25 Easter Recipes to Create New Holiday Traditions (2024)

FAQs

What are Easter food traditions? ›

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.

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.

It highlights five traditional Easter foods, including hot cross buns, roast lamb, Easter eggs, Simnel cake, and the Butter Lamb, each representing aspects of the holiday's spiritual and cultural heritage. Easter, celebrated worldwide by Christians, holds profound historical and cultural significance.

One of the most famous Italian easter foods is torta pasqualina, a savory pie filled with greens, cheese, and hard-boiled eggs. Across central and southern Italy, you'll find another popular dish, pizza rustica – a rich pie filled with eggs, small bits of cured meats, and cheeses.

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.

Simnel cake was traditionally given by servant girls to their mothers when they returned home on Mothering Sunday and it's now become a classic Easter cake.

Rack of Lamb

You can't have a list of traditional Easter foods without lamb!

Eggs are one of the most recognised Easter foods around. There are a few different reasons for all the egg chat at this specific time of year. Firstly, eggs signify new life, which is what Easter and spring are all about. Plus, Christians use the egg as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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 ...

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.

What is traditionally eaten on Good Friday? ›

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.

Celebrate Good Friday in the traditional way with a range of fabulous fish dishes, from showstopping salmon traybakes to smoked haddock, hake and fish pies.

A traditional Easter meal consists of lamb, which represents innocence and humility, accompanied by fresh vegetables and potatoes. Festive cakes are, of course, also a staple ingredient for a Easter Sunday afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen.

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).

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.

After the many weeks of Lent, Easter, which marks the resurrection of Christ, is usually celebrated with a big family meal. It often includes eggs, hot cross buns, and lamb or ham. Eggs symbolize rebirth and rejuvenation.

Ham is the most traditional Easter meat. Although it's also popular at Christmas and many Thanksgiving tables include ham as an additional meat entree, Easter is when ham fully occupies the spotlight. Most conventional hams are cured with sugar or honey, which significantly raises the sugar levels of the final product.

Traditionally, people abstain from eating meat on Good Friday. Here are our best meat-free meals for the start of your Easter weekend, including a crowd-pleasing potato and salmon quiche and easy vegetarian lasagne.