75 Easter Side Dishes to Bring to Dinner
Updated: Apr. 06, 2024
Wondering what to serve with your glazed ham? These delicious Easter side dishes are a mix of traditional and modern fare that will make your springtime spread burst with flavors.
Easter dinner might center around a stunning main dish, but the meal wouldn’t be complete without the right Easter appetizers and Easter side dishes. The following vegetables, salads and Easter bread recipes pair perfectly with a traditional ham, but they’re equally good with lamb, roast beef, pork tenderloin, baked salmon and roast turkey.
From holiday classics like vegetable tian and au gratin style potatoes to asparagus spears wrapped in bacon, there’s something to please all palates, with plenty of healthy, lightened-up and gluten-free recipes included in the mix as well.
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The Best Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes
When we think about foods traditionally served on Easter, scalloped potatoes spring to mind. It’s a natural choice for complementing meaty main dishes, and it’s an equal match for spring vegetables. Here are our favorite vegetarian Easter dinner recipes to please everyone at your table.
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Herb-Buttered Baby Carrots
These buttery carrots not only look gorgeous, but they go well with almost any Easter dinner. We use several dried herbs here—parsley, basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary and thyme—to bring the perfect herbaceous notes to the soft, oven-roasted carrots.
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Gruyere Mashed Potatoes
If you’re looking for a traditional Easter side, these mashed potatoes deliver! The addition of shredded Gruyere cheese adds a nutty, creamy flavor with a hint of earthiness. If you can’t find it at the store, try swapping in Swiss, Emmental, Comte or Fontina cheese.
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Dill & Chive Peas
Peas are a spring classic, but they’re not always harvested in time for Easter dinner. This recipe uses frozen peas, but feel free to use fresh peas instead if they’re available in your area.
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Roasted Asparagus Risotto
Asparagus is another favorite spring vegetable, and this creamy, vegetable-rich risotto makes an excellent match for ham or roast lamb. You could also serve it as a vegetarian main dish, but you’ll want to omit the prosciutto and swap in vegetable stock for the chicken stock.
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Bacon Pear Salad with Parmesan Dressing
A great side salad makes a fantastic addition to your roster of Easter side dishes, and this one certainly won’t disappoint. The texture of the pear holds up beautifully against the crispy bacon and crunchy lettuce, but the dressing is what makes this salad truly shine. It’s rich, decadent and downright delicious.
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Asiago Mashed Cauliflower
Potatoes are one of our favorite Easter side dishes, but we love switching it up by making the mash with cauliflower instead. Cauliflower has fewer carbohydrates than starchy white potatoes, but tastes just as delicious.
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Grandma’s Cornbread Dressing
Stuffing and dressing usually show up around Thanksgiving, but these recipes are fantastic as Easter side dishes as well. Grandma made hers with homemade cornbread, so that’s what we do in this recipe.Psst: Cornbread mix works in a pinch if you don’t have time to make homemade.
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Cheese-Stuffed Sweet Onions
Roasted sweet onions taste incredible, but they’re even better when they’re stuffed with a mixture of goat and blue cheeses. You can work ahead on this recipe by making the onions in the slow cooker a day in advance, then reheating them in the oven right before Easter dinner.
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Tangy Cilantro Lime Confetti Salad
This recipe might not contain classic Easter flavors, but we love inspiring new traditions! Chopped sweet peppers, red onion, cherry tomatoes, corn and avocado are marinated in a flavorful dressing, giving them a lightly pickled flavor that’s ideal for lightening up meaty main dishes.
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Chard with Bacon-Citrus Sauce
If your family is anything like ours, there’s probably a picky eater in the group that hates greens. This chard recipe might change that. By the time the greens wilt down, the dish looks like it’s mostly bacon, and the orange butter sauce covers any bitter taste.
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Festive Rice
The color contrast in this dish is gorgeous: white rice, ruby red cranberries, brown pepitas and green herbs. We like customizing the herbs based on our Easter main dish, using mint and rosemary for lamb, parsley and thyme for ham, oregano and sage for beef and tarragon and basil for fish or poultry.
