16 Standout Side Dishes to Complete Your Christmas Dinner
These side dishes perfectly complement your Christmas roast, ham, or vegetarian dinner.
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So you’ve decided on the main course for your Christmas dinner. Great! The hardest decision may be done. But you still have to come up with accompaniments, and that process can be daunting in the absence of mandates like the mashed potatoes and stuffing that are de rigueur at Thanksgiving.
Any of the recipes below would make a great sidekick to the roast or casserole you’re serving for your holiday feast. We’ve got nice healthy vegetables, like roasted cauliflower and Middle-Eastern spices. (And we’ve got some not-so-healthy vegetables, like Brussels sprouts with bacon.) We’ve got potatoes, we’ve got beans, and we’ve got bread. Many dishes are vegetarian, so you can serve them no matter who’s coming to your holiday. Best of all, you can prepare many of these recipes ahead of time, lessening your workload on Christmas Day.
Cheers to a stress-free Christmas dinner!
Favorite Christmas Dinner Side Dishes
1 /16Yunhee Kim
Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts and Bacon
Make Brussels Sprouts twice as nice with the addition of fresh, in-season chestnuts and crispy bacon.
This brilliant side dish (or vegetarian main, if made with vegetable broth) is a colorful version of scalloped potatoes. For richest flavor and color, look for deep-orange-fleshed sweet potatoes with skin that’s burnt orange to dark red. A food processor’s shredding disc and 2-mm. slicing blade make quick work of the cheese, sweet potatoes, and shallot.
This recipe loads up garden potatoes with crisp sage leaves—but feel free to use less if you prefer a milder flavor. Either way, don’t pass up chicken pan juices poured on top.
Chanterelle mushrooms and cipollini onions are worth the splurge, but you can substitute halved cremini mushrooms and frozen pearl onions and the results will still be very tasty.
Though mildly sweet like their carrot cousins, parsnips are starchy, like potatoes. Subbing them for spuds, as in this recipe, is a good way to expand your winter repertoire.
Mashed Potatoes and Parsnips with Crisp Root Vegetable Strips
We love the clever use of parsnip and potato peels as a crispy topping for this creamy mash. There’s also a delicious hit of coconut that makes these extra special.
Light and flaky phyllo dough offers a nice contrast to the soft and creamy green filling of these turnovers. They make perfect hors d’oeuvres or a side dish served with meat and a glass of wine.