Build the Perfect Easter Menu With These 80 Festive Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is a traditional Easter dinner menu? ›

Glazed ham or juicy lamb, old-fashioned casseroles, deviled eggs, and special desserts — the Easter feast is when we love to recreate traditional family recipes passed down through generations to savor all over again.

Traditional Easter Food. Food is an essential part of the Easter celebration in the USA. Traditional dishes include ham, which is often served with sweet potatoes, green beans, and deviled eggs.

An Easter ham is a classic, and we've got 5+ solid recipes for you to try (including one in made easy on a sheet pan). If you're looking to branch out, check out our recipes for other meaty holiday showstoppers, like braised lamb shank, pork loin roast, and beef wellington.

Traditionally, the baskets are filled with: decorated hardboiled eggs (representing Christ's Resurrection); lamb-shaped butter or sugar (representing Christ as the “Lamb of God”); bread (reminding us that Jesus is the “Bread of Life”); meats, such as ham (symbolic of great joy and abundance), sausage (symbolic of God's ...

Local experts believe that Jesus ate simple meals of bread and locally caught fish. Aside from simple meals of bread and locally caught fish, local experts believe that Jesus also ate olives. Local experts believe that Jesus drank wine with his meals.

In the north, fresh, stuffed pasta such as veal-stuffed agnolotti del plin is a popular choice, while in many other areas, pasta served with broth and sometimes even polpette, or meatballs, is traditional for Easter lunch. Baked pasta is also common for large celebrations since it can be made ahead of time.

Lamb is eaten in many countries, mirroring the Jewish Passover meal. Eating lamb at Easter has a religious meaning. The Paschal Lamb of the New Testament is in fact, for Christianity, the son of God Jesus Christ. The Paschal Lamb, in particular, represents the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of humanity.

We all know the two most popular meats in the world to serve as the centerpiece of an Easter dinner are lamb and ham. For most Americans, unlike most of the rest of the world, the choice is usually ham.

Favorites include Capirotada (Mexican Bread Pudding), Chile Relleno, Baja Fish Tacos, Camarones A La Diabla, and Crockpot Lentil Soup.

Not only were hogs cheaper to raise than sheep, but the farmers could slaughter the hogs in the fall and let the meat cure throughout the cold winter months. By spring, the cured meat was ready to eat—just in time to prepare for the Easter feast. The best part of the holiday ham may just be the leftovers.

What is an Irish Easter dinner? ›

A roast leg of Spring lamb served with a simple mint sauce is our favorite Easter meal. Usually the sauce is made with the first of the new season's mint freshly snipped from the herb garden. If we are really lucky, we will have the first baby carrots from the kitchen garden to round off the meal.

French people traditionally eat lamb at Easter, the most traditional dish is a leg of lamb cooked in the oven with provençal herbs, cumin, garlic and olive oil. The lamb is usually served with potatoes cooked in the oven, green beans or flageolet beans.

Lamb is the one food that is common in the Easter celebrations of many cultures. The roasted lamb dinner that many eat on Easter Sunday actually predates Easter—it is derived from the first Passover Seder of the Jewish people.

The tradition of eating ham on Easter is deeply rooted in the agricultural calendar. Before the advent of modern refrigeration, pigs were often slaughtered in the fall, and the meat was preserved through the winter months using salt and smoke.