27 of Our Favorite Passover Recipes to Serve at Your Seder (2024)

FAQs

What is the typical Passover Seder menu? ›

The actual Seder meal is also quite variable. Traditions among Ashkenazi Jews generally include gefilte fish (poached fish dumplings), matzo ball soup, brisket or roast chicken, potato kugel (somewhat like a casserole) and tzimmes, a stew of carrots and prunes, sometimes including potatoes or sweet potatoes.

Jesus chose this special time of remembrance for Jews to begin a new tradition of remembrance for Christians: the Lord's Supper. Like the Passover meal, the Lord's Supper takes place at the table. It is at the table that we are spiritually fed, just as the bread and the cup sustain our physical bodies.

The tradition goes back to the 13th century, when custom dictated a prohibition against wheat, barley, oats, rice, rye and spelt, Rabbi Amy Levin said on NPR in 2016.

During Passover, Jews are forbidden to eat leavened foods, and instead eat matzo, an unleavened flatbread similar to the unleavened bread eaten during the flight from Egypt.

The ban has been in place since the 13th century, but it's always been controversial. In fairly recent history, it's been overturned. According to NPR, in December of 2015 an international group of conservative rabbis made the decision that it's acceptable to eat rice, beans, and corn during Passover.

The Seder begins after sundown on the night before the first official day of Passover, and includes customs such as drinking four cups of wine, eating matzah, reclining throughout the meal, and reciting The Four Questions, which is typically done by the youngest Seder participant.

The Babylonian Talmud quotes four questions; why matzah is eaten, why maror is eaten, why meat that is eaten is exclusively roasted, and why food is dipped twice.

At first glance the answer seems obvious: of course it was, notwithstanding the fact that it would have been very different from the seder we know today and would not have been called a "seder" at the time. The Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—unequivocally assert that the Last Supper was a Passover meal.

Since Jesus' last supper was a Passover Seder in the time of the Second Temple the menu would have been something like: A whole roasted lamb from the alter of Second Temple, some 800 meters away. This meat needed to be finished by the group before morning or burnt.

Do you say happy Passover? ›

If you want to greet a loved one who is celebrating Passover, “Happy Passover” is an appropriate sentiment. You could also say “chag sameach,” which means happy holiday in Hebrew, or chag kasher v'semeach, which means have a happy and kosher Passover.

After many years of cooking for Passover, I know there are two must-have ingredients: the ever-present matzoh, in various forms, and eggs. Without eggs, our ceremonial meal would be incomplete – and we couldn't produce an edible spongecake.

Potatoes may be the most common ingredient because there are so many varieties, and it is the ubiquitous food when it comes to Passover. There's no need to use the plain old white potato; vary your mash.

There are at least five foods that go on the seder plate: shank bone (zeroa), egg (beitzah), bitter herbs (maror), vegetable (karpas) and a sweet paste called haroset. Many seder plates also have room for a sixth, hazeret (another form of the bitter herbs).