My recipes for traditional Russian food recipes for Russian Orthodox Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas lunch will make you the dishes my Russian-Ukrainian baboushka spent days in the kitchen preparing for our family feasts, from borscht and piroshki to Russian pelmeni and Ukrainian vareniki to the Olivier salad and pink beetroot potato salad called vinagret.
It’s the Orthodox Christmas Eve tonight when, after a late church service, many Russians, Ukrainians, and Orthodox Christians from neighbouring Slavic countries will sit down for a Christmas Eve dinner.
Some will also enjoy an Orthodox Christmas lunch or Christmas dinner tomorrow, which was the tradition in my grandparents home when I was growing up in Sydney’s western suburbs. I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world, getting to celebrate two Christmases and two Easters.
My grandparents left us along time ago and it’s been years since I’ve seen my family in Australia, no thanks to the pandemic. Regardless, I’ll be cooking traditional Russian Christmas food this evening and tomorrow, using the time to recall fond memories of the family feasts of my childhood.
I’ll be doing it with a heavy heart, as I did when I cooked my family’s recipes for Russian Easter last year, not long after Putin invaded Ukraine. I’ll be sipping a few vodkas with Terence tonight, toasting to my family, and to a miracle that will end the brutal war sooner rather than later.
I’ve got a a larger collection of my Russian family recipes with a few recipes of Ukrainian origin here that includes everything from my Stroganoff recipes to my modern take on as mimosa salad. This shorter compilation focuses on my family’s recipes for traditional Russian Christmas food, which I hope to publish in a cookbook this year.
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Now let me tell you about these recipes for traditional Russian Christmas food for Russian Orthodox Christmas.
Traditional Russian Christmas Food for Russian Orthodox Christmas
Devilled Eggs with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe
Our devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar recipe makes a luxurious take on the simpler Russian devilled eggs associated with traditional Russian Christmas food.
Devilled eggs were traditionally served as part of a spread of zakuski or appetisers that were the prelude to a holiday feast.
While dishes of dill pickles, charcuterie, boiled eggs, caviar and salads were always laid out first, it wasn’t long before the dumplings, kotleti and cabbage rolls followed.
For the boiled eggs, see Terence’s excellent guide to boiling perfect eggs if you need help.
Devilled Eggs with Smoked Salmon and Caviar Recipe for Elegant Cocktail Party Canapés
Russian Ikra Recipe for the Poor Man’s Eggplant Caviar
This easy Russian eggplant caviar recipe makes ikra – also known as the ‘poor man’s caviar’ during the Soviet period – and it was another dish that I associate with traditional Russian Christmas food, although it didn’t appear at every family feast.
My baboushka’s recipe made a particularly velvety ikra that was more sumptuous than the eggplant caviar that was popularised during the Soviet era that more closely resembled a diced salad.
This recipe for ikra is super easy. Sure, it’s time-consuming, as there’s a lot of dicing involved, but there are no complex skills required. Of all my baba’s dishes, it was perhaps the dish that I most adored.
Easy Russian Eggplant Caviar Recipe for Ikra, the Soviet Union’s Poor Man’s Caviar
Vinegret Recipe for a Russian Beetroot Potato Salad
This Russian beet potato salad recipe makes vinegret, a pink potato and beetroot salad that is fragrant with dill and delightfully tangy thanks to the gherkins and capers and it’s another traditional Russian Christmas food.
Although this beetroot potato salad was a staple at most family meals. There would rarely be a Sunday lunch at baba and papa’s home without this salad on the table and my mum made it every time we had a backyard barbecue.
Despite the fact I can make it in my sleep, this beetroot and potato salad turns out a little differently each time and the main difference is the colour. I explain why in my tips to making this Russian beet potato salad recipe below.
Russian Beetroot Potato Salad Recipe for Family Meals and Holiday Feasts
Classic Russian Garden Salad Recipe
My classic Russian garden salad recipe makes a simple green salad that my baboushka served with every family meal when I was growing up in Sydney in the Seventies but it was also another traditional Russian Christmas food.
My baba’s garden salad was exceptional, because most of the ingredients were just picked from papa’s backyard vegetable garden. Papa’s tomatoes were the sweetest I’ve ever tasted, his radishes the zestiest, and his cucumbers the crunchiest.
Those three ingredients there – tomato, cucumber and radish – comprised Papa’s breakfast each day, along with a slice of Russian black bread, perhaps a boiled egg, maybe some pickled herring, and a sneaky shot of his homemade vodka.
This Classic Russian Garden Salad Goes on the Table for Every Russian Meal
Russian Potato Salad Recipe for the Olivier Salad
This Russian potato salad recipe makes the Olivier salad, which was another traditional Russian Christmas food, although we ate it at every shared family meal.
The salad was invented by the chef of a famed Moscow restaurant in the 19th century, when it was a much more extravagant dish. It was then popularised in the 20th century during the Soviet period.
The typical Soviet-era Russian potato salad ingredients list included potatoes, carrots, onion, peas, gherkins, and mayonnaise, which was ever-present. Mayonnaise was considered to be the glue that bound the Soviet states together and I think it runs through my blood.
