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These traditional Easter dinner ideas are sure to make your family Easter dinner a big success. You can’t go wrong with any of these tried-and-true classics. A traditional Easter dinner includes ham, side dishes, salads, and, of course, desserts.
As an added bonus, check out our sample Easter menu plan below (including recipes).
Traditional Easter Dinner
Every year our family gathers together on Easter Sunday to enjoy a traditional ham dinner. On the side, we serve a potato dish, a hot vegetable, and hot homemade rolls. We have our traditional menu plan below, or you can mix and match the recipes below to create your own special Easter dinner.
Easter Appetizers
As family and friends start to gather, we like to set out an appetizer or two. We’ve handpicked four fantastic recipes to elevate your Easter gathering.
Easter Main Dish Recipes
According to marthastewart.com, ham became the meat of choice for Easter dinner because it was more readily available than lamb. However, if ham isn’t your main dish of choice, a roast lamb, pork roast, or a roast beef can also be served for your Easter feast.
As mentioned above, our go-to Easter main-dish is ham. However, we have enjoyed other main dishes as well. If you are looking for a less traditional Easter meal, try one of these recipes using chicken, fish, beef, or pork.
Easter Side Dishes
Hot Potato Side Dishes
You can’t serve a ham dinner without a good hot potato side dish. Typically Easter potatoes are served “casserole-style” in a casserole dish with some kind of sauce and cheese. Some examples of this are funeral potatoes or potatoes au gratin. Our readers have commented saying that they have loved serving our creamy potatoes with peas or our parmesan crusted potato halves with their ham dinners as well. Check them all out and decide for yourself what suits your family best! Any of these Easter dinner ideas will be a winner!
Hot Vegetable Side Dishes
A hot vegetable side dish adds variety, color, and nutrition to an Easter dinner spread. Choose a hot vegetable that will complement the other side dishes on your Easter menu.
Easter Salads
The possibilities are endless when it comes to Easter salads. It’s fun to incorporate hard boiled eggs and spring flavors, like strawberry and lemon. We find ourselves using the following salads time and time again.
Easter Breads
Nothing quite compares to the aroma and taste of freshly baked bread. Homemade rolls are always a good idea. Make extra so you can have ham sandwiches for leftovers! Our classic Easter bread also looks beautiful on the table.
Easter Desserts
When it comes to Easter Desserts and Treats, we don’t mess around. In fact, we love Easter desserts and treats so much, we created an entire, separate post dedicated to them. These tasty treats can be served along with Easter dinner or even as surprises in Easter baskets. They are as fun to make as they are to eat! We featured our Chessmen Banana Pudding with our menu plan below. Here are a few more of our favorites.
Cakes
Pies
Bars and Cookies
Bonus: Leftover Ham Recipes
I don’t know about you, but we ALWAYS seem to have leftovers from Easter dinner. Here are some ideas to help you use up that delicious leftover ham:
Easy Easter Dinner Menu with Recipes
Here is a sample menu plan for a delicious and easy traditional Easter dinner. It features Slow Cooker Ham, Cheesy Potato Casserole, Sautéed Sweet Asparagus, and a Chessman Banana Pudding for dessert. See the recipe notes for tips on timing it all out perfectly. We are taking all of the stress out of it just for you! Please enjoy your beautiful, well-planned Easter dinner!
How to Make a Traditional Easter Dinner
Traditional Easter Dinner Menu
Video
Ingredients
Slow Cooker Spiral Ham
- 8 pound spiral- cut ham (cooked)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2/3 cup maple syrup
- 1 cup canned pineapple juice (do not use fresh)
Cheesy Potato Casserole
- 2 pounds hash browns shredded or cubed
- 3 teaspoons salt
- pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup butter melted
- 10 ounces condensed cream of chicken soup
- 2 cups sour cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 cups corn flakes (optional)
- 2 tablespoons butter (optional)
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (optional)
Sweet Asparagus
- 2-3 pounds asparagus
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 4 tablespoons sugar
Four Layer Banana Pudding
- 2 bags Pepperidge Farms Chessman Cookies
- 6 bananas sliced
- 2 cups milk
- 5 ounces instant vanilla pudding
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 12 ounces frozen whipped topping thawed
Instructions
Slow Cooker Spiral Ham
- Remove the ham from packaging and place ham, flat-side down, in a large slow cooker (7 quarts or larger).
- Generously rub brown sugar all over the ham.
- Pour maple syrup and pineapple juice over the ham.
- Place lid on slow cooker and cook for 2-3 hours on low heat.
- 30 minutes prior to serving, remove lid and spoon the juices over the ham. Cover and cook for 30 more minutes.
- Remove ham from slow cooker and serve.
Cheesy Potato Casserole
- Mix all ingredients, except optional toppings, in a large bowl. Spread mixture evenly into a 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
- Optional toppings: Corn flake crumb topping: BEFORE baking Sprinkle corn flake crumbs over casserole. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of melted better over the corn flake crumbs. Bake.Melted cheese topping: Prepare casserole and bake for 50 minutes. Remove casserole from oven and evenly disperse 1 ½ cups of shredded cheese over the casserole. Return the casserole to the oven and bake for 10 more minutes.
Sautéed Sweet Asparagus
- Rinse asparagus. Snap off the bottoms of each stalk and discard the bottoms.
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add asparagus to the skillet and sprinkle sugar over the stalks.
- Sauté asparagus over medium-high for 5-7 minutes or to your preferred doneness. Serve immediately.
Four Layer Banana Pudding
- Line the bottom of a 9×13 pan with one layer of Chessmen cookies.
- Place sliced bananas on top of the cookie layer.
- In a large bowl, combine milk and pudding mix. Stir until smooth. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. Stir until smooth. Fold in whipped topping.
