Christmas & Holiday Recipes: 50 International Dishes
Explore global Christmas traditions with 50+ festive recipes from Europe, Asia, Latin America, and beyond. Create a holiday table that celebrates world cuisine.
Christmas dinner in Naples means the Feast of the Seven Fishes; in Mexico City, families spend days assembling tamales; in Tokyo, oddly, it means fried chicken; and in Provence, dessert is thirteen distinct sweets representing Christ and the apostles. No holiday shows more culinary diversity than Christmas, and that's exactly what makes it the perfect occasion to cook beyond your own tradition. This guide gathers 50+ festive recipes spanning Europe, Latin America, and Asia — main courses like roast goose and bacalao, sides and starters, the great Christmas baking canon from stollen to polvorones, and the drinks that fuel December gatherings. Each section covers what's traditionally served, why, and how to plan and make components ahead so the cook actually enjoys the holiday too.
European Christmas Tables
Europe's Christmas mains are remarkably varied. Britain centers on roast turkey or goose with pigs in blankets, roast potatoes in goose fat, and flaming Christmas pudding aged weeks in advance. Germany favors roast goose with red cabbage and potato dumplings, plus Christmas Eve's humbler tradition of sausages and potato salad. Italy's Christmas Eve is La Vigilia — the Feast of the Seven Fishes among Southern Italian families, with baccalà, fried calamari, and linguine alle vongole — followed by meat-filled tortellini in brodo on Christmas Day in Emilia-Romagna. Poland's Wigilia is a meatless twelve-dish supper: barszcz with uszka dumplings, carp, and pierogi. France finishes with bûche de Noël, the sponge-and-buttercream yule log.
💡 Tip: Goose throws off enormous amounts of fat while roasting — pour it off every 30 minutes and save it; goose-fat roast potatoes are arguably better than the bird.
Latin American Nochebuena
Across Latin America the main event is Nochebuena, the Christmas Eve feast eaten near midnight. In Mexico, extended families hold tamaladas — assembly-line gatherings to fill and fold dozens of tamales, like tamales verdes with chicken and tomatillo salsa — alongside bacalao a la vizcaína, romeritos in mole, and ponche navideño, a hot fruit punch with tejocotes and sugarcane. Puerto Rico roasts pernil (slow garlic-marinated pork shoulder) with arroz con gandules and coquito, the coconut-rum eggnog. Venezuela and Colombia wrap hallacas — banana-leaf parcels of corn dough and stewed meat — while Peru serves panetón with hot chocolate, an Italian inheritance turned national obsession.
💡 Tip: Tamales freeze beautifully: make a double batch in early December, then steam straight from frozen for 90 minutes on Christmas Eve.
The Christmas Baking Canon
December baking is its own tradition with weeks-long lead times. German stollen — dense, butter-soaked fruit bread with a marzipan core — is baked in early December and ripens for two to four weeks wrapped in foil. Italian panettone demands a multi-day natural leaven, which is why most Italians proudly buy artisan versions instead. Easier wins for home bakers: German Lebkuchen and Zimtsterne, Mexican polvorones, French sablés, Scandinavian pepparkakor, and a gingerbread house with the kids. Plan one ambitious project (stollen, yule log) and two or three simple drop-and-roll cookie doughs, most of which can be frozen raw and baked in 12 minutes whenever guests appear.
Christmas in Asia and Beyond
Christmas eating thrives outside historically Christian countries too. Japan's KFC Christmas — fried chicken ordered weeks ahead — began as a 1974 marketing campaign and is now genuine tradition, paired with strawberry-and-cream Christmas cake. The Philippines, Asia's most Christmas-devoted country, celebrates from September through Noche Buena with lechon (whole roast pig), hamón, queso de bola, and bibingka rice cakes sold outside dawn masses during Simbang Gabi. In Goa, Indian Christians make vindaloo and bebinca, the layered coconut-jaggery pudding. These traditions are a reminder that you don't need snow or a particular menu — festive food is whatever your community gathers around.
Planning and Make-Ahead Timeline
An international Christmas menu rewards early planning. Four weeks out: bake stollen and Christmas pudding (both improve with age) and order any specialty items — goose, bacalao, banana leaves, masa harina — that sell out by mid-December. One to two weeks out: make and freeze tamales, hallacas, cookie doughs, and stock for gravies and brodo. Two days ahead: brine or marinate the main protein; pernil needs 24–48 hours in its garlic-oregano adobo. Christmas Eve and Day, limit yourself to roasting, steaming, and assembling. Choose one labor-intensive showpiece and surround it with make-aheads — nobody remembers whether there were five sides or seven, but everyone remembers a frazzled host.
Featured Recipes
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Feast of the Seven Fishes?
It's the Italian-American name for La Vigilia, the Southern Italian Christmas Eve tradition of a meatless seafood dinner, rooted in the Catholic practice of abstaining from meat before the holiday. The number seven isn't fixed in Italy — families serve anywhere from three to thirteen dishes. Typical courses include baccalà (salt cod), fried calamari, shrimp, linguine with clams, and stuffed or roasted whole fish.
What do people eat for Christmas in Mexico?
The main meal is Nochebuena dinner on December 24th, served late in the evening. Classic dishes include tamales (often made at a family tamalada gathering), bacalao a la vizcaína, romeritos with mole and shrimp cakes, roast turkey or pierna (pork leg), ensalada de Nochebuena with beets and jicama, plus ponche navideño, buñuelos, and hot chocolate for dessert.
Which Christmas dishes can be made weeks in advance?
Several classics are designed for it. British Christmas pudding and German stollen are traditionally made four to six weeks ahead and improve as they mature. Tamales and hallacas freeze for a month and steam from frozen. Cookie doughs, cranberry sauces, chutneys, stocks, and coquito (which mellows in the fridge for weeks) all hold beautifully, leaving only roasting and assembly for the day itself.
Goose or turkey for Christmas dinner?
Turkey feeds more people for less money and is harder to ruin; a 12-pound bird serves ten. Goose is the older European tradition — richer, darker meat closer to duck, with self-basting fat and unbeatable roast potatoes from the drippings — but yields far less: an 11-pound goose realistically serves six. For gatherings under eight who value flavor over volume, goose wins; for a crowd, roast turkey or do both.
The world's Christmas tables disagree on almost everything — fish or fowl, midnight or midday, tamales or turkey — yet they agree completely on the point: cook generously, gather everyone, and let the meal stretch for hours. Pick one tradition from this guide that's new to your family and cook it properly this year, sourced and timed right. Keep what the table loves. Within a few Christmases you'll have a hybrid menu that's genuinely yours, which is how every one of these traditions started.