French Recipes for Easter (2024)

FAQs

What is a traditional French Easter meal? ›

Le Plat Principal (Main Course)

The most traditional take is usually a whole leg of lamb roasted in the oven for several hours until fork tender, with very simple seasonings and white wine. A rack of lamb is also popular for Easter, often covered with a crust of aromatics or a simple herby seasoning.

There are also several traditional Easter desserts in France. One of the most popular is the “gâteau de Pâques,” a chocolate sponge cake that is often decorated with Easter-themed decorations like chocolate eggs and bunnies. Another popular Easter dessert is a sweet brioche bread known as “pain de Pâques“.

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.

Ham: Ham is a traditional Easter dish in many parts of the United States, particularly in the South. It is often glazed with a sweet sauce and served with sides such as mashed potatoes, green beans, or sweet potatoes.

There's a very old tradition in France which doesn't actually include the famous Easter Bunny. In fact, the French celebrate Easter with chocolate bells instead. Here's our guide to this Catholic tradition, what it involves and why it happens.

There are still many families in France who celebrate the religious meaning of Easter by attending church on Easter Sunday. Some even choose to give something up for lent (caréme) in the 40 days before Easter Monday, such as not consuming chocolate, alcohol or meat.

One of the latest cake trends in vintage cakes or Marie Antoinette cakes. Think a pastel aesthetic with lashings of buttercream swirls and frills. Unashamedly feminine and almost too pretty to cut, these stunning cakes are delightful as they are tasty.

Les Cloches de Pâques, or 'Easter bells', is a popular tradition in France. No church bells are rung from Good Friday to Easter Sunday in mourning for Jesus' crucifixion. On Easter Sunday, people would make omelettes to use up the eggs. This tradition still continues today.

The truth is: in France, eggs come from les cloches (= bells.) As the story goes, it's the bells from the churches in Rome, who fly all the way to your garden in France to drop chocolat eggs. They want to share the joy of the Resurrection of Jesus, which Christians celebrate on Easter. So there's no Easter rabbit.

The traditional foods contained in the baskets have meaning: eggs, symbolic of life in the Resurrection; bread, symbolic of Jesus' body; lamb, symbolic of Jesus' divinity; salt, representative of purification; horseradish, symbolizing Christ's passion; and ham, signifying the joy and abundance of the feast.

What food is traditionally eaten on Good Friday? ›

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. Fish is viewed as a different kind of flesh, and so is favoured over meat on Good Friday.

Ham was always one of the meats available. Ham became more of a tradition in the late 19th and early 20th century according to Kaufman because "meal service became streamlined, focused on one main meat dish, partly because households had less help." As Easter came to be more widely celebrated, ham was there.

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. Honey-roasted ham.

Lamb are an important part of Easter tradition from the sacrificial lamb of the first Passover to Jesus being referred to as the Lamb of God. Lambs also symbolize spring and new life.

French Easter Morning:

French children have Easter egg hunts on Easter sunday morning. Eggs are usually chocolate ones and not hard-boiled ones, although the French also play games with raw eggs at Easter.

As for meat, lamb and fish are both eaten during Easter, as both animals have symbolic value in Christianity. Jesus is known as the 'agneau de Dieu' ('Lamb of God'), and families will often eat roast lamb on Easter Sunday.

Lamb is also a traditional dish for Easter. According to Christianity, as with many aspects of this religious holiday, the lamb represents innocence and obedience, representing faithfulness and loyalty to God.