Greek Easter Dinner Menu

Today’s Greek Easter dinner will look so different, than the one I grew up with. We will have more options to help accommodate those with eating restrictions and food allergies. But, I do still miss my mother’s and aunt’s talents when it came to feeding so many people with their traditional Easter meals. They didn’t vary much from one year to the next, so we always looked forward to our favorites. We just sat down and ate together without any special food requests as you have today. I think life as a cook was much easier back then. So, over the years with my family and friends, I have combined many recipes from both sides of my family and came up with my own traditions for my Easter table.

As you can see, I try and get in one main dish of lamb, and I find that nobody complains. If you saw my last post, Greek Lamb Cuts, I have written about the several ways to make lamb from the leg of lamb, to lamb shanks and many more. Here, on this post, my family’s favorite is the roasted Leg of Lamb with Orzo. It feeds many, and it’s not often we have a small group.

Once you have selected your cut of lamb, it’s time to consider what your sides will be. I always try and have a sheet tray size of a casserole or phyllo pie for those who don’t eat meat. I have used my spanakopita, leek and feta pie, or Pastitsio with Phyllo in the past.

Pictured is my Spanakopita dish with phyllo, that can be a great side for vegetarians as well as feeding a crowd. I don’t know about your family but the ultimate disaster during the holidays, especially at your house is running out of food! You never recover from this in a Greek household.

Other Sides might be a big bowl of Roasted Beets, Greek Lemony Potatoes, Greens with Olive Oil, and a enormous salad bowl for a traditional Greek Salad.

This year I chose Stuffed Tomatoes with Rice and Dill. My mother made the best ever, and it took me years to get them close enough to be my own. Many times potatoes are placed between the tomatoes to hold up them up, but also to drink up the juices. But, I like them just the way my mother made them, simple but memorable!

As I considered putting on a more traditional Easter Dinner, I decided on Stuffed Grape Leaves for another side, a memory of my mother-in-law, Helen Platis, who made the best in town. I remember spending so many days watching her method for making these tiny morsels of goodness. Wrapping grape leaves, one after another, until the entire bottle was used up. I so miss those moments together with her. My mother never served them with yogurt sauce, but with an egg-lemon sauce. Just as delicious. I enjoy the clean bright taste of the yogurt sauce, Tzazikki cutting into the bitter grape leaves as a dipping sauce.

Lastly, we must have our freshly-made Greek Easter Bread with our Red Dyed Eggs! We enjoy breaking eggs together, year after year, and after dinner with our coffee. After, a long fast during the week, we appreciate every bite of this dinner!

And of course, we must have my mother’s Greek Easter cookies, Koulouria, for a late snack and take home treat!
I hope and pray you have a Blessed Easter with Family and Friends,

Kalo Pasha and Xristos Anesti,