15 Clean Eating Easter Recipes - (2025)

FAQs

What is a traditional Easter menu? ›

What's a traditional Easter menu include? The main dish for an Easter meal varies, but some typical dishes include honey-baked ham, pot roast, pork chops, and fish. Some popular side dishes include scalloped or mashed potatoes, spring vegetables, and dinner rolls.

Roast lamb or roast ham is the traditional meat for the main meal on Easter Sunday. Read on for more on what to serve with your traditional Easter roast. Hot cross buns, which are spiced tea cakes, are traditionally served on Good Friday.

An Easter ham is a classic, and we've got 5+ solid recipes for you to try (including one in made easy on a sheet pan). If you're looking to branch out, check out our recipes for other meaty holiday showstoppers, like braised lamb shank, pork loin roast, and beef wellington.

According to the USCCB, you shouldn't eat meat from chickens, cows, sheep, ham, pigs, or birds. It's also common practice to avoid alcohol, sweets and desserts, and fast foods made from chicken and beef.

Christians celebrate Easter with some traditional foods but seem to have more regional and family favorites rather than religiously dictated foods. Ham is often served at the Easter table, which may seem odd since Jesus was Jewish and wouldn't have eaten pork.

Local experts believe that Jesus ate simple meals of bread and locally caught fish. Aside from simple meals of bread and locally caught fish, local experts believe that Jesus also ate olives. Local experts believe that Jesus drank wine with his meals.

Traditionally, the baskets are filled with: decorated hardboiled eggs (representing Christ's Resurrection); lamb-shaped butter or sugar (representing Christ as the “Lamb of God”); bread (reminding us that Jesus is the “Bread of Life”); meats, such as ham (symbolic of great joy and abundance), sausage (symbolic of God's ...

Abstaining from eating meat reflects the life of Jesus Christ. "Since Jesus sacrificed his flesh for us on Good Friday, we refrain from eating flesh meat in his honor on Fridays," the Archdiocese said.

White. On Easter, the color white symbolizes purity, grace, and, ultimately, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the joyful culmination of the Easter season.

What is a traditional Easter lunch menu? ›

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.

The French Easter meal is traditionally enjoyed on the Sunday or Easter Monday, which is a public holiday in France. The meal usually consists of chicken or lamb, served with roasted potatoes and sides of vegetables – usually seasonal carrots.

On Good Friday, it's tradition to eat fish rather than meat. According to Christians, Jesus sacrificed his flesh on what is now known as Good Friday. This is why traditionally, people abstain from meaty flesh on Good Friday.

Before the advent of modern refrigeration, pigs were often slaughtered in the fall, and the meat was preserved through the winter months using salt and smoke. By the time spring arrived, the preserved ham was ready to be consumed, making it a natural choice for a celebratory Easter feast.