“christmas”

Christmas Day recipes for Australia

From seriously good nibbles and beautiful salads to exciting mains and epic puds, we’ve got everything you need to cook up a festive summer feast.

Top tips for dressing the Christmas table: 5 Ingredients Mediterranean style

“Firstly, I want to share my most important tip – and that’s not to worry! Your guests will just love the fact you’re making an effort, so whatever you do will be great. Secondly, embrace the mix-and-match vibe. Often at this time of year you’ll have more people coming round than you have plates and glasses for, but there’s no need to panic about not having a matching set. Raid second-hand shops for whatever takes your fancy – for this Mediterranean vibe, the more eclectic the collection, the better!”

Christmas potato recipes

From classic crispy roast potato recipes to indulgent creamy bakes, Christmas Day feasts to Boxing Day brunches, there are so many ways to bring joy with the humble spud. Check out our perfect picks.

Budget-friendly Christmas recipes

We love a Christmas cook-up, with so many traditional dishes making the season special. We also love to keep our costs down, and we know you do too – so we’ve taken our festive favourite recipes and tweaked them to make them more budget-friendly. From ingredient hacks to energy efficient tips, we’ve got you covered.

Our top budget-friendly tips for cooking at Christmas

Never fear: our handy budget-friendly tips for Christmas cooking will help you out, proving you don’t need to sacrifice quality to save the pennies. Good food doesn’t have to bust the budget, and even small changes to your routine can make all the difference. Batch cooking, the gift that keeps on giving, will help you plan ahead, as will making the most of your freezer and putting your leftovers to good use.

Christmas dinner for two

And let’s not forget the true joy of Christmas food lies in the epic leftovers. So you can cook a meal for four or two (or one) and relax in the knowledge that your fridge will be full of delicious ready-to-eat delights, so you can create a festive feast whenever it suits you.

Christmas snacks and nibbles

From oozy cheese and bread to the perfect pudding on a spoon, we have all the ideas to switch-up your festive offering. Check out these brilliant Christmas snacks, canapés and sharers that'll go down a treat this season.

Christmas breakfast recipes

Simple Christmas dinner alternatives for smaller gatherings

How to get ahead for Christmas

Sorting out what you’re going to cook and when, and then prepping the dishes in advance, is the secret to Christmas Day success. For starters, a little housekeeping goes a long way. In the month before Christmas, do a freezer audit – have you got odds and ends you can use up to maximise the space you have? In the days before Christmas Eve, take a good hard look at your fridge. You’re going to need loads of space come the 24th for all your pre-prepped trays and puds. What can you use up now to clear some room, and what can you

Flexible Christmas dinner ideas

Think easy starters and alternative main courses, sides that are worth it for the leftovers alone, and mouth-watering puds that’ll leave you with a big old smile on your face. Let’s get cooking!

13 tips for cooking your first Christmas dinner

From ways to get ahead before Christmas Day and using the right kitchen kit, to step-by-step guides on how to cook and carve a roast turkey, simply follow Jamie’s Christmas tips and tricks below and you’ll pull off the Big Day with expert-level success. Here’s how to throw a feast without having a Nightmare Before Christmas.

6 last-minute Christmas dessert recipes

Don’t worry, we have just the thing. These delicious dessert recipes need minimal prep and will ensure you keep everyone happy with something sweet to round off dinner. Make them on Christmas Eve (or even Christmas morning) and people will be none the wiser.

7 ways with leftover Christmas cheese

There will be cheese lovers out there for which the word ‘leftovers’ just doesn’t compute. But for those of us who are left with a few odds and ends that you don’t know what to do with, these are the deliciously easy cheesy recipes you need to know – and they could also use up a couple of other Christmas ingredients at the same time. Winner!

7 cracking Christmas stuffing recipes

A simple stuffing recipe is easy to throw together and perfect for prepping ahead of time, meaning you can get big flavour and texture on the table with minimum fuss. Check out our selection of Christmas stuffing recipes for classic combos, tasty twists and some epic veggie alternatives.

Edible Christmas gifts in a jar

More and more of us are getting into the spirit of making edible Christmas gifts, to add something of a homemade and personal touch to the season of goodwill. The good news is that making edible gifts can be easy and enjoyable. All you have to do is to start gathering together some pretty ribbons and tags and then follow a few basic rules when it comes to preparing jars and bottles.

Jamie kicks off Christmas

We just love Christmas here at JamieOliver.com, and we really get into the spirit by offering you loads of helpful tips and festive recipes to make it an even more wonderful experience.

Pre-Christmas survival

By Helen Jackson

Spices – it’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

Everyone who knocks on the kitchen door is given a sample of some kind of hot toddy, thrust a warm mince pie or sausage roll, and then ushered back out if they hang around too long. I love when the relatives or friends arrive and they are greeted with the scent that glides around the cold air, wrapping them in a warm hug of rich and zesty tidings before they’ve even stepped through the door.

Europe’s best Christmas markets

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Buying the perfect Christmas turkey

Turkeys have been through many transformations since that time and many of them not for the good, but they have still maintained their place as the most popular centrepiece of most families' festive tables. Thankfully today there are more enlightened farmers that have gone back to breeding the more traditional dark-feathered varieties of turkeys which have so much more flavour. These birds apparently lost favour due to having dark a few dark feather stubs when plucked; so much sacrificed in flavour just for appearance.

