Best Picnic Foods Available in the Bay Area
The most common depiction of a picnic includes a wicker basket, cold cut sandwiches, and an assortment of chips or fruit. While this stereotypical picnic is popular for a reason, it’s a limiting way to approach picnicking that ignores all the amazing possibilities. Across the world, there’s a collection of foods that travel well and are perfect for enjoying outdoors. Check out our recommendations for some of the best picnic foods you can find across the Bay Area.
Starting with our Off the Grid creators, we’ll explore the perfect outdoor eats inspired by cuisine from Ecuador to Japan. From Ceviche & Co, pick up an order of their fried empanadas stuffed with roasted bell peppers, poblano peppers, onions, beans, corn, and cheese. The exterior holds its crisp for a long time, so you don’t have to worry about eating a soggy empanada. You can also eat it by hand without needing to carry around utensils. Eat on Monday marries Hawaiian Kalua Pork with Mexican flautas, aka deep fried taquitos. Another fried dish that’s popular on picnics is fried chicken. Love burn’s hot chicken sandwich is great for picnics as it also maintains its texture (Pro tip: store the fried chicken separately from the bun and toppings and assemble right before eating).
If you’re looking for non-fried options, consider Miss Subi’s musubi made with spam, tamago (in this case, a sweet egg cake), furikake rice, and seaweed. Their chicken cutlet musubi is layered with cucumber, yuzu aioli, shiso rice, and nori. Musubi is the perfect picnic food because they’re compact, delicious, and available with many different fillings. The aptly named business, Picnic basket, provides the ideal picnic sandwich — a sweet french roll stacked with turkey, pastrami, salami, swiss cheese, Italian dressing, truffle aioli, brown mustard, lettuce, and yellow chiles. For a hot summer day, enjoy spring rolls loaded with shrimp, thin rice noodles, lettuce, cucumber, mint, and cilantro from Saigon Street food.
If you’re hosting a picnic in San Francisco, pick up one of Vaca Birria’s popular burritos. The SF Chronicle crowned it one of the best restaurants in San Francisco and one of the best burritos in the city. A burrito is a neatly wrapped parcel ready to be enjoyed at a moment’s notice, and with the enormous burritos at La Vaca Birria, you’re sure to get your fill. If you’re heading to the East Bay for your picnic, check out the assortment of sandwich options at Ok’s Deli. On the other side of the Bay Area, San Jose is the best place in the South Bay to pick up a banh mi. Honestly, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the fantastic choices in the city, but if you’re looking to try something new, stop by Mommy’s Banh Mi. The business recently opened their first brick-and-mortar location where they sling banh mi filled with porchetta, lemongrass patties, or fried chicken. Make sure to sample their signature cilantro aioli.
In reality, pretty much any food can be a picnic food if you’re determined enough. Do you want to celebrate your birthday at the beach? Just bring along an ice chest for your cake. How about a picnic in the middle of the winter? Sure, load up a thermos with chicken noodle soup. The true ultimate Bay Area picnic contains a lunch bag filled with a mixture of all of the above. Start your meal with a small bite like an empanada or spring rolls, then move onto a sandwich as the main course, and finish off your meal with ice cream or baked goods. And if you’re looking for a place to hold your picnic, read 10 Exceptional Places to Host a Picnic in the Bay Area.
