No-bake desserts
Christmas recipes
Christmas recipes in one place: Christmas cookies and baking that can be made ahead, dishes for Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas braid, stollen, žerbo slices, poppy seed and walnut rolls, a festive lunch for Christmas Day and St. Stephen’s Day, mulled wine and other drinks, and party food for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
The recipes in each section are sorted by popularity. Below them you will find what to prepare first so that you have less work before the holidays.
Christmas helper
Christmas baking planner
Choose your cookies and we will show you when to bake each one so that it is fresh on Christmas Eve – honey cookies well ahead, cream ones only a few days before the holidays. Plus one shopping list for everything.
Make a baking planChristmas cookies and baking
Linzer cookies, vanilla crescents, Bratislava crescents, honey cookies that are soft straight from the oven, honey cookies filled with plum butter, Linzer tartlets, walnut wafer rolls, gingerbread house, cinnamon stars, coconut macaroons, no-bake Raffaello-style coconut balls and Christmas pine cones with flaked almonds, beehive cookies with egg liqueur and Ischler cookies.
Baked goods
Linzer-style walnut bars with rum and lemon zest
Baked goods
Honey nut cake roll with caramel cream
No-bake desserts
No-bake wafer sheets with caramel-walnut filling
Baked goods
Medvedie labky: Slovak coconut bear paw cookies
Baked goods
Linzer cookies with 4 ingredients – old-fashioned recipe
Baked goods
Marlenka-style honey and walnut cake roll
Baked goods
Walnut-shaped cookies with nut and apricot filling
Christmas Eve dinner
Wafers with honey and garlic, sauerkraut soup with smoked sausage, with smoked meat or meatless with dried porcini and prunes, fried or baked carp with potato salad with mayonnaise and vegetables and bobáľky with poppy seeds. Some families cook fish or mushroom soup instead of sauerkraut soup – in eastern Slovakia mačanka – and fry fish fillets instead of carp.
Soups
Mushroom soup with potatoes – grandma's recipe
Main dishes
Christmas slow-roasted salmon with lemon and herbs
Side dishes
Egg salad with yogurt, mayonnaise and mustard
Salads
Grandma-style potato salad with pickles and mayonnaise
Side dishes
Slovak potato salad with mustard, no mayo
Soups
Kapustnica: Slovak sauerkraut soup with smoked sausage
Salads
Vlašský šalát: Slovak potato salad with salami
Baked goods
Bobáľky: Slovak yeast dough bites with poppy seeds
Other recipes
Tea punch with rum, star anise and maple syrup
Soups
Mačanka: Slovak sour mushroom soup
Appetizers
Christmas wafers with honey, garlic and walnuts
Fish
Baked carp with garlic and caraway
Salads
Pickled herring salad with potatoes and pickles
Soups
Carp soup with root vegetables and croutons
Soups
Kapustnica: Slovak sauerkraut soup with smoked meat
Soups
Christmas kapustnica: Slovak sauerkraut soup
Salads
Christmas potato salad with mayo and vegetables
Main dishes
Crispy breaded fried fish fillets
Main dishes
Breaded fried carp for Christmas Eve
Christmas cakes and breads
Štedrák with four fillings, braided Christmas bread, stollen including a quick quark one, žerbo slices, poppy seed and walnut rolls, fruit loaf and festive yeast strudels.
Baked goods
Italian yeast bundt cake with fruit and apricots
Baked goods
Makovník and orechovník: Slovak poppy seed and nut rolls
Baked goods
Makovník: Slovak potato-dough poppy seed rolls
Baked goods
Vianočka: Slovak braided bread with cocoa buttercream
Baked goods
Sabinovské buchty: Slovak spiced fruit buns
Baked goods
Trdelník: Slovak chimney cakes with walnuts and cinnamon
Cakes and baking
Marbled yeast rolls with nuts and raisins
Baked goods
Italian-style fruit and nut loaf with almonds
Baked goods
Štedrák: Slovak layered Christmas cake
Baked goods
Quark stollen with raisins and almonds
Baked goods
Vianočka: Slovak braided raisin and almond bread
Baked goods
Christmas stollen with raisins and almonds
Baked goods
Žerbo slices: Slovak walnut and apricot bars
Festive lunch
For Christmas Day and St. Stephen’s Day: duck legs with cabbage, turkey breast, roast pork, meatloaf with eggs, stuffed chicken and beef in cream sauce. Serve the meat with braised red cabbage and homemade potato croquettes. In many Slovak families a breaded schnitzel with potato salad is also served on Christmas Eve.