- Add the two mixtures together and stir until well combined. Pour mixture over the banana layer.
- Top with another layer of Chessmen cookies (the picture side up) and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Notes
- Prepare the Four Layer Banana Pudding. This can be made the morning of, or the day ahead. It can also be made just after starting the Slow Cooker Ham and still have time to refrigerate so it can be served nice and cold.
- Prepare the Slow Cooker Ham and take a break for an hour. Set the table, clean the kitchen, or watch a show on Netflix. 🙂
- After the ham has been cooking for about an hour, prepare the Cheesy Potato Casserole. Once it’s in the oven, you can take another 45 minute break. If you are making a green salad or other sides, now is a good time to do it.
- At this point the ham has been cooking for about 2 hours. Take it out of the slow cooker and cut it into slices. Place the slices back in the juices in the slow cooker to keep them warm while you sauté the asparagus.
- Sauté the asparagus.
- Dinner is ready to go! Place the asparagus in a pretty serving dish with a spoon or tongs, place the sliced ham on a nice platter with a serving fork, remove the potatoes from the oven and set on the table with a serving spoon.
- When you are ready, cut the Four Layer Banana Pudding into slices and serve.
My dinner is honey baked ham, mac and cheese, deviled eggs, black eye peas, mashed potatos and apple pie and German chocolate cake.
Our favorite Easter is one with turkey sliders, calico beans, potato salad, chips and brownies for dessert. The middle of the huge dining table holds colored eggs, various candies and Easter grass in a big flat basket. The best part are those around the table, always 💕
Easter Dinner: Well, my Dad would bring home a ham butt and do the cooking normally. He would push Allspice in (I did Not like them) he put it in a Roasting Pan with about 1/2” of a concoction he got from Northern Maine and tent it. He and my Mother would make Scalloped Potatoes, Asparagus and Creamed Onions. There were No Spiral Cut Hans in those days, 65+ years ago! Dad would baste it every 30-45 minutes or so. In the meantime he prepared an Orange Glaze similar to Marmalade that would go on for the final hour. We’d all have some on our plates to spread on the Ham after Dad served it. He would spend 10+ minutes carving it up. Before we had any Ham we would have a simple appetizer of Deviled Eggs and Pickled Herring, a Swedish tradition.
My family’s favorite Easter side is scalloped potatoes and our favorite dessert is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
My favorite Easter dinner is hands down the traditional dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes (although the idea of Cheesy Potato Casserole-aka Funeral Potatoes is happening this Easter!), green beans, homemade rolls, and Coconut Cake for dessert.
We host Easter brunch at our home. Because we are in Florida, we have the wonderful opportunity to set up tables outdoors on our covered deck. I always make Eggs A’la Goldenrod as everyone looks forward to and love this dish. I also serve a French toast casserole, scrambled eggs, a few bagels and rolls, our traditional Italian Ricotta Pie and a chocolate no-flour cake, bacon, sausage and ham. Because we have vegetarians, meat eaters, vegan and gluten free guests, it gets busy for me in the kitchen. The shortcut of being able to cook the ham in a crock-pot is very helpful. The key-lime pie may be a nice addition to the pastry table. Thank you.
I love this stuff for Easter. I usually make a spiral ham, mashed potatoes and sweet corn. Sometimes I make home made rolls (it depends if I’m up to it or not). I usually have an Easter egg hunt for my grandchildren before dinner (phew!) that’s why I said if I’m up to it lol. My daughter brings the dessert. She always makes something good too lol
I would service a pineapple bread pudding with the dinner. It goes beautifully with the ham .. there are many recipes for it on the internet.
Brown sugar ham
Scalloped potatoes
Home canned green beans
Home frozen creamed corn
Broccoli casserole
7 layer salad
Rolls
Deviled eggs
We always have several homemade desserts
Mom always makes pies (coconut, brown sugar, pecan, sweet potato, chocolate (picks 2)
Peanut butter cake or mixed chip bundt cake
My daughter makes cookies
We always have too much food! Lol
Hi,
I make honey baked ham, no spiral, mashed potatoes with red chile, corn pudding, tossed salad, and Amish potato rolls. Rolls made large enough for sandwiches the next day or ham and potato chowder……mmmmm I’m getting hungry.
My Easter tradition is making a Lamb cake for Easter dessert and Italian lemon cookies!
I love your ham recipe. What could be
nicer than the bunny cake to finish the meal!!
Delicious. My dinner is cole slaw, corn pudding, ham, sweet potato casserole, and coconut cake.
I love funeral potatoes, raspberry pretzel salad, and a good lemon cheesecake.
The ham is delicious! I like having a menu for a complete meal. Really helpful for busy cooks. My own favorites for Easter dinner always include ham, potato salad, and fresh asparagus. For dessert, lemon meringue pie really says springtime to me, and kids always love cakes that look like a bunny. Easter memories last a lifetime!
These are all my favorites. For dessert I would usually make the “Pina Colada Poke cake”. Recently, everyone was too stuffed for a big dessert.
We have always had ham mashed potatoes and gravy and corn and rolls , Grandma Bell always made the pies on pecan, one pumpkin, lemon meringue and banana cream.
We celebrate our Easter at noon with a delicious brunch. We have egg casseroles, French toast, ham, biscuits tons and tons of bacon, coffee cakes. After eating we butt eggs. We all pick a hard boiled decorated egg . We start with the youngest and go around in a circle until one person has at least one end of their egg not broken. I am 82 years old and have done this with family since I was born.
Love the hard boiled eggs
In South Georgia I prepare our favorites: Honey baked ham, potato salad, English peas, strawberry pretzel salad , Baby blue salad, yeast rolls, Lemon coconut cake, Chocolate cobbler with vanilla ice cream.