Traditional and Tasty: 54 Hanukkah Recipes The Whole Family Will Love (2024)

FAQs

What are 5 traditional Hanukkah foods? ›

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.

You could say Sephardic food is the original Mediterranean fusion cuisine. The kosher laws also impact what Jews eat. There is no pork or shellfish allowed, and Jews will not mix meat and dairy in the same meal, so if a chicken is on the table, you won't find butter or cheese.

Potato Pancakes (Latkes)

Perhaps the most common traditional Hanukkah food found on the tables of Jewish families are potato pancakes, sometimes called latkes or levivot. Jews fill their holiday spreads with oil-fried foods during the holiday to commemorate the oil that lasted for eight days.

There really aren't any 'traditional Hanukkah' meals, beyond the custom of eating foods fried in oil - typically either potato pancakes or sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts).

Jews commemorate Hanukkah by eating fried foods. For most American Jews, that means latkes — potato pancakes fried in oil. But other cultures toss different foods into pots of boiling oil.

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.

In most of the world, dreidels have four Hebrew letters — nun, gimmel, hay, and shin — that stand for the phrase: Nes gadol haya sham (“a great miracle happened there”). That refers, of course, to the miracle of the holiday.

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.

Is cheese a Hanukkah food? ›

"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.

Food is always a big part of Jewish celebrations, and many of the foods eaten at Hanukkah are also popular at other events (including weekly Shabbat meals). Challah (braided egg bread), for example, is not specific to Hanukkah though it's very likely to be found on the table during the Festival of Lights.

Placing The Candles On The Menorah

Each night, add a new candle before lighting. Now, here's the tricky part: candles are placed in the menorah from right to left but candles are lit from left to right. "Left to right, that's how you light!"

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.

Latkes, or potato pancakes, are a favorite Hanukkah food. They are fried in oil, which reminds Jews of the oil in the menorah. Latkes are often served with applesauce.

"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.