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Honey-Mustard Brussels Sprouts Salad
When you don’t have time to make several different Easter side dishes, whip up this easy salad. It has so much going on between the color contrast of the vegetables and the multitude of different textures and flavors. As a bonus, the honey mustard dressing pairs well with almost any main dish.
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Sweet Onion Pie
This sweet onion pie makes a great addition to your Easter brunch, but we also love it for dinner. It has a great balance between sweet and savory, making it stand out from other Easter side dishes. Just make sure to use a deep-dish pie crust, otherwise the contents will overflow as the pie bakes.
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Garlic Parmesan Asparagus
Asparagus not only tastes delicious, but it also cooks quickly. This dish is ready in only 15 minutes (including prep time). If you end up with leftovers, they taste great the next morning in a quiche or frittata.
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Bow Tie & Spinach Salad
Elevate your pasta salad by using farfalle, a pasta shape that’s scalloped on the edges and pinched in the middle to look like fancy bow ties. This recipe is filling and packed full of fresh vegetables, doing the work of multiple Easter side dishes in one.
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Crunchy Spinach Casserole
Creamed spinach is one of our go-to classic Easter sides, and we started making it with cubed bread to add some much-needed texture. This crunchy spinach casserole is adored by adults and kids alike.
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Pearl Onion Broccoli Bake
This side dish tastes incredible next to ham or a roast chicken. It looks fine in a glass dish, but a stoneware casserole dish will elevate the presentation when bringing this to the table.
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Spring Asparagus
If you’re hoping to convert your guests to asparagus lovers, this is the recipe. It tames the earthy flavor of asparagus with funky blue cheese, nutty almonds and savory tomatoes. As a bonus, the dish comes together in less than 30 minutes, but tastes like you spent all day perfecting the flavors.
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One-Pot Mac and Cheese
A holiday meal isn’t complete without a side of cheesy mac and cheese. Cut down on the cleanup time by making this dish in a single pot. As a bonus, cooking the pasta in milk creates an extra-creamy sauce, so this may become your new favorite method.
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Lemon Couscous with Broccoli
Couscous with broccoli is incredible as an Easter side dish because the couscous is a natural pair with lamb. Of course, it goes well with beef, poultry or fish, too, and the leftovers are perfect for making Buddha bowls.
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Cherry Tomato Mozzarella Saute
This easy side dish requires only a handful of ingredients, most of which you probably already have. We like using cherry tomatoes here, but you can make this dish with any type of tomato you have on hand.
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Roasted Tater Rounds with Green Onions & Tarragon
It’s hard to find crispy potato recipes that can be prepared in advance, but this recipe nails it. You can slice the potatoes a day ahead, storing them in the refrigerator in water to keep them from oxidizing. Just before dinner, spin the potatoes dry and soften them in the microwave before crisping them up under the broiler.
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Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Onion
You could make potato gnocchi from scratch if you have the time, but a package of prepared gnocchi works just as well. You’ll find it in the refrigerated section near the packaged ravioli.
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Minty Sugar Snap Peas
Mint and lamb are made for each other, making this one of our go-to Easter side dishes when roasting a leg of lamb or rack of lamb. Fresh mint is your best option here, as the dried mint has a coarser texture and a sharper flavor.
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Roasted Fennel and Peppers
Fennel is a great accompaniment to rich roasted meats, cutting through the fat with its iconic anise flavor. You can use red, yellow or orange bell peppers, but we wouldn’t recommend using green peppers for this dish. They have a slightly bitter flavor, so the end result won’t be as sweet and caramelized as we intended.
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Roasted Radishes
Roasting radishes softens their spicy bite and gives them a similar texture to potatoes. Our recipe uses a tablespoon of chopped fresh oregano, but other green herbs work well here, too. Try dill, basil, thyme, rosemary or mint to give the dish a fresh spin.
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Crunchy Lemon-Pesto Garden Salad
We often make this vegetable-forward garden salad when we have an open jar of pesto in the fridge. If you haven’t tried it before, pesto makes an incredible salad dressing! The combination of colors, flavors and textures make this an excellent option on the Easter dinner table, too.
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Company Mashed Carrots
This is one of those Easter side dishes that’s fast, easy and oh-so-delicious. The orange liqueur enhances the carrot’s flavor while cutting through the butter’s richness, but you don’t have to add alcohol. A tablespoon of orange juice concentrate or a splash of orange extract does the job nicely.
