Christmas Dinner Meal Ideas

If you are the regular host of Christmas dinner for family and friends, you may feel that it is time to try some new meal ideas rather than prepare the same dishes you serve every year. By being more adventurous with your Christmas menu, you will have more fun planning it and cooking will seem like less of a chore.

Alternatives To Turkey

If you and your family and bored with your usual beef, ham or turkey Christmas dinner, try something different with a more exotic flavor. The Middle East-inspired quail with pomegranate is a quick, simple recipe to follow but will nonetheless impress your guests. The delicious marinade of lemons, bay leaves, garlic, crushed black pepper and olive oil adds flavor to the quail, and the pomegranate seeds add crunch and color. Other turkey alternatives are chicken with a mushroom and sausage stuffing, fish and lobster pie and tuna coated with sesame seeds, seared and served with leafy green vegetables and rice.

Vegetarian Option

If you have vegetarian guests for Christmas dinner this year, you will need to provide them with a meat-free dish. A vegetarian dish that will go well with the cranberry sauce and other Christmas relishes is a cheese and parsnip roulade (a roll made with butter, flour, eggs and milk) with sage and onion stuffing. Alternatively, make a vegetable pie; lightly cook the vegetables before putting them into the pie with a veloute sauce (a white sauce made with stock instead of milk) and watercress.

Dessert

For a light Christmas dinner dessert that presents lots of different options, try a trifle. You could stick to the traditional English trifle with vanilla custard, whipped cream, ladyfingers, jam and fruit puree, or go for a more adventurous recipe, such as a Panatone trifle with a zabaglione sauce, made with Italian fruit bread and marsala wine. Other delicious trifles include drambuie trifle and pear and chocolate trifle. The beauty of a trifle is that it is quick to prepare, can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator, and will taste great the next day if there is any left over.