Main dishes
Bacon-wrapped pork meatloaf with eggs
Main dishes
Svíčková na smetaně: Czech beef in cream sauce
Chicken
Whole roast chicken with spiced marinade
Main dishes
Pork roast with cheese topping and white wine
Main dishes
Roast chicken with chicken liver and apple stuffing
Side dishes
Braised red cabbage with apple and red wine
Main dishes
Roasted duck legs with braised sauerkraut
Main dishes
Roast turkey breast with lemon herb butter
Main dishes
Crispy breaded pork cutlets (schnitzel)
Side dishes
Crispy homemade potato croquettes
Christmas drinks
Mulled wine, egg liqueur and a homemade liqueur that also makes a nice gift. Without alcohol: hot apple cider, children’s punch and thick hot chocolate.
Other recipes
Homemade Baileys with four ingredients
Other recipes
Egg liqueur with condensed milk and rum
Other recipes
Hot white chocolate with egg liqueur and cinnamon
Other recipes
Mulled white wine with cranberries and apple
Other recipes
Nonalcoholic Christmas fruit punch
Other recipes
Hot apple cider with cinnamon and cloves
Other recipes
Thick dark chocolate hot chocolate
Other recipes
Mulled red wine with cinnamon, cloves and orange
New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day
Canapés, open sandwiches, French-style salad, pickled herring salad, ham rolls with horseradish cream, deviled eggs, a savory puff pastry tree and more party food for New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Day, according to an old custom, people cook lentils, which are said to bring money – as a soup or sour with a fried egg.
Appetizers
Savory ham and egg squares with bell pepper for a party
Spreads
Ham salami, egg, and cheese sandwich spread
Salads
Chicken salad with ham, cheese, and eggs
Other recipes
Cheesy roasted garlic bread with parsley
Appetizers
Savory wafer pyramid with ham, salami and cheese
Soups
Red lentil soup with ginger and smoked bacon
Main dishes
Honey-glazed smoked meat with fruit juice
Salads
French-style potato salad with peas and eggs
Appetizers
New Year's Eve cheese, ham, and olive appetizer skewers
Appetizers
Chlebíčky: Slovak ham and egg open-faced sandwiches
Appetizers
Deviled eggs with mustard and mayonnaise
Main dishes
Slovak sweet-and-sour lentils with fried eggs
Appetizers
Ham roll-ups with horseradish whipped cream
Appetizers
Ham and cheese puff pastry Christmas tree
What to prepare first
- At the beginning of December bake the soft honey cookies. In a tin with apple slices they soften within one to two weeks; the dough is made a day ahead. At the same time bake the pieces for the gingerbread house – as a decoration it lasts the whole holiday.
- Two to three weeks before Christmas is the time for vanilla crescents – in a tin in a cool place they keep for two to three weeks and become even more tender after a few days. At the same time bake the Christmas stollen; wrapped and kept cool, it needs one to two weeks for the flavors to blend.
- Up to two weeks before the holidays make the no-bake rum balls; in a closed container in the fridge they keep for about two weeks. Ischler cookies keep just as long; make the beehive cookies with egg liqueur no earlier than ten days before the holidays.
- A few days ahead you can bake the poppy seed roll made with potato dough, which stays fresh longer than the classic yeast one. If you did not manage the honey cookies earlier, honey cookies that are soft straight from the oven can be baked a few days before the holidays, and the quark stollen keeps for about a week in a cool place.
- One or two days before Christmas Eve bake the Christmas braid with raisins; if you want it earlier, freeze it.
- On Christmas Eve there is sauerkraut soup or the meatless sauerkraut soup with dried porcini and prunes, fish soup, fried carp with potato salad and bobáľky with poppy seeds left to make. Also set out Christmas wafers with honey and garlic.
You can put together your own Christmas baking plan based on how long each cookie keeps in a few minutes: choose the cookies and you get dates for each weekend and one shopping list.