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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.
Perfect Easter dinner would be a mix of Georgian kachapuri, wine, some fresh bread and some nice lamb with the entire family at the dinner table.
l find your recipes easy to follow & fun to make. I enjoy reading them even if I don’t make them.
My favorite Easter dinner is roasted duck, with garlic smashed baby potatoes 🥔, roasted seasoned brussel sprouts, honey glazed diced carrots and chow chow.
Always have hard boiled eggs pickled, dyed pink, green, yellow & blue .
My favorite Easter dishes are the Baked Ham and Roasted Lamb ! Quail Deviled Eggs! Stuffed Mushrooms! Roasted Brussels with Pine Nuts and Bacon. Fresh Bake Green Beans and Asparagus! Can not forget the Pickels and Olives Nor the Jello Jigglers! The various Sparkling Cider flavors and Homemade Punch!!
You are definitely a 5 with your menus
My favorite is the crockpot spiral ham and cheesy potatoes…..so delicious!!! 😋
My favorite Easter meal is ham, a baked potato, asparagus, rolls, and a really good green salad and fruit. For dessert, anything made with lots of lemons. The people surrounding me are the best part of a good Easter meal! Thanks for all your great recipes. I haven’t found anything I haven’t loved!
My favorite Easter meal is ham, a baked potato, asparagus, rolls, and a really good green salad and fruit. For dessert, anything made with lots of lemons. The people surrounding me are the best part of a good Easter meal! Thanks for all your great recipes. I haven’t found anything I haven’t loved!
Love all of these recipes My favorite for our family Easter is honey baked ham with mashed potatoes and sautéd green beans and rolls. Plus chocolate meringue pie after lunch egg hunts and marshmallow eggs
Easter to me means church with family and then a family dinner. Easter family dinner is smoked ham, deviled eggs, homemade dinner rolls and various sides and desserts.
I love spiral ham at Easter and I would try the recipe on this site because the ingredients are things I already have in my pantry. Easter ham, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, ambrosia salad, pickled eggs (because we always have an abundance of boiled eggs that have been dyed thanks to the grandkids), coconut cream pie, lemonade and iced tea and at everyone’s place setting – there’s a chocolate bunny. Daffodils and tulips on the table complete the picture. I love Easter!
Ham Potatoes Key lime pie Sauté asparagus macronic and cheese rolls
Ham
My favorite Easter meal is Honey Baked Ham, potato salad, green beans, deviled eggs, pineapple casserole and Parker House rolls! Why is my mouth watering as I’m typing this?? Yum
I loved the brown sugar ham in the crockpot recipe! But our favorite Easter tradition is having Goldenrod eggs over sausage or ham topped biscuits with a side of roasted asparagus. That would be a bechamel with chopped hard cooked egg whites spooned over the sausage ir ham topped biscuits, then sprinkled with the hard cooked egg yolks that have Bern pressed through a sieve (the “goldenrod” part) and topped with paprika (or cayenne flakes for those who want some heat).
My favorite dish is deviled eggs. Each year various on the main dish from ham to ribeye roast. A must are rolls and dessert. My favorite part of Easter is churchgoing followed by meal with family. He is risen indeed.
My favorite and traditional Easter dinner is glazed ham, scalloped potatoes, corn casserole, bowtie noodles, rolls, butter and grape punch. The deserts vary depending on who brings it and what was a hit the previous year. Flashlight egg hunts also top off the list of favorite things to do for Easter. Everyone looks forward to eating candy throughout the day.
Always excited to get new recipes from your site.❤️
My favorite Easter dinner is ham with cheesy potatoes. The rest is contributed by everyone coming…..it varies each year. Our dessert is usually something springy.
My favorite Easter Dinner is glazed ham, pistachio glazed carrots, scalloped potatoes, fresh rolls, and pies for dessert!
Looks amazing! Thank you for sharing ideas and recipes!
We have our Easter ham with pineapple, red potatoes seasoned with evoo, green beans casserole, (plain green beans too). Deviled eggs, black olives, salad and dinner rolls, sometimes a jello.
Dessert varies every year. We like to try new things, one thing that stays the same, dutch apple pie.