Christmas Dinner Menus – RecipeTin Eats

Vacation entertaining is formally right here! I’ve pulled collectively a spread of Christmas Dinner menus to encourage you – from elegant to make-ahead, price range acutely aware to high-impact feasts. Right here’s to stress-free planning and your most scrumptious Christmas but!

Christmas is the Grand Prix of menu planning

I menu plan for a sport. I secretly get a thrill out of determining the optimum mixture of dishes that steadiness oven area, prep time, richness, flavours and serving temperatures – to not point out dietary and price range necessities – so all the things lands fantastically on the desk with out chaos!

So this years’ Christmas reward to myself is to take pleasure in placing collectively a spread of Christmas menus for sit down dinners. I’ve acquired all the things from subtle and chic to “wow” issue ones, a very nice low-cost one ($6 a head!) to speedy-prep one. I assumed you may discover them helpful too – so right here they’re!

Browse the Christmas recipe index for extra concepts

1. Easy Class

That is the form of menu you’d count on to see at a white tablecloth restaurant – solely you get to serve it at residence the place you possibly can kick off your sneakers and be as loud as you want!

1. Coquille Saint Jacques – scallops au gratin!

2. Roast Beef Tenderloin with a dreamy mushroom sauce, Fondant Potatoes and Sautéed Garlic Inexperienced Beans

3. Panna Cotta – elegant and a lighter solution to end a wealthy meal

2. Go Large or Go Dwelling

A menu constructed for gasps! A mighty prime rib, potato gratin topped with melty brie, oysters with a glittering pile of granita…however these pavlova bombs will steal the present and be whispered about for years to come back!!

1. Oysters with Cucumber lime jalapeno granita

2. Garlic Prawns with home made crusty bread for mopping

3. A giant juicy Standing Rib Roast with Purple Wine Sauce with Brie Dauphinoise Potatoes, Spicy Maple Roasted Carrots with Whipped Yogurt and Garlic Sautéed Spinach

4. Pavlova Bombs

3. The Aussie Basic

Whereas all the opposite menus are designed for teams of 4 to 10 as sit-down dinners, right here’s a big-format menu for a crowd, focussed on all of the heavy hitter classics for an enormous Australian Christmas gathering!

1. A glistening Maple Glazed Ham

2. Roast turkey – complete or breast

3. A facet of salmon! Magnificent seafood centrepiece – select from Christmas Baked Salmon (reader favorite!), Parmesan Crusted Salmon or for one thing particular, a miso marinated Salmon!

4. A giant bucket of prawns together with your favorite prawn dipping sauce

5. The very best Potato Salad of your life (thanks Mrs Brodie!)

6. Australia’s favorite Christmas Salad continues to be this Roast Pumpkin, Spinach and Feta Salad! Pine nuts not non-obligatory. 🙂

7. A giant Pav piled excessive with berries and cream or a vibrant Trifle! (PS You should purchase the cake and custard however please please please make your individual jelly, it’s sooooo straightforward and tastes a gazillion instances higher!).

4. Make-ahead Dream

I’ve mentioned it earlier than and I’ll say it endlessly – the one grande centrepiece roast that reheats 100% completely is lamb shoulder. 🙂

1. Prawn Cocktail – Straight from the fridge to the desk!

2. 3 hour or 12 hour Sluggish Roasted Lamb shoulder (the one roast that reheats completely!), Fall-apart Beef Quick Ribs in Purple Wine Sauce or Lamb Shanks in Purple Wine Sauce (extra lamb shank recipes right here)

3. Make-ahead Mashed Potato Casserole – skip all or a lot of the toppings, seeing as there’s tasty sauces with the mains! Reheat coated, you’ll get a pores and skin on it however simply scrape that off.

4. Chocolate Mousse (lovely basic French model) or Chocolate Puddings (simpler, richer) – the one factor it wants is a dollop of whipped cream (stabilise it so you can also make it forward).

