Easy appetizers for Indian dinner party?

You can do papri chaat which is a perfect appetizer. Usually they are made with papri discs that you can buy ready made from the Indian grocery store but my mom has made it with alternatives! One way to make it easy:

- Buy the tostitos scoops
- boil & mash (or dice really tiny) potatoes - season with chaat masala, red chili powder, salt, cumin, cilantro
- chop up tomatoes & red onions really fine
- fill the scoops with the potato, tomato and onions
- drizzle any type of green chutney (mint/coriander/etc), tamarind chutney, and some thinned out yogurt (water/salt/cumin)
- dust some chaat masala and sprinkle tons of nylon/super fine sev on top
- garnish with fresh cilantro!

You can actually set this up as a buffet spread and folks can help themselves. This is always a hit!

A recipe for handvo just went up on the site - it's a make-two-days-ahead-and-be-ultra-prepared gift to party hosts. You could also serve regular khaman dhokla with mint/cilantro and tamarind chutneys (the same chutneys you'd serve samosas with!). Or you could serve khandvi, which is more involved but WORTH IT. Pages is great too - you can buy frozen packages at an Indian store and they'll be ready to serve after a few minutes in a hot, oiled pan.

If you don't mind indo-chinese, Gobi Manchurian is sure to be a hit. Or baby corn Manchurian or paneer Manchurian. Maybe even tofu Manchurian!

South Indian options are akki roti (a rice flour pancake that incorporates shredded vegetables), idlis, rava idlis, or puttu.

Baked samosas are totally a thing. They differ in quality, but maybe the commenter above can recommend a brand. Good luck! Report back!

If you have a grill or grill pan, paneer tikka skewers would be a nice option- paneer and capsicum layered on skewers and then grilled. Otherwise we bake (ready made) samosas, no need to fry them! You could also do baked chickpeas with lots of spices, which are a great crunchy snack (an article was posted on here recently that you could adapt). Your party sounds delicious, hope it all works out :)

I was going to and still am going to suggest homemade naan bread.
Let it shine as the centerpiece of its own course And homemade is both so good and so rare to eat! Serve with chutney and/or raita. Cool fruit drinks for all, or just for the kids and kingfisher beer for the adults.
Since this removes the naan from the main course, perhaps substitute a plain rice or a biryani rice to go with the chicken.

I'm going to be doing a similar dinner party in March and was wondering the same thing. If your oven is free that evening (or earlier in the afternoon), perhaps make these potatoes - https://food52.com/recipes/70514-better-than-a-restaurant-home-fries - and serve them with a cucumber mint yogurt raita sauce.
The only difference being when blending the mixture just add either 2 teaspoons of a good curry powder to the mix (or 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder, 1 teaspoon cumin powder, 1/2 teaspoon coriander powder and 1/2 teaspoon garam masla powder as quick informal alternative to curry powder) to just bring in some Indian flavors. Then proceed with recipe.