally good loaf of bread, a couple of real cheeses, roast or deli meats, some fruit, and (if no-one's driving) a bottle of good wine are my personal favorite picnic foods. Simple, good quality ingredients like these make the best condiment to a walk in the park.
Another option, if you like Japanese food, have a search of Bento recipes. There are usually intensely flavourful foods that are traditionally served at room temp. Just Bento book and website is my favorite, but you would need to scale up the recipes to feed a crowd. Cooking With Dog youtube series has some good recipes too, her potato salad is easy to scale up and goes over well, even with people who are usually dedicated to hating potato salad.
Chicken salad stuffed french bread slices. Hollow out a crusty loaf of french bread cut into 4 inch shunks. Butter inside of the bread. Stuff with your favorite chicken salad. (it is better for the chicken to be shreaded than really chunky.) Chill, then slice into 1 inch slices to serve.
My personal favorite is cold roast chicken (that you've made yourself, of course). Here is my foolproof recipe. https://food52.com/recipes/3401-perfect-roast-chicken
Spinach Pie! eggs and spinach plus two cheeses in a beautiful double-crust pie. aka torta pasqualina from what some Italians serve at Easter. There's a great recipe by Anita Sheldon reprinter in Hesser 2010 essential NYT cookbook, but many more around.
One 'go to' is a lima bean salad.
The night before defrost a bag of baby limas. Not to really cook them you want some 'tooth' to them.
Make a dressing of lemon, juice, olive oil, oregano, garlic. Salt and Pepper.
Dress the lima beans and put in the fridge over night.
Before you pack it up put in crumbled feta cheese, diced tomatoes, and chopped parsley.
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Another option, if you like Japanese food, have a search of Bento recipes. There are usually intensely flavourful foods that are traditionally served at room temp. Just Bento book and website is my favorite, but you would need to scale up the recipes to feed a crowd. Cooking With Dog youtube series has some good recipes too, her potato salad is easy to scale up and goes over well, even with people who are usually dedicated to hating potato salad.
https://food52.com/contests/361-your-best-picnic-recipe
The night before defrost a bag of baby limas. Not to really cook them you want some 'tooth' to them.
Make a dressing of lemon, juice, olive oil, oregano, garlic. Salt and Pepper.
Dress the lima beans and put in the fridge over night.
Before you pack it up put in crumbled feta cheese, diced tomatoes, and chopped parsley.