Take your veggie platter from snack to centerpiece with this crudite board trick!

We've shown you our guide to building an epic Italian-style crudite platter, but there's a new trick we've been turning to time and time again: using veggies as vessels for dip! 

Pick any vegetable that you can hollow out and use to hold dips for your crudite board - it adds even more color, and creates a crazy beautiful (and very Instagrammable) veggie landscape. 

For the vegetable or fruit you use, be sure to slice just a bit off the bottom (without cutting through!) so that you have a flat surface to stabilize it. Trust us, you don't want anything to be rolling around with dip inside!

Cabbage: Using a small sharp knife, carefully hollow out a head of green or purple cabbage by slowly going around the rim. A metal spoon can also help carve away straggling bits in the middle. Be sure to also cut off a small amount on the bottom as well to give it a sturdy bottom so it doesn't roll around!

Bell Peppers: We love the look of laying bell peppers on their side and cutting them from stem to bottom to create a perfect little boat for hummus, guacamole, or anything! The best thing about bell peppers is that there is an array of colors to choose from, and you can color-code to your hearts' content.

Citrus: For a dip that won't mind a little zesty flavor, you can hollow out a lemon, grapefruit or orange with a small pairing knife and a metal spoon. Reserve the flesh of the fruit for another use (great excuse for some lemonade!) and fill them up. Check out how Giada does it with risotto!