Easter Dinner Menu Ideas

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These Easter Dinner Menu Ideas include traditional Southern family Easter recipes for a complete amazing Easter dinner that includes an appetizer, main dish, side dishes, and desserts that your whole family will love.  

Are you planning your Easter Dinner menu? If so, you are in luck because today I’m sharing 21 of our favorite Easter recipes that you can use to plan your Easter Dinner. 

These Easter recipes are tried and true traditional family recipes but that use modern day conveniences such as the slow cooker or the Instant Pot. 

In addition many of these Easter Dinner recipes are easily scalable so you can make as many or as few servings as you need for your family.

Easter Appetizer Recipes

I don’t know about your house but it seems that every year the Easter dinner is always served a little later than what was originally planned. I think it was probably to get people to show up on time for dinner instead of being late. But whatever, the reason it is always good to have some delicious appetizer recipes to serve guests before the sit-down dinner starts.

I included two popular appetizer recipes, Deviled Eggs and Bacon Wrapped Smokies, that are both delicious, easy to make and easily scalable so you can adjust the amount to the number of people you are serving. 

Instant Pot Southern Deviled Eggs

These Instant Pot Southern Deviled Eggs make a delicious Easter appetizer or finger food and are super easy to make because they start with Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs!

Check out this recipe

Bacon Wrapped Smokies {With Spicy Chipotle and Brown Sugar}

The bacon, which is wrapped around the little smokies sausages, becomes crispy and the brown sugar caramelizes, and combines with the chipotle chile powder to provide an awesome flavor combination.

Check out this recipe

Easter Main Dish Recipes

Easter Ham. For Thanksgiving, we have turkey, but for Easter it is tradition to serve a delicious glazed Ham as the main dish. Therefore, I’m sharing my Crockpot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham. It is sweet, salty, and savory all in one, and makes an impressive main dish for your Easter dinner. 

Ham is great for leftovers. You will want to be sure to save some to make my Leftover Ham And Potato Soup, Ham and Swiss Sliders, or my Instant Pot Ham, Green Beans And Potatoes recipe. My husbands favorite leftover recipe is when I use ham instead of chicken in this Chicken Tetrazzini recipe. Of course, you can’t have any of those recipes until you make this Crockpot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham recipe below.

Crock Pot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham

Crock Pot Brown Sugar Pineapple Ham is a delicious go-to Holiday main dish that is sweet, tender, and juicy, and super easy to make in the slow cooker.

Check out this recipe

Easter Salad Recipes

With spring comes a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables to be celebrated and included in your easter dinner. I love the Strawberry Spinach Salad, but the family favorite is the Apple Walnut Cranberry Salad. The sentimental favorite is the Spring Pea Salad because it was my husband’s mother’s recipe.

For many families, the Broccoli Salad is the overwhelming favorite, but my brother is the rebel because he likes the Watergate salad. I can’t blame him because it is sweet and delicious.

Apple Walnut Cranberry Salad

This Apple Walnut Cranberry Salad includes a Mixed Green Spinach Salad with Green Apples, Dried Cranberries, Walnuts, and Gorgonzola Cheese. This salad explodes with flavor.

Check out this recipe

Spinach Strawberry Champagne Salad

Spinach Strawberry Champagne Salad has fresh baby spinach, fresh sliced strawberries, crumbled blue cheese, and chopped walnuts with Trader Joe's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar

Check out this recipe

Broccoli Salad

Broccoli Salad is a perfect cold summer salad when trying to beat the summer heat by chillin’ at a backyard barbecue, picnic, or potluck.

Check out this recipe

Grandma Lois' Sweet Green Pea Salad

This delicious creamy sweet pea salad was the recipe my Mother-in-Law brought to every holiday dinner. It makes a delicious side salad or side dish for any meal.

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Watergate Salad Recipe

This Watergate Salad, also known as Pistachio Salad, Pistachio Delight or Pistachio Fluff or Green Fluff, is a sweet, cool, crunchy dessert made with pistachio pudding, whipped topping, crushed pineapple, mini marshmallows, pecans and coconut.

Check out this recipe

Easter Side Dish Recipes

Asparagus, Carrots, Scalloped Potatoes and Rolls were always special side dishes that made appearances for Easter Dinner.  However, many families love to include the traditional Thanksgiving side casseroles as well with the Easter Dinner, including the Hash Brown Casserole, Green Bean Casserole, and Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows.  