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Warm Tasty Greens with Garlic
What’s the key to making leafy greens like kale taste good? It’s all about fat, salt and acid. The fat coats the leaves and carries their herbaceous flavors, the salt cuts through the bitterness and the acid brightens everything up. This recipe’s combination of olive oil and oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes accomplishes those goals beautifully.
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Southern Green Beans with Apricots
Green beans, dried apricots and bacon might seem like an odd combination, but they work well together in this Easter side dish. You can pick up exactly one cup of dried apricots if you can find them in the bulk bin, but there are plenty of great recipes with dried apricots if you end up buying a whole bag.
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Spinach-Parm Casserole
This rich, buttery spinach side dish makes a wonderful addition to Easter dinner, and the leftovers taste fantastic when folded into eggs for breakfast or combined with rice or pasta for lunch. After blanching the spinach, be sure to drain it well, squeezing out any excess water by pressing down on it with the back of a spoon. Otherwise, the casserole can turn out a little watery.
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Crispy Smashed Herbed Potatoes
This recipe is simple to make and even easier to customize. Instead of using red potatoes, try swapping in small Yukon Gold or new potatoes. You can season the potatoes in a number of ways, too; chives and parsley are fantastic, as are lemon and rosemary or garlic powder and fresh dill.
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Garlic-Herb Pattypan Squash
Pattypans are a type of summer squash that are great for grilling or roasting. If you can’t find them, feel free to swap in another squash, like zucchini or crookneck yellow squash.
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Collard Greens & Beans
Collard greens require long simmering times to soften and lose their bitter edge, but the time spent is well worth it. If you want to plan ahead, this side dish still tastes great if you make the collards the day before and reheat them just before dinner.
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Roasted Cabbage & Onions
Once you learn how to cook cabbage, you’ll be amazed that you spent so many years only eating it raw. Roasted cabbage becomes browned and caramelized and creates an ideal blend of crispy edges with soft, buttery interiors. To add a little color to your dinner table, use red cabbage instead of green cabbage for this recipe.
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Roasted Herb & Lemon Cauliflower
Cauliflower is an excellent side for Easter because it can be roasted, baked into casseroles or mashed into a smooth puree. In this recipe, we roast the florets until they’re crisp before tossing them with parsley, rosemary, thyme and lemon zest. A pinch of red pepper flakes adds the perfect level of spice to bring the other flavors forward.
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Black-Eyed Peas with Ham
You’ll want to plan ahead with this recipe—the beans need to be soaked before they’re cooked—but the cooking process is almost completely hands-off. Simply combine the drained, rinsed beans with the remaining ingredients and load them in the slow cooker. Just be sure to use dried beans, as canned beans will become completely mushy.
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Spring Onion Pimiento Cheese Grits
Grits are a real winner alongside rich, roasted meats. They’re creamy and soft, and the addition of pimientos brings a lot of flavor to the table. If you can’t find a jar of pimientos, replace the pimientos, mayonnaise and Jack cheese with a container of Southern-style pimiento cheese.
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Sausage-Herb Dressing
We love holiday recipes that can be made in the slow cooker, freeing up the oven and stovetop for other dishes. This dressing contains a unique ingredient—brewed coffee—that adds a subtle, bittersweet note to create an incredible depth of flavor.
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Lemon-Garlic Lima Beans
You may know this dish by its southern name of “butter beans”, given to describe the legume’s mild sweetness and nutty flavor. The lemon-herb dressing provides a nice contrast to the savory beans, making this the perfect side to go alongside rich lamb or beef dishes.Also, check if there is a difference between butter beans vs lima beans and make grocery shopping a little less confusing.
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Ambrosia Salad
This tropical fruit recipe has Greek roots, but it’s popular in the American South and on holiday tables across the country. It’s sweet enough to serve as an easy Easter dessert but light enough to include on the dinner table.
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Sour Cream Fan Rolls
Your holiday spread won’t be complete without rolls! Stacking the dough in strips and baking them in a muffin pan creates a gorgeous fan effect without too much added effort. You could also roll them into a more traditional shape if you prefer.
