Easter Food Ideas: How To Make a Simple Dinner for the Family

Easter’s place on the calendar is the reason why the holiday is synonymous with foods that become abundant in the spring: lamb, eggs, young green vegetables, and yummy desserts.

“Easter is one of my favorites holidays to celebrate because it is all about food and family,” said Chef Thanos Argyropoulos of Nisi Estiatorio, a Greek restaurant in New York City. “We start to plan at least a week in advance, early cooking traditional breads, cookies and of course, eggs for Easter Sunday. These are known as tsoureki.”

Chef Argyropoulos’ Easter menus tend to center on lamb. “We typically cook lamb two ways: kokoretsi, lamb cooked on a spit, and oven-roasted lamb,” Chef Argyropoulos told Mom.com.

In the United States, the most popular Easter main dish for the last century or so has been ham, but that tradition can be traced back hundreds of years to Germany. Pigs were traditionally slaughtered and cured in autumn, and available to eat in time for the vernal equinox, so ham became an obvious choice.

The beauty of both ham and a roast leg of lamb as a main dish is that neither is particularly labor-intensive to prepare. The Easter dinner sides you select can be as simple as you like: roast some potatoes and spring vegetables alongside the meat, add in a dessert, and you’ve got a meal.

Kathy Wipf’s family looks forward every year to an Easter ham loaf or barbecue ham balls. She rounds out her menu with potato salad or deviled eggs, creamed peas or green bean casserole, a tossed salad, and garlic bread. She finishes up the meal with a dessert of lemon bars or carrot cake.

Best of all: “Everything can be prepped one to two days ahead,” the mother of five told Mom.com.

Lucia Gagliano of Denver serves her family a store-bought spiral cut ham with packaged scalloped potatoes.

“My Sicilian grandma was the best cook on the planet, made everything from scratch but she loved those Betty Crocker scalloped potatoes out of the box,” Gagliano said. “Frozen green peas with butter, salt and pepper will give you a nice green side. Easy-peasy. I have three kids who live all over the US now and they loved this simple meal growing up.”

Ham or lamb are not for everyone — especially if you are a vegan or vegetarian. Fortunately, with all the gorgeous spring vegetables in season this time of year, you have a wealth of plant-based options.

“For those who are abstaining from meat, or for delicious sides, we like to serve oregano potatoes, eggplant salad, olives and feta cheese drizzled with olive oil. And plenty of wine to toast the holiday,” Chef Argyropoulos said.

You can find compilations of plant-based Easter dinner recipes at all the major cooking sites. Some simple examples can be found at the food site Delish with a range of Easter dinner recipes that include an easy veggie paella, all kinds of pasta dishes, and mains that can be baked on a sheet pan.

More from Mom.com: Vegetarian Entrees for Easter

1. Start by thinking about who is attending: Is it just you and your kids, or will there be extended family and friends? If it’s just your nuclear family, you can all be satisfied with fewer sides.
2. Do any of your family or guests have dietary restrictions (allergies or reasons to be gluten-free, vegetarian, or vegan? You need to make sure everyone at the table will have food they can enjoy eating.
3. People like their holiday traditions — especially teens and young adults. You may want to think twice about replacing that ham this year with lasagna. If your kids really, really want that side dish that takes hours of prep, maybe it’s time to enlist their help in making it.
4. Outsourcing some of the meal is OK! Pick one item to fuss over (whether it’s your signature entrée or a fabulous dessert) and pick up the rest (a pre-cooked ham, bakery goods, potatoes from a mix, etc.) If you’ve got guests coming, ask them to bring their own favorite side or dessert.
5. Most important of all: Have fun!