15 Recipes to Serve Your Family During Hanukkah (2024)

FAQs

What is a good Hanukkah menu? ›

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.

A perfect Hanukkah meal might start with matzoh ball soup, have a traditional brisket at the center and a stack of potato latkes on the side. If brisket is not your thing, a simple roasted chicken would serve very nicely, too.

Many families give their kids a chatchka (a Yiddish word meaning “small gift”) for each of the eight nights of Hanukkah.

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.

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).

A commentary from that time, by Rabbi Moses Isserles, on the Shulchan Aruch, the Jewish Code of Law, even recommends eating cheese on the holiday in honor of Judith. During the Middle Ages, that cheese would have likely come from a goat or a sheep, as cow's milk cheese was rare, Weingarten says.

Sufganiyah (Hebrew: סופגנייה or סופגניה, Hebrew: [ˌsufɡaniˈja]; pl. : sufganiyot, Hebrew: סופגניות, Hebrew: [ˌsufɡaniˈjot], or in Yiddish pontshke פּאָנטשקע) is a round jelly doughnut eaten in Israel and around the world on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

We count cheese as a Hanukkah miracle.

Did you know that in addition to foods fried in oil, we also eat dairy on Hanukkah to commemorate the bravery of Judith? Her courage—fueled by bravery, salty cheese and wine—led to the Maccabee victory.

"Among other rules, eating certain animals, primarily pigs and shellfish, is forbidden; meat must be ritually and humanely slaughtered; and dairy and meat aren't to be eaten at the same meal." Fish and plant foods are "neutral" (parve) and can be eaten with either meat or dairy.

What is forbidden during Hanukkah? ›

It is customary for women not to work for at least the first half-hour of the candles' burning, and some have the custom not to work for the entire time of burning. It is also forbidden to fast or to eulogize during Hanukkah.

Chanukah, an alternate spelling for Hanukkah, is the eight-day Jewish holiday that began Tuesday evening, and hams -- as well as pork and other products from pigs -- can't be eaten under Jewish dietary laws.

Some nonreligious customs of celebration are eating treats fried in oil (which recalls the miracle of the oil), giving children gifts of money (Hanukkah gelt), and playing a game with a four-sided top called a dreidel.

"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.

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.