Our Most Popular Christmas Recipes Are Ones You'll Want to Make Every Year

Tradition reigns supreme in this collection, which is filled with the types of holiday foods many of us grew up eating. There's a time and a place for experimentation, but for lots of people, Christmas just isn't it. The recipes we've gathered here are among the most loved by our readers this time of year, and each one is a testament to how much we all seem to lean into customs during the holiday season.

The gallery starts with a spinach and cheddar quiche, which can serve many roles, from breakfast to brunch to cocktail-hour snack. You bake it in a 9-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet, which makes it easy to cut pieces into squares or rectangles to suit the number of guests you're serving. For dinner, you'll find classic prime rib (along with two very helpful pro tips) and side dishes that run the gamut from scalloped potatoes to creamed spinach. We've got you covered on hot holiday drinks, too, including can't-miss recipes for hot chocolate and eggnog.

Pavlova, that much-loved meringue dessert pictured here in the form of a wreath, is an outlier in this gallery—the only other desserts that made our most popular list are cookies, but there are plenty of them to go around. All of your favorite are here, including gingerbread cookies made with ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and a bit of ground black pepper, conjuring up warm feelings of Christmases past. There are also cookie-press cookies that have a rich, buttery, deep vanilla flavor; chewy chocolate-gingerbread cookies that combine fresh and ground ginger, molasses, and chunks of semisweet chocolate; and our go-to sugar cookie dough, which offers endless possibilities and turns out wonderfully crisp cookies that aren't overly sweet.

So, if you're looking for a new recipe to add to your Christmas dinner menu, you've come to the right place. These beloved dishes—ranging from appetizers to sweet treats—are all tried-and-true classics guaranteed to be a hit with your entire family.

Spinach-and-Cheddar Slab Quiche

Feed a crowd during the holidays with this big-batch, make-ahead quiche, which is baked in a 9-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet or shallow baking dish. It teams a rich sesame seed-studded crust with a cheesy spinach filling.

Prime Rib

To make this holiday-worthy roast, remember to leave the beef at room temperature for about two hours before roasting, as this will help it cook more evenly. Another tip? For optimum flavor, do not use a nonstick pan, since it'll yield fewer bits that enhance the juices.

Creamy Scalloped Potatoes

Easy, classic, and so delicious, scalloped potatoes are a delight for diners and for the chef—especially because the dish can be largely assembled ahead. Just leave off the last portion of cheese, cover the dish with plastic wrap, and refrigerate. When you're ready, sprinkle with the remaining cheese, and bake as instructed.

Easy Creamed Spinach

Our take on the classic creamed spinach side dish uses fresh spinach and cream cheese as a thickener. It's a crowd-pleasing recipe that's great with a range of entrées, from roasted turkey to glazed ham.

Roasted Red Potatoes

You can't go wrong with earthy roasted potatoes accented with woodsy fresh rosemary. Serve them alongside a rib roast, leg of lamb, beef Wellington, or any other meaty main.

The Original Eggnog

This eggnog is not for the faint of heart: It includes plenty of bourbon, cognac, dark rum, heavy cream, and a dozen eggs. The good news is that it easily serves a crowd.

Homemade Hot Chocolate

Hot-chocolate mix is a wintertime staple, and this version is refreshingly simple. It contains only cocoa, sugar, and salt (plus milk) and tastes rich and creamy.

Basic Gingerbread Cookies

Here's a quintessential holiday recipe, perfect for making cutout cookies in various shapes. Our favorites are gingerbread boys and girls in different sizes, decorated with white royal icing and currant "buttons."

Cookie-Press Cookies

Rich, buttery, and made with lots of vanilla, these cookies look impressive but aren't difficult to make. You just need a cookie press—a hollow tube fitted with a decorative nozzle at one end and a plunger at the other—to press the dough directly onto the baking sheet, making pretty shapes.

Chewy Chocolate-Gingerbread Cookies

A combination of fresh and ground ginger, molasses, and chunks of semisweet chocolate gives these treats the perfect mix of sophisticated and familiar.

Kransekake

This "wreath cake" is the signature cake of Norway and a real show-stopper. It's also surprisingly straightforward to make. You make an almond dough, roll it into ropes and bake it in special molds. Then, you stack the rings and hold them in place (and decorate them) with royal icing.

Sugar Cookies

The possibilities are truly endless with this go-to cookie dough. It turns out wonderfully crisp cookies that aren't overly sweet (which means they're ready to be swooshed with royal icing and sprinkles).