Holy Week Food Ideas: Themed And Meaningful Recipes

Lent is probably my favorite time to live the liturgical year at home with my kids, and holy week is when it all comes to a head! Today, I want to share some food ideas and recipes that you can make with or for your kids during Holy Week. I now have an entire cookbook full of symbolic Holy Week and Easter recipes! I hope these holy week recipes bring your family together and help everyone stay focused on the true meaning of this week. Let’s check out the Holy Week food ideas

Holy Week Food Ideas Graphic

Pretzels are a very traditional food for Lent, in fact, they were actually invented to be a simple Lenten snack, and are in the shape of arms crossed in prayer! You can find my recipe for Lenten pretzels here

Lenten pretzels printable graphic with recipe box and hands making pretzel

Palm Sunday Food Ideas

Our favorite food treat on Palm Sunday is to have…. Palm (ice cream) Sundaes! The kids love this tradition and the great thing for moms is that ice cream takes practically no prep work. 
Red bowl with green ice cream and cherry and leaves inside on top of palm tree leaf crosses
 
Another option for Palm Sunday is to make a recipe that includes heart of palm. You can buy this at any grocery store in the canned and/or jarred section with the veggies. Why not try this heart of palm dip from Beautiful Plate? It looks delicious and people describe the heart of palm as similar to artichokes. 
 
Heart of Palm dip in glass bowl with leaf garnish and cracker dipped in
 
I also think these grilled Parmesan hearts of palm recipe from Food Republic sounds absolutely delicious! 

Spy Wednesday Food Idea

Spy Wednesday is the day that Judas schemes to turn Jesus in for 30 pieces of silver. For this day, try making “money bag wontons” for dinner to symbolize the bag of silver that betrayed Jesus. 

Wontons on a plate next to a bowl of sauces and chopsticks

The Easter story cookie download is included in my new cookbook for familiesThe Symbolic Holy Week & Easter Cookbook! This cookbook includes 23 recipes that point to the true meaning of Easter. It only includes 29 pages of bonus printables! You do not want to miss this amazing resource. 

The Symbolic Holy Week and Easter Cookbook cover

Holy Thursday Recipes

The perfect recipe for Holy Thursday is to bake unleavened bread together! I mean… it is the anniversary of the Last Supper, the day that Jesus gave us the Eucharist, the day of the first mass, and you can totally serve your unleavened bread with grapes or grape juice in wine (plastic) wine glasses for the kids. Find my recipe for unleavened bread here

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Monthly Liturgical Membership

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Pile of of unleavened bread and grapes

 

You can also have a simple Christian Seder meal, which is a tradition we started here in Lydia’s first communion year. 

Plate surrounded by candles with foods seperated out infront of a last supper paper standee and behind a banner graphic "Christian Seder"

Good Friday Food And Recipe Ideas

We love to make these easy crown of thorns crackers for Good Friday! They’re absolutely perfect because they’re meat free, protein packed, and not overly indulgent for Good Friday. 

Cookies with peanut butter topping and pretzel pieces bordering the cookie
 
In fact, throwing a Lenten Tea on Good Friday with all sybolic foods is one of my favorite traditions with the kids! You can find my whole menu with symbolic holy week food for kids here
Easter story lunch with food symbols
 

Hot Cross Buns are a very traditional recipe for holy week. Some families make them on Holy Thursday, others on Good Friday. Some families eat them on Good Friday while others hold them for breakfast Saturday morning. Whenever you make or eat them is up to you, but here is a great hot cross bun recipe for you to try this year from Oh, Sweet Basil

Hot cross buns in pan with icing
 
For dinner on Good Friday (and also Ash Wednesday), I like to serve an easy crown of thorns bread with a simple meatless soup. This is easier to make than it looks and it definitely makes an impression! 
 
Braided bread circle with pretzels sticking out
 
A very simple yet meaningful food idea for Good Friday is a meatless sandwich of your choice with pretzel crosses in the top
Sandwhich cut into forths with three pretzel crosses stuck into it

Holy Saturday

If your family has never tried making Resurrection rolls, I fully recommend it! You can find my resurrection roll recipe here. They are easy, fun, and meaningful for kids! These are also called “Empty Tomb Rolls” and check it out… they’re empty inside! Well named!
 
 
Rolls with hollow centers in cupcake wrappers
 
I also have a variation of the resurrection rolls that are made with peeps that I call rainbow resurrection rolls. The fun colors make these even more beautiful and surprising than the origional version!
 
Rolls with hollow centers and colorful centers
 
Easter story cookies are PERFECT for Holy Saturday! This is probably the most meaningful recipe on this list, and definitely the one that gets the kids involved the most. I highly recommend this Easter Story Cookies recipe, as well as the above resurrection rolls. Our family makes both every year.
 
Meringue cookies with recipe printables
 

Even More Meaningful Easter Recipes For Kids

To find even more meaningful recipes to point your family towards the true meaning of Easter, I would definitely encourage you to check out my ebook, The Symbolic Holy Week & Easter Cookbook

"The Symbolic Holy Week and Easter Cookbook"

 
You’ll find all of my Lenten resources for kids here
More Lenten Resources for Kids

Comments

  1. Lacy- you are awesome. This is exactly why I love your blog. There is nooo way I was going to be able to find all these recipes….or even know I should be looking for them. Thanks again for saving me time and my sanity:)

  2. Even though I do not have any children, I love your blog. I get lots of ideas to enrich my faith, and celebrate being Catholic. Thank you so much, Hugs, Kathleen

  3. Angela @ HomegrownMom says

    Thanks for the link 🙂 I want to make that crown!

  4. Just wanted to say that the Liturgical Tea ideas originally came from Alice at the blog Cottage Blessings: http://alicegunther.com/pages/teatime.htm
    There are lots of good ones there for all year round! We did the Candlemas one in February and had lots of fun w/ it!

  5. I have ALWAYS wanted to know how to make hot cross buns-but never got around to it. Perfect timing!! And the idea of a Liturgical Tea is wonderful-thank you for sharing!

  6. Great ideas, Lacy! And thanks for including me 🙂

  7. I should have added, "How did I miss this last year!"
    😛

  8. I find it awesome that all the food ideas are sweet treats!!! Good thing no one in our house gave up desserts!! Thanks for listing all these-I am planning to do a craft and food each day next week with the kids so that they see how special this week is!!! Keep them coming!

  9. I had forgotten about this website of Catholic awesome ideas, my kids have since grown up and have had too much going on to pay attention to the traditions of Holy Week and Easter! I don’t know if starting to pray Jewish prayers along with the Rosary has enlightened me or better yet freed up my spirit to be present and celebrate traditions of Holy Week – I’ll take both! Looked for traditional recipes and here it all is in Catholic Icing! I missed you Catholic Icing, but I’ll land here for awhile!