5. I’ve Spent 3 Days Cooking For You

For the cook dinner who actually desires to point out off…!!! It is a fairly technical menu that must be began 3 days forward with an estimated hands-on time of round 15 hours. The end result speaks for itself – it’s severe high-end cooking that may impress any skilled chef!

1. Beetroot Cured Salmon – Beautiful colors! When you’ve tried home made, you’ll snub store-bought endlessly. Thinly slice and plate particular person parts. Vereeee fine-dining worthy starter!

2. Brioche with Whipped Butter (simply beat softened salted butter then pipe into tall swirls and sprinkle with flakes or any fancy salt you have got – like Rosemary Salt)

3. Beef Wellington – Iconic. Large impression. Time consuming. Technical. And oh-so-worth it!! Serve with Purple Wine Sauce (sure, this requires home made beef inventory – you don’t get off calmly right here!!🤣). Caveat – it is a recipe in my first cookbook Dinner. Apologies to those that don’t have it, it’s the solely recipe in right this moment’s put up that’s not on the web site. 🙂

4. Different essential: Duck Confit. Rather less daunting, spectacular in its personal approach!

5. Sides – Creamy Mashed Potato, Glazed Carrots (you can also make this whereas the Wellington is resting), Pomegranate Salad

6. Mirror Glazed Chocolate Cake – With a glaze so mirror-like you’ll catch your proud face staring again at you! This recipe has layers of chocolate cake sandwiched with creamy chocolate buttercream.

6. The Discount Banquet

Here’s a beneficiant, celebratory 4 course meal that may price lower than $50*! A whipped feta to begin adopted by a creamy candy potato soup, a golden crackling pork then an infinite pile of profiteroles for dessert, all of those have been chosen particularly since you get nice bang in your buck!

* I’m in Australia and I did a back-of-envelope based mostly on present grocery retailer costs (Coles, Woolworths).

1. Whipped Feta Dip with Crostinis – I like how reasonably priced this dip is

2. Candy Potato Soup – proof that easy components could make a luxe-tasting soup. Don’t skimp on the toppings! They elevate it from mid-week to feast territory. 🙂

3. Crispy Crackling Pork Roast with Gravy with Creamy Mashed Potato and Garlic Buttered Peas – At $8/kg, pork shoulder delivers most flavour and crackling pleasure at a fraction of the value of beef. And sure, I promise your crackling shall be significantly crispy for those who observe the easy steps!

4. Profiteroles full of cream

7. I Don’t Have Time! 😭

The bottom effort dinner-party-worthy menu I can consider. All people dies over the garlic butter with the rooster!! Critical plate-mopping scenario. And all of it begins with this ⬇️ – a 3 Minute Festive Brie. (Perhaps 3 1/2 minutes – relying on how a lot champagne you’ve had!)

1. 3 Minute Festive Melty Brie – Critical. 3 minutes!

2. Herb & Garlic Hen Marylands – Slathered in a easy herb garlic butter rub, zero upkeep within the oven. Makes its personal butter sauce!

3. Straightforward Roast Potatoes – Makes use of small potatoes so that you don’t should peel.

4. Rocket Salad with Shaved Parmesan – The quickest salad in my repertoire. I make this a LOT.

5. Chocolate Lined Strawberries – This has saved me numerous instances! Soften chocolate in microwave, dip in strawberries, set in fridge. I particularly love that it’s not too wealthy, and it’s chunk measurement.

There you go! I hope you bought some new concepts from these menu recommendations. However most significantly:

Don’t overlook a very powerful ingredient….enjoyable!

Christmas isn’t a cooking examination. It’s a bunch of your favorite folks getting collectively to eat good meals and have amusing.

So don’t stress if one thing cracks, deflates, over-browns or wants a last-minute “repair”! No one is right here to evaluate you, everyone is simply comfortable that somebody has gone to the trouble to make a meal for them and to be round one another. 🙂

So crank up the music, settle for chaos as a part of the allure and benefit from the cooking as a lot because the consuming. Calm down, have enjoyable and revel in your individual occasion! – Nagi x

Lifetime of Dozer

I used to be purported to be adorning the tree….however I acquired distracted!