Easter Dinner Menu

Celebrate Easter stress-free with this elegant and easy spring-inspired menu. I have planned out a wonderful dinner spread including a main dish, two sides and a show-stopping dessert that will not only thrill your guests, but make things easy on you so that you can enjoy the meal as well. These recipes are a piece of cake! Actually, the last one really is 😛

Apricot Chutney Glazed Ham

For me, a nice home cooked ham is always the star of the show on Easter— I simply cannot do Easter without it! For a few years now, I have typically make a Hawaiian-style ham (just like my mom makes) with a sweet and spicy pineapple sauce… and adorned with pineapple rings of course! But this year I wanted to change up my regular ham recipe, so I came up with this tasty Apricot Chutney Glazed Ham. The Apricot Chutney can be made a few days before your celebration, which comes in handy on the big day, so all you need to do is take it out of the fridge and spread it on top of the ham. The apricot chutney has the perfect balance of sweet, spicy and sour, which goes great with the salty ham and the smoky cloves. It went over really well this year, as we ate it all up in two days! I didn’t even get a chance to make a minestrone or a ham and cheese quiche. Oh well… we thoroughly enjoyed it anyways!

Check out the recipe here or click on the image to get the recipe.

Spring Risotto

Of course we have to have sides with the ham. Typically, people lean towards potatoes when making their carb side-dish. While I have nothing against potatoes, I wanted to change it up a bit and go for a classic risotto, but with a fresh spring twist. I decided to incorporate fresh and local peas, asparagus and fava bean sprouts in my Spring Risotto. All these vegetables are now in season, and this is a great way to celebrate their fresh and light flavours during the beginning of spring. While risotto requires a little effort and can be a bit time-consuming to make, you can involve your family and guests in helping you stir the risotto before dinner (people love to help)- or just do it yourself with a nice glass of wine 😉

For the full recipe, click here or on the image above. Also, if you can’t go without potatoes, here is a great recipe for Garlic and Rosemary Hasselback Potatoes which will taste great and look impressive this holiday.

Simple Roasted Carrots

For the vegetable side, I like to stick with something easy and ideally roasted, since the oven is on for the ham anyways. I want for my Simple Roasted Carrots this Easter cause carrots aren’t just for the Easter Bunny! I just simply peel the carrots the day before the celebration, then toss with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper and bake them in the oven. It really could not get any easier than that!

Click here for the full recipe or on the image!

Lemon Roll Cake with Lemon Curd Filling

Finally, the most memorable part of the meal… the dessert. This year I decided to go all out and make a Lemon Roll Cake with Lemon Curd Filling. This recipe is great because you can prepare the Lemon Curd the day before so that it is ready to go (and is nice and chilled). The cake can be baked, filled with the Lemon Curd and topped with whipped cream the morning of the event so that you aren’t frantically baking and cleaning before people arrive. They all hold up great in the fridge until you are ready for dessert! When you pull this magnificent cake out at the end of the meal and everyone is sure to be impressed.  I guaranteed that they will love the light, fresh lemony flavour!

For the full recipe, click here on on the image above.

Whether you make one dish or the full set of dishes featured in this menu, I hope that you enjoy them! Have a Happy Easter!