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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)
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.
Love the ham recipe and scalloped potatoes
… actually I love all your recipes but for easter, that’s our favorite..then with a lamb cake!
I would make this for my sisters and their family but I don’t eat meat so I would have shrimp with all the sides. My own favorite Easter dinner would be fish, fresh garden salad, green bean casserole and for dessert the English Trifle recipe I grew up with.
I like the way this recipe was presented as a complete meal – really helpful to a new cook.
HAPPY EASTER and thank you for the recipes.
It used to be a big ham dinner with all the fixings. Now I’m alone, husband passed, kids are far away. So it’s a bone in ham slice, my grandmother’s baked corn, sautéed asparagus, mashed potatoes and gravy. Dessert this year will be banana bread cupcakes. Plenty left for the next day.
We always have a wonderful ham, german potato salad, fresh green beans with bacon and freshly baked dinner rolls (with real butter)
Love the banana pudding recipe above!
We always change up Easter dinners. But the favorite dinner is baked ham, sweet potato casserole, A tossed green salad, homemade sour dough rolls, asparagus Spears, and for dessert Cheesecake. Family time is always the best part of Easter!
My family’s favourite Easter lunch (where I live, it’s lunch when we get together) is asado. We are a very meat-centre country and we celebrate we’re allowed meat again with a feast of it *laughs*
We will celebrate with honey baked ham, smoked turkey breast, scalloped potatoes (by daughter in law), Mac & cheese, deviled eggs topped with a jalapeño slice, green bean casserole, Texas Roadhouse rolls, and Rum Cake!
In our family my nana had a bunny cake pan that she gifted my daughter and after she passed my daughter had promised to make that cake for Easter and she has now she is a mom and she will have a blast with her son like i did with my nana. I miss family traditions.
We love ham, macaroni and cheese, green beans, sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, deviled eggs, rolls, and banana pudding. I put my ham or macaroni and cheese in my crockpot. I have more room in my oven for my sweet potato casserole and broccoli casserole. I use leftover ham for omelets or ham sandwiches/biscuits.
Looking guests to trying some of these recipes. We don’t have a set Easter meal menu. Make various deserts for family’s but whatever is on hand works for us.
Excellent! Has become one of our favs.
I love this so does everyone else in my family 10/10❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Yum!
I love this recipe. For Easter Dinner, I love to make Ham, Funeral Potatoes and asparagus. For dessert and Angel food cake is perfect.
My favourite Easter meal is Scalloped potatoes Au Gratin, baked Honey Ham, peas and rolls.
My family and I love Easter ham with potatoes and corn and kings Hawaiian rolls. I won’t be making one the eater money is just too tight. I am making a homemade carrot cake though!
I love the sides the best. My Grandma always made Watergate Salad with the pistachio pudding and pineapple and heart attack potatoes. Then there is her homemade bread to die for.
What a great menu. We have had a similar menu passed down from my mother and mother-in-law. We cannot go without the Company Potatoes my mother-in-law made every year. I also made the same bunny cake.
I will be making your Four Layer Banana Pudding. I believe the grandchildren will love it.
Love the menu have tried all lthe recipes.
I love the recipes. And trying new recipes.
My family’s favorite Easter Dinner is ham, potato casserole, white shoe-peg sweet corn, deviled eggs, dinner rolls and for dessert, coconut cake, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate cream pie.