Christmas Salmon recipes – the party choice

Salmon and parties go hand in hand. Whether it's tasty little smoked morsels on blinis as canapés or a magnificent fresh side on a platter, salmon is an ideal choice.

The best Christmas sides

Whatever your choice of poultry or red meat, be it a turkey, goose or duck, or perhaps even a rib of beef, the sides you serve will make all the difference, so they are worth a little thought in advance. Nobody wants overcooked, soggy Brussels sprouts or watery carrots. Get your sides right and show off with perfectly roasted potatoes all fluffy on the inside crispy on the outside, well-seasoned greens and lashings of tasty homemade

Our best beers for Christmas

For me, the best part of Christmas is Christmas Day evening, when my family has given up forcing me to play board games, I’ve demolished a plate of leftover turkey rolls, and my Dad’s fallen asleep with his Christmas hat falling over his eyes.

Coping with food intolerance at Christmas

Christmas is a challenging time of year for those folk with a food intolerance. With loads of delicious treats it can be frustrating that so many traditional foods contain allergens – Christmas cake, mince pies, stuffing and sausage meat, even bread sauce. However, with some forward planning and clever tweaking of recipes, no one should feel like they are missing out.

Christmas for the fishmonger

Of course the difference between the turkey and the turbot, the rump and the red mullet, or the ham and the hake is that the formers are all strolling around a field waiting to be herded or in a pen waiting to be gathered and the latters are all swimming in 106,400,000 km² of Atlantic Ocean! This is consistent across the year for fish availability with weather, seasons, quotas, transport all affecting availability of wild caught species, but at Christmas it is worse. This year, for example, the country's most important auctions throughout the Southwest close on Monday 23rd December. Sounds fine as the fish, one would think, will find their way around the country for the 24th. Many vessels will actually use Saturday 21st as their last auction day as export trade will cease from then; exports to the continent make up a huge volume of fish sold on our Southwest auctions and are commonly a driver for the price the fisherman gain. Additionally the next wholesale auction is on Monday 30th but these are very limited with fish and there is usually no transport to move the catch to other parts of the UK. Normal service then resumes on Friday 3rd January.

Classic Christmas sauces

Get your taste buds tingling with our collection of standout Christmas sauce recipes.

Gluten-free Christmas gingerbread

Through further reading I discovered that gingerbread-making was not to be taken lightly and for several centuries only certain folk were permitted to make gingerbread – it was considered a profession in its own right, separate from bakers and pastry chefs. In Nuremberg, known to those in-the-know to be home to the worlds best gingerbread, artists would donate their time to decorate the ginger spiced biscuits and Lebkuchenhauesle. Gingerbread houses with not just icing but gold paint.

Nutritional survival guide to Christmas

According to the British Dietetic Association, on Christmas Day the average person consumes around 6,000 calories – that’s three days’ worth of eating for the average woman, and more than two days’ worth for men.

Perfect Christmas gingerbread

We love ginger. It adds a flavourful, slightly spicy kick to any dish. It can be used in both savoury dishes and sweet dishes, such as

Christmas brunch ideas

The festive period is often the perfect time to set aside a morning to kick back, relax and treat yourself to a lie-in followed by a lazy brunch. Something light and quick to prepare is all that is needed, particularly ahead of a larger meal later on in the day. Whilst deciding whether your eggs should be served sunny side up, softly scrambled or lightly poached, grab a tin of peaches from the cupboard, whizz them up and pop the cork on a bottle of Prosecco – you’ll have all you need to make a

A home-grown Christmas

Well, the forecasters say that a white Christmas looks unlikely this year, down here at least, and that it won’t even be that chilly either. The photograph, taken last January, is just wishful thinking. Gardens benefit from a good bit of cold each year, to kill off pests and to stop weeds from growing. Many crops – hardy fruit such as apples and pears amongst them – actually need cold weather to induce proper dormancy so that they flower well when they have woken up again in spring. The technical term is vernalization. Garlic requires cold too and I’ve always had more success planting in autumn than late winter.

Christmas Eve around the world

As early as the 6th December, celebrations begin in the European and Germanic cultures where gifts and homemade gingerbread are given on St Nicholas’ Day, whilst for a large proportion of countries the big celebrations are actually held on Christmas Eve.

Is salmon cool for Christmas?

For me, salmon is a strange choice for Christmas. Gone are the days when only the wealthy could afford to eat those rich, succulent pink flakes. Large scale fish farming has made salmon available to everyone at a most competitive price and many of us eat it every week, in some format. A few years ago there were concerns raised over farming practices and the resultant environmental effects but since then we have seen the introduction of organically farmed, Freedom Foods certified, Global GAP certified and Best Aquaculture Practice options which has widened the choice for the more discerning shopper. To be fair, there is nothing overly wrong with a generic farmed salmon, but for me the peace of mind that the farmed fish I’m eating comes with a little more tractability is worth that tiny extra cost. My choice is always the wonderful Loch Duart salmon.

Christmas leftovers; treats and feasts

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Stir-up Sunday: perfect Christmas pudding recipes

Dating back to Victorian times, cooking your homemade Christmas pud four to six weeks before the Big Day (or the last Sunday before Advent) gives it time for those beautiful flavours to develop and that familiar colour to deepen – and allows you to get ahead of the Christmas baking game!