You might be drinking sparkling wine over the holidays. And while many will argue that sparkling wine goes with everything—and I wouldn’t argue with them—there are some things with which it’s especially divine.
Creamy, rich things.
Salty, smoky things.
Fried things.
Breakfast and brunch things.
Festive, fancy things.
Things like Smoked Salmon Salad on Toasts.
Smoked Salmon Salad on Toasts is creamy, rich, smoky, festive, and fancy. Perhaps even better, it’s e-a-s-y. In about 10 minutes you can be treating your guests—and yourself—to a snazzy app that’ll make their sparkling wine, well, sparkle!
It’s basically smoked salmon mashed together with cream cheese, plus lemon, watercress, and horseradish. I got the idea from a caterer and have enhanced it various ways over the years.
I’ve made it with trout instead of salmon (that version is in my book “100 Perfect Pairings: Small Plates to Enjoy with Wines You Love“). I’ve made it with olives and capers for Lindsay Olives. And with orange instead of lemon, with parsley instead of watercress, and with goat cheese instead of cream cheese.
All excellent.
I’ve also included it in many of my cooking classes—it’s so quick and easy that students can make it and pass it around as an appetizer while others are working on the rest of the meal.
And it’d even be great on New Year’s Day, spread onto bagels and washed down with mimosas.
For many of us, 2025 has been a roller coaster of a year. And 2026 could be similarly tumultuous.
But between now and then, there’s a holiday. And surely many things to celebrate. Make it sparkle with Smoked Salmon Salad on Toasts.
For more about what pairs with sparkling wine and why, read this post.
More recipes that pair with sparkling wine:
Baked Chèvre with Herbes de Provence Breadcrumbs
Marinated Olives with Citrus and Garlic
Chilled Cucumber and Avocado Soup with Crab
Classic Ham and Cheese Pockets
Classic Cobb Salad
Ham and Brie Baguettes
Crème Fraiche Fettuccine Alfredo with Peas
And two (very similar) dessert recipes with sparkling wine in them:
Orange Creamsicle Floats with Sparkling Wine
Sparkling Wine Floats with Apricot-Vanilla Sauce
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