Therefore, I’m sharing my favorite recipes that cover all of the above, plus a couple of recipes for rolls because you have to have rolls for a holiday dinner. 

Vegetable Side Dish Recipes

Honey Glazed Carrots

Sweet and buttery Honey Glazed Carrots make a special side dish for a Holiday dinner and, with only 3 ingredients, are easy enough to make for a weeknight dinner.

Check out this recipe

Asiago Bruschetta Roasted Asparagus

Asiago Bruschetta Roasted Asparagus, with tomatoes, garlic, onions, and asiago cheese, makes a healthy gourmet side dish that can be on the table in 15 minutes and is perfect for brunch, or a weeknight or holiday dinner.

Check out this recipe

Homemade Green Bean Casserole

This Homemade Green Bean Casserole is a traditional recipe made from scratch with fresh green beans and a homemade mushroom sauce and is perfect Thanksgiving side dish.

Check out this recipe

Potato Side Dish Recipes

Easy Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes

Easy Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes are very similar to Potatoes Au Gratin because they are drenched in a creamy, cheesy, garlicky cream sauce and then covered in more cheese! They make a perfect comfort food side dish for all your holiday dinners!

Check out this recipe

Cheesy Bacon Ranch Hash Brown Casserole Recipe

This creamy, cheesy hash brown potato casserole that has been served at family gatherings, potlucks, funerals, and church suppers for generations.

Check out this recipe

Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows Recipe

Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows are mashed sweet potatoes mixed with cinnamon, butter, white and brown sugar, and topped with mini marshmallows for a delish Thanksgiving side dish.

Check out this recipe

Dinner Roll Recipes

Savory Herb Monkey Bread Rolls

Savory Herb Monkey Bread Rolls are soft, buttery, pull-apart rolls with garlic, parmesan cheese, italian seasoning, and parsley on top of rolls made with bites of crescent roll dough.

Check out this recipe

Homemade Sweet Dinner Rolls - Grumpy’s Honeybunch

These Sweet Dinner Rolls have a fluffy and light texture and are melt in your mouth delicious! Buttery and flaky, your family will request these rolls every single holiday meal! (At least Grumpy does!)

Check out this recipe

Easter Dessert Recipes

Some of the most fun desserts are Easter Desserts, such as the German Chocolate Easter Egg Cupcakes.

Since all the kids in our family are grown we love the traditional desserts, such as Carrot Cake, Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake and Strawberry Crumb Bars.

Best Homemade Carrot Cake Recipe

This is the Best Homemade Carrot Cake recipe because it is a sweet, moist, and dense Carrot Cake made from scratch with pineapple, raisins, and pecans. When you want a dessert that everyone will love, make this cake!

Check out this recipe

Butterfinger Cup Egg German Chocolate Cupcakes

BUTTERFINGER® Cup Egg German Chocolate Cupcakes are fun sweet treats for Easter that are easy to make, and that the whole family will love! Each German Chocolate Cupcake is topped with a sweet BUTTERFINGER® Cup Egg, with a smooth and crunchy peanut butter filling and the smooth and creamy milk chocolate shell, and stuffed with BUTTERFINGER® Minis for more Easter chocolate fun!

Check out this recipe

Strawberry Crumb Bars

These easy Strawberry Crumb Bars, with a buttery crust, sweet fresh strawberry filling, and crunchy butter crumb topping make wonderful dessert bars to take to a summer party, picnic, or potluck.

Check out this recipe

Glazed Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake

This Glazed Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake is a moist, luscious, buttery, lemon pound cake made with beautiful fresh blueberries throughout and glazed with a sweet, tangy lemon icing. It is similar to the Iced Lemon Pound Cake found at Starbucks but with the addition of fresh blueberries.

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No Bake Banana Pudding Cream Pie

This easy No Bake Banana Pudding Cream Pie recipe is super easy to make and requires no baking! Yay! Yet it still has that creamy banana cream filling over the crunchy graham cracker crust and vanilla wafers.

Check out this recipe

That wraps up our favorite recipes for a traditional Souther Easter Dinner Menu. With 21 recipes, you are sure to find Easter recipes that your family will love. Leave a comment below with your family’s favorite recipe.