Danish Christmas recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is a traditional Danish Christmas meal? ›

Christmas dinner is a serious affair. Traditionally, you will be sat at a table for a good few hours, eating a meal of roast pork and duck plus boiled potatoes, red cabbage and gravy. Risalamande is the big Christmas dessert, a rice pudding topped with cherry sauce where a whole almond will be hiding.

Risalamande - Danish Rice Pudding

Risalamande has been a beloved Christmas dessert in Denmark for decades. It is known from around year 1900, when the upper class began serving Risalamande with cherry sauce for Christmas instead of rice porridge.

The traditional Danish Christmas dinner usually consists of different kinds of oven-roasted meats, usually pork, duck, or goose with pickled and fermented vegetables on the side.

The Danish equivalent of "Merry Christmas" is God Jul (pronounced: /goo jool/) or Glædelig Jul (pronounced: /GLEH-deh-lih jool/). The word jul derives from the Old Norse jól, which was the name of a pagan feast.

Gløgg – a hot and sweet mulled wine – goes hand in hand with the Danish Christmas season. Many Danes add additional alcohol in the form of schnapps or rum for fuller flavour and kick. You can also add fresh ginger for extra spice or chilli for heat. Enjoy!

In Norway, two traditional dishes are contenders for the most popular Christmas dinners – “ribbe” (pork rib) and “pinnekjøtt” (lamb or mutton rib). Whilst the former has been the overall prime choice for years, the popularity of pinnekjøtt grows for each passing year.

The Brunsviger

The most mouth-watering of all Danish delicacies, the brunsviger is a cake of crater-filled dough, drizzled by a thick layer of brown sugar and butter. This delicious concoction of sugar and fat soaks into the spongey cake, making for a delicious, moreish and sticky teatime snack.

The Danish word for Christmas is “jul”, which comes from the Old Norse word “jól” or “jólablót”, the pre-Christian pagan tradition of winter solstice. “Jól” is also where the old English word “Yule” comes from.

Kringle (/ˈkrɪŋɡəl/,) is a Northern European pastry, a variety of pretzel. Pretzels were introduced by Roman Catholic monks in the 13th century in Denmark, and from there they spread throughout Scandinavia and evolved into several kinds of sweet, salty or filled pastries, all in the shape of kringle.

In Danish, the game is called 'pakkeleg', but no two families play it the same way. Generally, the rules are like this: Each person brings a small, wrapped gift and puts it on the table. A timer is set to an unspecified number of minutes – no-one can know how long. Now, the participants take turns rolling the dice.

What is the Christmas city in Denmark? ›

Copenhagen is a genuine Christmas city, where it is impossible not to get in the spirit for the Christmas holiday season. The best place to soak up the atmosphere is at one of Copenhagen's many Christmas markets.

The must-try traditional dishes in Copenhagen include smørrebrød, a Danish open-faced sandwich, frikadeller (Danish meatballs), and the Danish hot dog.

In Denmark, Santa Claus is known as Julemanden (literally "the Yule Man") and is said to arrive on a sleigh drawn by reindeer, with presents for the children.

Roasted duck is the most popular dish among people in Denmark at Christmas Eve, consumed by an estimated three out of four Danes on 24 December. Another popular dish is flæskesteg, which is roasted pork with crackling.

A traditional Danish Christmas tree is decorated with white lights and real candles (to help keep the tree from lighting on fire, most families get a fresh tree on Christmas Eve itself). Before opening gifts, family members join hands and dance around the tree singing Christmas songs together.

On December 25 and 26, many Danes visit relatives or friends they were not able to be with on Christmas Eve. A traditional Christmas lunch with karrysild (herring in curry) and æbleflæsk (apple porridge with pork) is often followed by a group nature walk.

In the German part of Switzerland, there are three traditional Christmas meals: meat fondue (either Fondue Chinoise, which is thinly sliced meat cooked in bouillon, or Fondue Bourguignon which is meat cubes cooked in hot oil); and Filet im Teig, which is a pork fillet covered in sausage meat containing either savoury ...

Dutch Christmas dinners usually consist of venison, goose, hare, or turkey with plenty of vegetables and Kerstbrood (Christmas bread). The Dutch also celebrate by eating gourmetten, a hot plate on which diners place a set of mini pans containing their choice of meat or vegetables.