Easter Recipes and Food Traditions | Green Chef UK (2024)

FAQs

What is a traditional Easter dinner menu in the UK? ›

Roast lamb or roast ham is the traditional meat for the main meal on Easter Sunday. Read on for more on what to serve with your traditional Easter roast. Hot cross buns, which are spiced tea cakes, are traditionally served on Good Friday. Simnel cakes are often made at Easter time.

What's a traditional Easter menu include? The main dish for an Easter meal varies, but some typical dishes include honey-baked ham, pot roast, pork chops, and fish. Some popular side dishes include scalloped or mashed potatoes, spring vegetables, and dinner rolls.

Boiled eggs, Easter bread, casatiello, torta al formaggio, torta pasqualina, colombo cake and chocolate eggs are usually offered for breakfast on Easter in Italy. A typical Italian Easter dinner will often include soup, salad, risotto, pasta and lamb, served with veggies and plenty of wine.

Roast lamb – this is the main dish served at Jewish Passover and is the traditional meat for the main meal on Easter Day. The reason for this is because in past centuries it was considered a lucky omen to come across a lamb, especially at Easter time.

For their main evening meal, many people turn to lamb over Easter. There are both religious and seasonal connotations to eating this specific meat over the Easter period and for whichever reason you choose, lamb makes the perfect centrepiece to your dinner. Traditionally people have their roast lamb on Easter Sunday.

For ages, Christians have avoided eating meat on Easter Sunday. Many individuals, devout or not, continue to eat solely fish on this day. Every year, millions of people around the world observe the tradition of eating fish on Easter.

Lamb is a popular main dish on Easter in the U.S. and throughout Europe, such as the roast lamb common in the U.K. and Greece, or the French gigot d'agneau pascal, a rich, slow-cooked lamb stew often served with spring vegetables.

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 ...

On Good Friday, it's tradition to eat fish rather than meat. According to Christians, Jesus sacrificed his flesh on what is now known as Good Friday. This is why traditionally, people abstain from meaty flesh on Good Friday. Fish is viewed as a different kind of flesh, and so is favoured over meat on Good Friday.

Traditionally, the meat is roasted lamb, served with asparagus, potatoes, and a salad. Of course, other meats can be served. As a treat, we usually had rouladen and potato dumplings, served along with spring peas and carrots. After dinner, it's time to enjoy this Osterlammkuchen, Easter lamb cake.

What is a Greek Easter dinner? ›

Traditional Greek Easter feasts feature whole roast lambs on an outdoor rotisserie. But if an oven is all you've got, roasting lamb and potatoes together in the oven is the next best thing. This traditional recipe uses oranges instead of the more-common lemons. You can use lemon juice, if preferred, or even a mix.

Lamb, with Sicilian Easter bread, is on most Sicilians' Easter Sunday lunch menu, often served with potatoes and vegetables and preceded by a pasta dish such as lasagne or baked anelletti. Lamb can also make an appearance in 'mpanata (lamb pie).

Cook a classic Easter dinner with recipes for ham, lamb, scalloped potatoes, spring vegetables—and our best treats and cakes.

Roast lamb is the meal most associated with Easter Sunday – the tradition of eating lamb on Easter has its roots in early Passover observances. And a Scottish holiday wouldn't be complete without some baked goodies.

Roast lamb studded with rosemary & garlic

Make traditional spring lamb the centrepiece of your celebratory lunch.

Popular Easter Traditions in the UK

Friends and loved-ones gather together to give and receive Easter eggs (the larger and more sweet-stuffed the better); whole families enjoy early morning Easter egg hunts, running around gardens and parks to collect and eat easter eggs which have been hidden overnight.

Gemma Stafford: Easter is a big deal in Ireland, being a religious holiday. Every year, the meal would consist of lamb served with roast vegetables, gravy, and all the trimmings. Dessert in our house was usually something chocolate.

The Easter dinner choice between ham and lamb reflects personal preferences and cultural traditions rooted in history. Ham offers classic comfort with various curing techniques, while lamb symbolizes spring's elegance and ancient rituals.