How to create your perfect Christmas menu

Before you start choosing your dishes, you need to clarify a few things. For example, are there any dietary habits of your guests that you should take into consideration? Perhaps there is a vegetarian, a vegan or someone with gluten or lactose intolerances in the group? Or a person who doesn’t eat something in particular – tomatoes, for example? It’s best to find out early enough so that you can adjust the list of ingredients in your dishes accordingly. Speaking of lists: Thoroughly planning your courses with a shopping list and timing in the kitchen definitely pays off. Some dishes are great to prepare in advance and keep in the fridge. It’s better to avoid dishes that need to be cooked to perfection (such as fish fillets). It’s better to choose simple dishes, as this will make you much more relaxed, and you’ll have more fun on the big night. You should also prepare everything you can – for example, peeling and chopping vegetables.

The general order of a classic menu is: the cold starter before the soup, followed by the warm starter and the main course before dessert. When choosing the individual courses, particular attention should be paid to flavour and texture, and the ingredients of individual dishes should not be repeated – this also applies to herbs and spices. It is often helpful to choose a theme for the menu. This limits the many possibilities somewhat. During the Christmas season, leeks and cabbage sprouts grow, as well as lettuce varieties such as lamb’s lettuce and chicory. Pumpkin, beetroot, celery, cabbage, potatoes, apples and pears are also available from stock. A feast made from regional and seasonal ingredients would make an interesting change, wouldn’t it?

If you are serving a sumptuous main course such as a steak or other meat dish, you should adjust the starter. This is less about the quantity of your appetiser and more about its composition. For example, a vegetarian starter or fish would be recommended. If you want to serve meat twice in your menu, the light-coloured meat (e.g. chicken) should end up on the plate before the dark meat (e.g. beef).

It’s best to think of your menu like a concert: You span a range from cold, mild and soft dishes to warm, savoury and rather firm dishes. This also means that a creamy soup should not be followed by a soft dish such as pasta, but something with more bite – the dessert is sometimes an exception here.

When putting together your perfect Christmas menu, start with the main course, and adjust your planning and prepping for the remaining courses based on that. It’s important to find the right side dish to go with the main component. Incidentally, a small salad with the main course not only adds great accents with its colour, but also rounds off the flavour of all the components.

For the starter, it’s best to choose between a cold and a warm starter – cold starters such as a carpaccio of beetroot with goat’s cheese can be wonderfully prepared and then kept in the fridge. Soups are ideal as a warm starter, for which we can recommend a golden parsnip soup. But you can also serve guests an excellent starter with small pasta dishes or vegetables, for example a vegan lentil Bolognese or vegetable tempura with chilli mayonnaise.

For dessert, your guests will probably expect a cold or warm dessert. Ideally, make sure that most of the work can be done before the big evening and that you only need to heat or prepare the dessert. A little surprise for your loved ones could also be a cheese platter with homemade chutney, which will make gourmet hearts beat faster.

Finding the right drinks to go with your meal is part of the selection process. It’s best to make a list for this too. Your guests will certainly enjoy an apéritif before the first course. This can be a light sparkling wine such as Prosecco or champagne, or you can also mix a cocktail to welcome them. Make sure that the apéritif is not too strong in flavour, which is why bitter long drinks such as gin and tonic or Aperol are ideal. Just in case, you should also have a non-alcoholic alternative to hand – a homemade iced tea is perfect for this.

Wine is usually served with a classic menu. You need to plan your menu carefully, as each wine only complements the dish for which it was selected. A rule of thumb is that the food and wine should be of equal intensity. A heavy red wine such as a Malbec therefore complements a steak perfectly. A light white wine generally goes well with fish or light vegetable dishes. But be careful: red wine is not always heavy, and white wine is not always light. You can often use the information on the wine label as a guide – although this is obvious, it is often ignored.

The most important thing is that you enjoy cooking and that your guests like the food. If putting together a menu is too time-consuming for you, we have put together a brilliant Christmas menu that is sure to leave nothing to be desired. You will find the wine recommendations for each recipe.

We have many more recipes for your Christmas menu – making it super easy to put together a fabulous festive meal. We also regularly post delicious creations on Facebook and Instagram. Have a look!