Russian Potato Salad Recipe for the Olivier Salad Also Known as Ensalada Rusa
Borscht Recipe for the Comforting Soup of my Childhood
Borscht has a special place in the hearts, minds and stomachs of anyone of Russian and Ukrainian heritage who grew up dunking weighty slices of black rye bread into their grandmothers’ nourishing broths.
This Russian borscht recipe will make you the hearty home-cooked soup of my childhood that my baboushka used to make. For my family it will always be traditional Russian Christmas food for Orthodox Christmas, but of course the origin of borscht is Ukraine.
Before a borscht war starts: this is the borscht of my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother who was born in a village near Odessa in the land we now know as Ukraine when it was still part of the Russian Empire.
A beetroot-driven vegetable soup garnished with fresh fragrant dill and dollops of sour cream, it’s a filling meal in itself, but it was always one of an array of dishes served as part of an elaborate Christmas meal.
This Russian Borscht Recipe Makes the Hearty Home-Cooked Soup of my Childhood
Piroshki Recipe for Minced Meat-Filled Turnovers
This Russian piroshki recipe makes the perfect savoury minced meat-filled pastries, also known as Russian hand pies, that my baboushka used to make. Piroshki are often eaten as a snack on their own or with a bowl of borscht.
My baboushka also served piping-hot piroshki, covered in a tea towel to keep them warm, as one of an array of Russian dishes during family feasts and it was another typical traditional Russian Christmas food.
While my family preferred deep-fried piroshki, these Russian hand pies can also be baked. However you cook them, they taste even better the next day and will last for days.
My baba’s piroshki recipe differs to most, as her minced meat filling contained the fine, clear, bean thread noodles that come from China that are used throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Best Russian Piroshki Recipe for Perfect Savoury Minced Meat-Filled Hand Pies
Golubtsy Recipe for Baboushka’s Cabbage Rolls
I adore my baboushka’s Russian cabbage rolls recipe that makes golubtsy (голубцы) – cabbage rolls stuffed with a savoury minced pork, beef, carrot, and rice filling, and cloaked in a rich homemade tomato sauce.
They were another feature of countless family meals, and were not only a traditional Russian Christmas food, but we also enjoyed them at our family’s regular weekend lunches that rolled into dinner.
But baba’s cabbage rolls were a meal in themselves. They were so filling that as a child I would eat one and then I’d struggle to fit anything else in, so I’ve reduced the size of baba’s cabbage rolls so that they are rather petite, so you can eat more than one.
Easy Russian Cabbage Rolls Recipe for a Petite Version of Baboushka’s Golubtsi
Russian Kotleti Recipe for Fried Ground Chicken Patties
This Russian kotleti recipe makes one of my favourite Russian recipes for the delicious deep-fried Russian style chicken meat patties or chicken cutlets that was another traditional Russian Christmas food at my grandmother’s table.
Baba would buy cuts of meat from the butchers on her daily morning shop and Papa would mince the meat she’d bought in his old hand-grinder in the garage.
During family feasts such as Christmas lunches or dinners, the kotleti would be served in a casserole dish at the centre of the dining table as one dish of an array of plates eaten as part of a shared family meal, as most of our meals were.
But if being served as an individual meal, it would be accompanied by mashed potatoes and a garden salad.
Russian Kotleti Recipe for Delicious Deep-Fried Russian Style Chicken Meat Patties
Russian Pelmeni Recipe for Minced Meat Filled Dumplings
This Russian pelmeni recipe makes the Russian dumplings stuffed with savoury pork and beef mince that are boiled and served with sour cream and fresh fragrant dill.
This is hearty home-cooked Russian comfort food at its best and another traditional Russian Christmas food for my family.
My Russian pelmeni recipe makes Russian dumplings exactly like my baboushka, my mum, and her baboushka made, which I learnt to make as a child by watching my Russian grandmother and mother.
Russian Pelmeni Recipe for Russian Dumplings Just Like My Baboushka Used to Make
Russian Vareniki Recipe for Mashed Potato and Onion Filled Dumplings
My Russian potato vareniki recipe makes the Russian take on these boiled dumplings stuffed with rustic mashed potato and caramelised onion that are of Ukrainian origin.
While these were another traditional Russian Christmas food, my baboushka made these for most family meals, especially the seemingly never-ending Sunday lunches that turned into dinners.
It was my responsibility to set the dining table and carry the dishes from the kitchen to dining room and I have to confess that I set the casserole pot filled to the brim with potato vareniki as close to my place setting as possible. These were my favourites.
Russian Potato Vareniki Recipe for Mash and Caramelised Onion Filled Dumplings
Pan Fried Dumplings Recipe for Pelmeni and Vareniki Leftovers
This is what we did with leftover pelmeni and vareniki. They were fried up for breakfast the next morning…
Pan Fried Dumplings Recipe for Your Russian and Ukrainian Pelmeni and Vareniki Leftovers
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make any of our traditional Russian Christmas food for Orthodox Christmas or any other meals, as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.
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