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Sicilian Steamed Leeks
Leeks are an underused vegetable, but you’ll adore how tender they become after 10 minutes in a steamer basket. Be sure to clean leeks thoroughly before cooking them, as tiny specks of dirt love to nestle between the layers.
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Grandma’s Onion Squares
Serving this dish for holiday meals serves as a bread and a vegetable side dish, all wrapped up in one 8×8-inch casserole dish. The dough tastes similar to a savory biscuit, and the caramelized onions, sour cream and egg topping provide the perfect level of sweetness.
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Parmesan Snap Pea Pasta
Pasta is always a great idea for large family gatherings because it’s an inexpensive way to feed a crowd. This recipe takes advantage of spring’s crop of snap peas, creating a colorful side dish that pairs exceptionally well with glazed ham or seafood.
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Company Green Salad
You can never go wrong by serving a large salad with Easter dinner, and this one is always a hit because of all its crunchy toppings. The sliced almonds, crispy rice noodles and sunflower seeds add a burst of nutty flavor, elevating a bowl of greens to a restaurant-quality salad.
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Creamy Mushrooms
This Easter side dish is creamy and comforting, and you can serve it in several different ways. Spoon the mushrooms and cream over pasta or rice at the table, or serve it as a starter soup. It’s also great as a gravy for roast beef or pork mains. So many options!
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Vegan Quinoa Salad
Quinoa is a protein-rich grain with a nutty and earthy flavor. It’s similar to brown rice, but it melts into the vegetables in this salad instead of standing out with a chewy texture. It’s great for any plant-based eaters at the dinner table, but it’s equally loved by omnivores.
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Italian Bread Salad with Olives
Bread salad (also called panzanella) is a great way to transform leftover bread into a show-stopping side dish. We use ciabatta in this recipe, but you can swap in any bread you have on hand.
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Roasted Potatoes with Garlic Butter
Smothering white and sweet potatoes in a cheesy, buttery sauce is a wonderful way to get the picky eaters at the table to try sweet potatoes. It turns out best if the potatoes are sliced into 1/8-inch rounds, so we recommend using a mandoline slicer to create even pieces.
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Spring Green Risotto
This flavorful risotto recipe is gluten-free and vegetarian-friendly, making it a good choice if you have multiple dietary needs at the table this year. You can use any vegetables you have on hand, from mushrooms and spinach to peas, asparagus, zucchini or summer squash.
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Citrus Rainbow Carrots
You could make this recipe with regular orange carrots, but the dish will look even better if you pick up a bundle of rainbow carrots at the grocery store or farmers market. We eat with our eyes first, after all, and the combination of deep burgundy, golden yellow, jeweled orange and creamy white is quite stunning.
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Au Gratin Peas and Potatoes
Trying to get your family to eat more vegetables? Add a bag of peas to an already comforting dish, like cheesy, bacon-rich au gratin potatoes. Using pre-cooked potatoes makes this dish quick and easy, too, so it comes together on the stovetop in 30 minutes.
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Seasoned Brown Rice Pilaf
Many of our favorite Easter dinner ideas take awhile to prepare, so it’s important to incorporate a few quick-and-easy side dishes into your repertoire. Rice pilaf is filling and fairly hands-off to cook, and the addition of orzo pasta makes this dish taste creamy without adding dairy. It reheats pretty well, but plan on adding a splash of water or broth to the pan when reheating to rehydrate the grains.
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Swiss Corn Casserole
This is one of our go-to potluck recipes because it’s so easy to make and always tastes fantastic. We get asked for the recipe all the time! It pairs particularly well with a holiday meal centered around chicken or turkey, but it would go well with ham or roast beef, too.
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Summer Garden Couscous Salad
This couscous salad makes the most of summer’s bounty. I used to prepare it with a mayonnaise dressing, but lightened it with lemon vinaigrette. It’s even better now! —Priscilla Yee, Concord, California
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Rosemary Beets
This simple side dish is the perfect way to introduce newcomers to the lovely flavor of roasted beets. The tubers’ strong, earthy flavor is mellowed out with honey and orange, and the addition of Chinese five spice gives them a boost of warming spice.
