Christmas Dinner Menus – RecipeTin Eats

Vacation entertaining is formally right here! I’ve pulled collectively a variety 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 every little thing lands superbly on the desk with out chaos!

So this years’ Christmas reward to myself is to bask in placing collectively a variety of Christmas menus for sit down dinners. I’ve obtained every little thing from refined and stylish to “wow” issue ones, a extremely nice low-cost one ($6 a head!) to speedy-prep one. I assumed you would possibly discover them helpful too – so right here they’re!

Browse the Christmas recipe index for extra concepts

1. Easy Class

That is the type of menu you’d anticipate to see at a white tablecloth restaurant – solely you get to serve it at dwelling the place you may 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 strategy to end a wealthy meal

2. Go Large or Go Residence

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 return!!

1. Oysters with Cucumber lime jalapeno granita

2. Garlic Prawns with do-it-yourself crusty bread for mopping

3. A giant juicy Standing Rib Roast with Crimson 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 most effective 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-compulsory. 🙂

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 occasions higher!).

4. Make-ahead Dream

I’ve mentioned it earlier than and I’ll say it perpetually – 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 Brief Ribs in Crimson Wine Sauce or Lamb Shanks in Crimson Wine Sauce (extra lamb shank recipes right here)

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

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

5. I’ve Spent 3 Days Cooking For You

For the cook dinner who actually needs to point out off…!!! This can be 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 can impress any skilled chef!

1. Beetroot Cured Salmon – Beautiful colors! When you’ve tried do-it-yourself, you’ll snub store-bought perpetually. 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 will have – like Rosemary Salt)

3. Beef Wellington – Iconic. Large affect. Time consuming. Technical. And oh-so-worth it!! Serve with Crimson Wine Sauce (sure, this requires do-it-yourself beef inventory – you don’t get off evenly 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 as we speak’s publish that’s not on the web site. 🙂

4. Various fundamental: Duck Confit. Rather less daunting, spectacular in its personal manner!

5. Sides – Creamy Mashed Potato, Glazed Carrots (you may 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 can 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 had been chosen particularly since you get nice bang on 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 really like how inexpensive this dip is

2. Candy Potato Soup – proof that straightforward elements 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 might be critically crispy should you observe the straightforward steps!

4. Profiteroles stuffed with cream

7. I Don’t Have Time! 😭

The bottom effort dinner-party-worthy menu I can consider. Everyone dies over the garlic butter with the hen!! Critical plate-mopping state of affairs. And all of it begins with this ⬇️ – a 3 Minute Festive Brie. (Possibly 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 Rooster Marylands – Slathered in a easy herb garlic butter rub, zero upkeep within the oven. Makes its personal butter sauce!

3. Simple Roast Potatoes – Makes use of small potatoes so that you don’t need to 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 occasions! Soften chocolate in microwave, dip in strawberries, set in fridge. I particularly love that it’s not too wealthy, and it’s chew dimension.

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

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

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

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, all people is simply completely satisfied that somebody has gone to the hassle 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 luxuriate in your individual social gathering! – Nagi x

Lifetime of Dozer

I used to be imagined to be adorning the tree….however I obtained distracted!