30 Best Christmas Side Dishes

Our best Christmas side dishes! From fresh vegetable sides to crowd-pleasing casseroles, they'll all be hits on your holiday dinner table.

These Christmas side dishes include everything you need for a delicious holiday feast! They range from fan-favorite potato recipes to stunning winter vegetables, fresh salads, make-ahead casseroles, and more. No matter what main you’re making, you’ll find Christmas side dishes to love. I don’t know about you, but the side dishes are always my favorite part of Christmas dinner. It doesn’t matter whether my family is having lasagna or prime rib—I’ll be more excited about the vegetables, potatoes, and homemade dinner rolls on the table. I hope these Christmas side dishes are the highlight of your holiday dinner too. Our…

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Gingerbread Cookies

Our best gingerbread cookie recipe! These festive treats are soft and warmly spiced, with a rich molasses flavor. Perfect for spreading holiday cheer!

baking

What could be more festive than gingerbread cookies?! With Christmas just a few weeks away, I’m ready to turn up the holiday cheer around here, and making this gingerbread cookie recipe seems like a great place to start. For one, it makes the house smell amazing, filling it with the comforting aroma of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. It’s also a blast to make—rolling out the dough, cutting out gingerbread people, baking them, and decorating them once they cool. But more important than all of that, these gingerbread cookies are delicious! They’re soft, warmly spiced, and richly flavored with molasses and…

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Homemade Hot Chocolate

This homemade hot chocolate is creamy, thick, and flavorful, made with both melted chocolate and cocoa powder. It's a perfect cozy treat for a cold day!

winter / beverage

This hot chocolate recipe is so much better than a powdered mix! Made with two types of chocolate—a chopped bar and cocoa powder—it’s deliciously rich, creamy, and just the right amount of sweet. It’s super easy to make too—it comes together with 5 simple ingredients in under 10 minutes. We’ve already made this homemade hot chocolate a few times this December, and I have a feeling that it’ll stay on repeat all month long. It’s the perfect warming treat for a cold winter night, especially if you have a kid (like ours) who loves cozying up under the Christmas tree…

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Christmas Sugar Cookies

I make these Christmas sugar cookies for the holidays every year! Cut into festive shapes, they're perfect for decorating with icing and sprinkles.

Let’s make Christmas sugar cookies! My family loves breaking out our cookie cutters to bake these cookies for the holidays every year. They’re classic cut-out sugar cookies, with crisp edges, soft middles, and a warm, buttery flavor from vanilla and almond extract. Made with a simple 8-ingredient dough, they hold their shape in the oven, which means that you can cut them into all kinds of holiday shapes. While you could enjoy these Christmas sugar cookies plain, we think half the fun of making them is decorating them. Top them with icing, plus sprinkles, colored sugar, and/or candies for a festive…

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Spritz Cookies

This spritz cookie recipe has been in my family for years! Buttery, tender, and decorated with sprinkles, they're our favorite Christmas cookies.

This spritz cookie recipe comes straight from my mom’s recipe box! My family has been making it every Christmas for over 40 years—my first kitchen memory is of baking these spritz cookies with my mom and sister for the holidays. Made with a 6-ingredient dough, these spritz cookies are buttery, tender, and scented with almond extract, not unlike sugar cookies or shortbread. What sets them apart from other cookies is how they’re made. Spritz cookies get their festive shapes from a cookie press. Their name comes from the German word spritzen, which means “to squirt,” which describes how the dough…

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Easy Sugar Cookies

Craving something sweet? Make these sugar cookies! Easy to make with 8 ingredients, they have lightly crisp edges and perfect chewy middles.

winter

Hands up if you love soft and chewy sugar cookies! If you have your hand raised, this sugar cookie recipe is for you. Adapted from my snickerdoodle recipe, it yields sugar cookies with perfect chewy middles, lightly crisp edges, and a warm, buttery flavor. Best of all, it’s super easy to make. You just need 8 basic ingredients…and you don’t even have to chill the dough. You could totally make these cookies for a holiday—roll them in red and green sugar for Christmas, or top them off with pink frosting for Valentine’s Day. But honestly, we just love them as an…

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Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

We love to make this roasted pumpkin seeds recipe after carving pumpkins in the fall. Crisp and golden brown, they're an easy, delicious snack!

snacks & dips / appetizers

Let’s make roasted pumpkin seeds! Instead of tossing the seeds from your Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns this year, save them to make this roasted pumpkin seeds recipe. It’s a delicious fall snack or salad topper—the seeds come out nice and crunchy, with a toasty, nutty flavor that I absolutely love. I’ve experimented with lots of different methods for how to roast pumpkin seeds over the years, and I’ve found that this simple one is my favorite. It calls for 3 ingredients (plus optional seasoning, if you like) and has 3 basic steps. Kiddos can help out here too. My son Ollie loves…

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Apple Cider Cocktail

This apple cider cocktail is my idea of the perfect fall drink. Easy to make with 5 ingredients, it's bright, boozy, and packed with warming fall flavors.

Jack and I love making this apple cider cocktail recipe for cozy fall nights in. It combines some of his favorite cocktail ingredients (bourbon and Angostura bitters—this man loves an old fashioned!) with some of mine (ginger beer and a squeeze of lemon). Then, we throw apple cider into the mix for a sweet, seasonal finishing touch. As much as we enjoy making this apple cider cocktail for ourselves at home, I really wanted to share it with you because it’s perfect for fall entertaining. This fruity, fizzy, and warming drink fits right in at a holiday party or gathering…

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21 Best Fall Pasta Recipes

Craving comfort food? These fall pasta recipes are for you! Packed with seasonal produce and cozy autumn flavors, they're perfect for cool nights.

Is anyone else making fall pasta recipes on repeat? With the sun setting earlier and the temps getting cooler, I’ve been craving comfort food lately, and nothing hits the spot like a cozy bowl of pasta. In case you feel the same, I’ve rounded up our best fall pasta recipes below. They include classic Italian tomato sauce pastas, ultra-creamy ones, and of course, others that are packed with the season’s best produce (bring on the butternut squash!). Whether you’re looking for a quick weeknight fix or a crowd-pleasing dish for a special occasion, I’m sure you’ll find some fall pasta…

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Pumpkin Bread

If you love pumpkin, you HAVE to try this easy pumpkin bread recipe! Moist, warmly spiced, and filled with pumpkin flavor, it's the perfect fall treat.

fall / snacks & dips

This pumpkin bread recipe is super moist, warmly spiced, and filled with delicious pumpkin flavor. It’s one of my favorite fall recipes, and I make at least one loaf every year. On a crisp fall day, you can’t beat the smell of homemade pumpkin bread baking in the oven! I first published this pumpkin bread recipe in 2019, and I’ve since updated it to include even more pumpkin and warm spices. This version has a moister texture and richer fall flavor…and it’s completely impossible for me to eat just one slice at a time. I think it’s the best pumpkin bread…

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20 Easy Apple Recipes to Try This Fall

These apple recipes include cozy apple desserts, breakfast ideas, and more! They're perfect for making after apple picking or on any crisp fall day.

Have you gone apple picking yet this fall? I haven’t, but I’m already dreaming about all the apple recipes I’ll make once I do. I’ll toss raw apples into fresh fall salads, pile them on my morning overnight oats, and of course make cozy apple desserts like apple cake and apple crisp. In case you’re looking for fall apple inspiration, I’ve rounded up these and more of our best apple recipes below. Some are sweet, some are savory, and all of them are perfect for fall. Make one after a trip to an apple orchard…or on any cool day. Happy apple…

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Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.