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No-Fuss Rolls
Dinner rolls are always a good idea when planning Easter side dishes, but making them from scratch can be a labor of love. These four-ingredient rolls aren’t as fluffy as yeasted rolls, but they also take a fraction of the time. The self-rising flour contains baking powder, giving these biscuit-like rolls the perfect amount of rise without any of the fuss.
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Pineapple Pretzel Fluff
If you’re looking for a spin on ambrosia salad that has a sweet-and-salty vibe, look to this tropical pineapple pretzel fluff recipe. It’s great with other Easter side dishes because it’s sweet enough to be dessert but savory enough to eat with dinner.
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Carrot Raisin Salad
Crunchy carrots and sweet raisins are one of the best flavor combos around. Plus, this creamy Easter salad is so easy to prepare, thanks to pre-shredded carrots that save you the hassle of chopping them by hand.
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Pea Risotto with Lemon
This lemony risotto is studded with peas, dusted with grated Parmesan and perfect for spring. While most risotto dishes take forever to make, this shortcut version goes from pot to table in 30 minutes.
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Air-Fryer Beets with Orange Gremolata and Goat Cheese
These roasted beets with fresh herbs and tangy goat cheese are wonderful in the winter, but the flavor (not to mention the beautiful colors) certainly translates into spring too. Enlisting your air fryer ensures they come out nice and tender after 45 minutes.
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Cheesy Baked Asparagus
Cheesy baked asparagus is always a good idea for Easter, but this recipe remix involves a rich, creamy sauce and toasted cashews that make it even better. Serve this side with a protein, such as ham, and a starch, like any of these easy potato recipes, for a well-rounded meal.
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Vegetable Tian
This colorful, hearty dish originated in Provence, France and is layered with potatoes and butternut squash sliced thin on a mandoline. A knife will work just fine if you don’t have one.
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Sweet Pineapple Casserole
This baked pineapple recipe has just the right amount of sweetness and a hint of warming spices from ground cinnamon. It’s a great accompaniment to any meaty entree and using canned pineapple makes it a snap to assemble.
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Potatoes Romanoff
If you’re looking for ways to use up leftover potatoes, this is a great recipe to have on hand. Just peel and cube two cups of leftover baked potatoes in place of the red potatoes. A tangy mix of cottage cheese, sour cream, flour and dill is then tossed with the cubes before being sprinked with cheddar cheese and baked.
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Celery Gratin
A lightened-up version of potato gratin, celery takes the place of the starch here. If you want to prep it ahead of time, just make sure to cook and cool the vegetables before assembling and refrigerating the dish. When it’s time to bake, add a few minutes to the cook time. Pair one of these make-ahead side dishes to go with it!
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Bacon-Wrapped Green Beans
A keto and gluten-friendly side consisting of fresh green beans wrapped in bacon and covered in a sweet sauce will be a winner for everyone at the table. While it’s not strictly necessary to blanch green beans before wrapping them in bacon, we do recommend it. Blanching vegetables partially cooks them, making them tender while still maintaining some crunch.
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Green Goddess Vegan Potato Salad
Herbaceous green goddess dressing is delicious in pasta, grain bowls and just about anything it’s drizzled on, like this vegan potato salad. Make sure to refrigerate it covered for at least one hour so it’s creamy and cool upon serving.
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Steakhouse Mushroom Casserole
This meatless mushroom casserole hits all the culinary high notes with its rich sauce and cracker crumb crust. It’s a home-style side dish that will have everyone scooping up seconds.
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Radish Cucumber Salad
A healthy side of cucumbers, radishes and chopped red onion, this refreshing salad is an ideal accompaniment for any entree. To store it, place in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
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Slow-Cooker Grits
Did you know your slow cooker can make the most amazing grits without having to stir them on the stovetop? Simply combine the ingredients in a greased 3-quart slow cooker and cook covered on low until the liquid is absorbed and the grits are tender, for two and half to three hours.
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Au Gratin Potatoes ‘n’ Leeks
Casseroles and Easter recipes go hand in hand, especially this leek and Gruyere au gratin that bubbles up to a golden melted masterpiece.
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Spiced Carrots with Pistachios
Give the classic carrot side dish a little extra crunch with nutty pistachios. This quick and easy dish is gluten-free and vegetarian. The unexpected apple pie spice deserves a chef’s kiss.Originally Published: December 31, 1969
