There’s no question that Passover this year looks very different from usual for most of us. You may be staying home, doing a Seder alone or just with immediate family for the first time. You may have never shopped, cooked, and prepared your kitchen for Passover before. You may have difficulty accessing the plethora of kosher-for-Passover ingredients you’re used to using.
Of primary importance is the Seder plate. Watch our step-by-step guide to preparing the Seder plate items quickly and easily. If you cannot obtain horseradish root, Romaine lettuce may be used alone.
Once you're set with your Seder plate, you'll want to cook some food too. The recipes in this list take into account the difficulty you may have obtaining kosher-for-Passover ingredients this year. Except for wine, chicken, and meat, almost all the rest of the ingredients in these recipes can be bought at your local grocery store, farmers market (if still open), or via many online delivery services. (You'll want to place your orders soon, because many services are backlogged and have a delay of several days.) I’ll also make notes about what you can easily substitute or omit, so don’t worry if you’re missing some ingredients.
1. Chicken Soup with Egg Noodles
I know there are egg shortages in some places, but if you have enough, give it a go. Egg lokshen is a Passover staple and a good dose of nostalgia in many homes. And chicken soup is the ultimate forgiving food. Chicken, root vegetables, water, salt, simmer, simmer, and simmer some more, and you’re good to go. Shred the chicken and add it back into the broth with the vegetables and egg noodles, and you’ve got a hearty, filling, comforting meal in a bowl.
2. Easy, Healthy Zucchini Soup
Don’t have time or ingredients for chicken soup? (Or simply want some variety?) Zucchini is my go-to quick and easy recipe. It’s literally onion, oil, zucchini, water, salt. Very short cooking time. If you don’t have a Passover blender or food processor, you can mash it instead.
See Is Quinoa Kosher for Passover (and feel free to leave it out; I just added it to make the soup more filling as a stand-alone dish).
3. Tangy Sweet Onion Salad Dressing
Salads are pretty easy to make even with limited ingredients. This dressing requires a blender of some sort, but I’ll include some others below that do not.
My go-to dressing for a classic green salad is:
- 4 tbsp oil
- 4-6 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 cloves garlic (leave out if it’s not your custom to use garlic on Passover)
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- Pinch of sugar (optional)
Salad Ideas
Feel free to mix and match, alter, replace, based on your preferences and what you have available. These are merely suggestions.
Israeli Salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, purple onion, red/green/yellow peppers, all very finely diced. Dress generously with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.
Fruity Salad: greens of your choice, with mango, pomegranate seeds, avocado, and chopped nuts. Dress with the onion dressing above.
Greens with Sweet Potato and Egg: Kale or Romaine lettuce, roasted sweet potato cubes, sliced hard boiled eggs. Dress with mayo, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic. Add water if necessary to thin out the dressing before pouring over the salad.
More Easy Salads
- Avocado Salad (dice or mash avocado, and mix with lemon juice and salt to taste. Optional: add finely diced onion)
- Egg Salad (hard boiled eggs, mashed. Mix with salt and sauteed onions OR mayo, salt, and finely diced raw onion)
- Beet Salad (roast or boil whole beets. Cut into chunks and dress with oil, lemon juice, salt. Optional: ripped herbs (basil, parsley)
4. Chicken Shnitzel
This recipe uses potato starch, which does need to be bought special for Passover, but you can still make shnitzel without it. Ground nuts are a good alternative (see Are Nuts Kosher for Passover). I haven’t tried it myself, but I know some people coat the chicken in mashed or shredded potatoes and have success that way.
5. Easy Four-Ingredient Brisket
You can make pretty much any cut of slow-cook meat taste good but braising it with root vegetables and wine. This one uses brisket, but you can use a different cut. I shredded the vegetables here, but if you don’t have the ability to do that, dice them instead.
6. Chicken and Potatoes
No recipe required. Cube potatoes and sweet potatoes. Dice onions. Spread across the bottom of a pan. Top with chicken legs, sprinkle with salt. Cover tightly with foil, bake on a low temperature for several hours. Uncover the pan, increase the temperature, and bake until skin and tops of potatoes crisp up. Alternatively, bake on high heat, uncovered, in a single layer, until crisp (about an hour).
If an actual recipe makes it easier for you, you can use this one (excuse the poor photography).
7. Individual Shepherd's Pies
Don’t have individual tins? No worries; make one big one and slice it/scoop it.
Tips
- For all meat and chicken dishes: Use your vegetables for flavor. Onions, carrots, celery, parsnip - you can create fantastic flavor bases with these for pretty much all dishes.
- Roast lots of vegetables. Keep it simple. There’s no need to make dishes with 7000 steps. Peel, cut, toss with oil and salt, roast at 425F - serve straight from the oven.
- It’s OK to serve the same food multiple times. There’s no pressure to go all out with variety. Keep the work minimal; there’s enough going on this year without food pressure.
Desserts/Snacks
Having some fun food on hand can be a mood booster and make it feel festive, so take a look and see if any of these appeal to you.
8. Cooked Fruit Compote
Keep it simple with apples and pears (or just apples, or just pears), or add in a handful of berries for color and flavor. It’s light and refreshing and keeps well in the fridge for two weeks.
9. Homemade Almond Butter
You do need a food processor for this, but if you have one, raw almonds can be bought in any store and the end result is delicious. Slice up some apples and dip them into it. Then slice up some more apples because the first batch wasn’t enough.
10. Almond Butter Cookies
Use the rest of the almond butter you just made, and bake these. They’re rich and a small batch goes a long way.
Go Bananas!
Bananas are versatile and filling. Try some of these banana-based recipes.
11. Frozen Banana Pops
These do require kosher-for-Passover chocolate, but if you don’t have access to it, you can just dip them straight in the nuts.
12. Instant Banana-Based Ice Cream
13. Hazelnut Banana “Nice Cream”
14. Toasted Coconut Macaroons
Is it Passover without macaroons?
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