Are you looking for ideas on how to teach plate presentations in your culinary courses? In a recent webinar, Denise DuBois, Realityworks Senior Product Manager, showcased best practices for engaging students in food plating and presentation. Read on to see the activities and free resources she shared.
Activities for Plate Presentations
Here are some of our favorite activities for food plating and presentation.
Videos
Show students a video of professional plate presentations to give them some ideas for their own plates. This helps them understand the purpose and importance of food plating. It’s a great idea to provide students with visuals of good plates. Here are some videos to consider:
- How to Plate Food like a Pro Chef | Food Plating Tips Techniques | Kunal Kapur Food Presentation Art (youtube.com)
- Basic Food Plating Techniques (youtube.com)
- Food Styling: Chef Michael Laiskonis’ 4 Essential Elements of Plating (youtube.com)
- How to Plate Like a Chef (youtube.com)
Do This, Not That!
Have students find or create one good and one bad example of plate presentations. A bad example can be just as powerful as a good example. Here are five food plating mistakes you can have students find:
- Cluttered plate
- Mismatched colors
- Messy plating
- Uneven portions
- Lack of attention to detail
Practice on Paper
Have students practice plate presentations on paper. Give them freedom to draw ingredients or dishes that you assign on paper with colored pencils. This is a creative way to help students practice the proper food plating techniques. They could even draw their ideas on paper plates to make it more realistic!
Twinkie Challenge
Let students practice plate presentations with real food! Students love trying hands-on food plating tasks using different shapes. This is a quick visual presentation that challenges students to plate a Twinkie with garnish and appeal. Alternatively, you could host a brownie plating challenge in which students make brownies and plate the dessert with some of the principles they learned.
Fruit and Vegetable Art
Have students create fruit and vegetable art that looks great and doesn’t require a ton of food items. Students can cut fruits and vegetables in appealing ways for plate presentations. They can even let their classmates or other class periods judge their plates and determine winners based on visual appeal.
Plating Trend Research Project
Start the lesson by introducing the concept of food plating trends and discussing the importance of staying current with culinary trends. Assign each student a food plating trend to research or allow them to choose. Here are some plate trends they can research:
- Geometric
- Minimalistic
- Deconstructed
- Rustic
- Monochromatic
- Natural and organic
- Retro-inspired
Food Presentation Challenge Day
As a continuation of the last activity, assign a plating challenge to the class based on the trends they researched. For example, if the trend was minimalistic plating, challenge students to create visually stunning plate presentations using only three ingredients. You could challenge students to create their own unique plate with the same ingredients, such as strawberries, cream or eggs, and puff pastry.
Blind Plating
Host a blind plating challenge! In this free-form plating challenge, students are blindfolded and asked to create plate presentations using only their sense of touch. Divide the class into teams and provide each team with a selection of pre-prepared ingredients for the best results. Blindfold one member from each team and have them feel the texture, shape, and size of each ingredient to create a plate. The other team members can guide and assist their blindfolded teammates.
Resources for Plate Presentations
Here are some great teaching resources for food plating and presentation lessons:
- Visual Appeal of Food Plating: This is a lesson plan from Texas Career and Technical Education (CTE) for grades 10 to 12. It includes the lesson plan, slide presentation, and a variety of PDF worksheets.
- Food Styling and Presentation: This is a 27-page lesson plan with slides from the Illinois Board of Education.
- Plating and Styling Brownies: This is a lab idea for plate presentations of brownies. It includes a lesson plan, lab PDF, slide presentation, and brownie project outline.
- 10 Professional Food Plating Tips: This article offers great tips for any food plating activity or lab that your students do.
- Food Preparation and Presentation: This website has three objectives. It aims to describe three ways food service personnel can help promote healthy attitudes about food to the children at childcare centers, name two special concerns with diets and how they can be addressed, and list two ways to prepare food for infants, preschoolers, and school-age children.
Additional Resources
Want to see more culinary education resources?
- Watch the full webinar on-demand for more information on these activities
- See how hydroponics helps culinary students in Louisiana grow healthy food in this customer story
- Explore our culinary implementation resources to discover hands-on tools for your classroom