35+ Best Hanukkah Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is a good Hanukkah menu? ›

Sephardic Hanukkah dishes include cassola (sweet cheese pancakes), bimuelos (puffed fritters with an orange glaze), keftes de espinaka (spinach patties), keftes de prasa (leek patties) and shamlias (fried pastry frills).

The eight days of Hanukkah are observed with the lighting of a menorah after sundown and meals featuring foods challah bread, kugel, potato latkes, jelly doughnuts called sufganiyot, and festive drinks. Fried foods recall the miracle at the Temple of Jerusalem, when a day's worth of oil lasted eight nights.

From crispy latkes to tangy brisket to jammy sufganiyot. From shallow-fried potato latkes to deep-fried jelly doughnuts, traditional Hanukkah foods hinge on oil. Typically falling in December, the Jewish holiday, also called the Festival of Lights, celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Throughout the eight days of Hanukkah, Jewish families like mine celebrate by eating latkes (fried potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (fried jelly doughnuts). Notice a theme? Traditional Hanukkah foods are often fried because they're reminders of the oil in the legendary Hanukkah story.

In America, Hanukkah food typically refers to two things: latkes, Eastern European fried potato pancakes, and sufganiyot, jelly-filled doughnuts that are favored in Israel and increasingly popular here.

While the Hanukkah menorah is usually lit after sunset, a lazy weekend morning is also a great time to celebrate the Jewish holiday. So many traditional Jewish foods double as brunch favorites, from potato latkes (hash browns, anyone?) to doughnuts and challah.

A lesser-known Hanukkah custom is to eat dairy, to celebrate the heroism of Judith, slayer of the general Holofernes. Although Judith's defeat of Holofernes took place centuries before the Maccabees defeated the Romans, Jews in the medieval period began to associate Judith's bravery with the miracle of Hanukkah.

"By the 14th century, there's quite a strong tradition that people eat cheese on Hanukkah and it's associated with Judith giving cheese to the enemy to make him drunk," Weingarten says.

Why do Jews eat dairy on Hanukkah? ›

The custom of eating dairy foods for Hanukkah dates back to the Middle Ages, when the Book of Judith played an important role in the Hanukkah narrative. Judith was a celebrated Jewish heroine who saved her village from an invading Assyrian army.

Hanukkah doesn't have any dietary restrictions, but make sure not to bring food items that aren't kosher. Even if your hosts aren't observant, it's best to stick with kosher items out of politeness. You never know if the host might have invited observant guests!

If you are looking for a gift to give the host or hostess, it would be pretty much the same as any other party (flowers, alcohol, boxed candies). If you want to be themed, and because Hanukkah isn't a particularly religous holiday, it wouldn't be offensive to give a Hanukkah-related gift.

Your host might appreciate gifts of chocolate, gourmet applesauce, candles, books or board games.

The most traditional gift for Hanukkah is gelt, which is Yiddish for “money” — given either in the form of real money or wrapped chocolate coins. These can be used to play the popular Hanukkah game, dreidel.

They found a jug of oil that only contained enough fuel to keep the Temple's lamps lit for one day. However, the oil lasted for eight whole days! This miracle is the reason we eat foods fried in oil to celebrate Hanukkah and remember the Maccabees.