What Your Favorite Celeb Chefs Really Serve For The Holidays

As the air grows chilly and the leaves fall from the trees, our minds turn to two things: food and the holiday season! What better way is there to keep warm in winter than by sharing a meal with the people you love? Every holiday is laden with traditions passed down through the generations no matter the time of year, but this is especially true of December (and for those in the U.S., November as well). Each culture has its own specific dishes it associates with Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, New Year, and Christmas.

We all know that chefs love to put their own spin on a classic, and that's particularly true of chefs in the spotlight. Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Martha Stewart, Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, and more, have all produced holiday cooking specials over the years for fans to cozy up to around the TV. Read on to learn what our favorite celebrity chefs are serving up on their holiday tables.

Known for her amazing Southern cooking, Carla Hall changes things up just a bit during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Husband Matthew Lyons hails from the Midwest, and to please his particular palate, Hall whips up traditional dishes like mashed potatoes. But she also includes foods like cornbread dressing, drawing from her own traditions.

Hall favors small birds because they are juicier and cook more quickly. In 2017, she made turkey with gremolata (an Italian green sauce made up of olive oil, chopped parsley, lemon zest, and garlic) rubbed under the bird's skin. Another year, she grilled a Nashville-style hot turkey. In preparation for Thanksgiving 2023, Hall made loaded scalloped potatoes, poached pears and sweet cream dumplings, and a bourbon pecan pie, all of which look mouth-wateringly delicious. She also put together a Soulful Thanksgiving Menu for her fans. Many of the items on the list work just as well for Christmas and other holidays too.

Gordon Ramsay's illustrious career extends across the Atlantic. Born in Scotland, he moved to England with his family as a child, so it comes as little surprise that his Christmas dinner is steeped in British tradition. In the U.K., a roast turkey is the typical centerpiece of a Christmas dinner surrounded by a number of side dishes. 

Ramsay has his own special way of cooking the perfect turkey, and he devotes quite a bit of time to it. "My first job on Christmas day morning," he said in his Extra Special Christmas Dinners video in 2021, "is to tackle the turkey." Ramsay's preferred way of preparing the bird is by rubbing the skin and the meat beneath with homemade herb butter, then stuffing the turkey with onions, a halved lemon, fresh garlic, and a bouquet garni.

Other foods you may find on Ramsay's holiday table are ham, beef Wellington, turkey gravy, and roast potatoes. For Boxing Day, Ramsay recommends making a bubble and squeak recipe with leftovers.

Barefoot Contessa, aka Ina Garten, forgoes the turkey for Christmas dinner. Instead, she opts for something simpler to cook and easier to carve that also happens to be her favorite meal: filet of beef. She told Allrecipes that it's "the easiest meal in the world to make," adding that at the same time, it's versatile and "luxurious," making it "good for the holidays."

Garten also highlighted the meat's many pairings, pointing out that it pairs with assorted sauces. "You can make a cold horseradish sauce or you can make a hot gorgonzola sauce. You can just serve it with mustard, and you've got a great dinner that's really special and it doesn't take any time at all."

In 2021, Garten chose another personal specialty for Christmas dinner: a rack of lamb. Whatever the main course, Garten prefers the holidays to be relaxing and enjoyable. Like other chefs on this list, she does a lot of prep work ahead of time so that she doesn't spend all of her time in the kitchen away from her guests.

Martha Stewart is perhaps the embodiment of the polished homemaker, ever ready to treat her guests to a special evening. She enjoys a traditional holiday table but is not afraid to try new things either. In 2017, Stewart spent a simple Christmas Eve with family at her daughter Alexis's home, tweeting a description of the meal: "Fettuccine with white truffles from Urbani and a huge green salad made with lettuces from the greenhouse at the farm."

For Christmas dinner, Stewart loves a prime rib roast served with a tangy horseradish cream sauce. And for dessert, there is nothing better than bread pudding. As a special gift to her guests, Stewart likes to make individual bread puddings. Given Stewart's Polish background, it is little surprise that she enjoys making potato pancakes (also known as latkes), following her mother's recipe. Stewart serves her potato pancakes with sour cream and applesauce on the side.

Chef and model Padma Lakshmi shared her key to a successful holiday party with Esquire: "Make most of your dishes ahead — create a menu that you can serve your dishes at room temperature," she advised. The "Taste the Nation" host also recommends giving yourself plenty of time to relax and even pamper yourself before guests begin to arrive. "I like to try and give myself an hour or two before any of my parties," she said.

When it comes to appetizers, Lakshmi prefers finger foods, like deviled eggs or flautas, that can easily be eaten with one hand while the other holds a drink, such as a ginger turmeric margarita. She cautions to stay away from leafy greens like spinach, explaining, "Having spinach stuck in your teeth is not a sexy holiday look for anyone."

While Lakshmi likes to change it up for the holidays by trying new cuisines and dishes, including a ramen bar for Christmas. Much like a taco bar, she lays out all the fixings for making your own ramen. Dessert is a plate of pastelitos thumbprint cookies with guava jam in the center.

Longtime American cook and television host Rachael Ray takes the traditional route for Thanksgiving, with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. Christmas Eve dinner is a traditional meatless feast of fish, but for Christmas Day, Ray goes in a totally different direction.

In an attempt to make her guests comfortable, Ray likes to make dishes to accommodate them and their diets, but her family has its holiday favorites, too. For her husband, Ray makes a big pork roast, which sits on the table alongside a huge plate of beef ribs, a lot of lasagna, and a stew, such as osso bucco.

As for sides, Ray has been known to make sweet and spicy Brussels sprouts, braised carrots and fennel, and Yukon gold potatoes in the style of French chef and fellow TV personality Jacques Pépin. Dessert might be a traditional pumpkin pie with a special twist, such as whipped cream combined with almond liqueur, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg.

If you are looking for a show-stopping centerpiece for your holiday dinner table, world-renowned chef Wolfgang Puck recommends his recipe for Roast Prime Rib of Beef With Garlic-Herb Crust. When it comes to his holiday table, Puck prefers to have a wide variety of dishes offering great flavor and different textures that are a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

With consideration to healthier eating, Puck often chooses lower-fat options and stays away from fried foods. An example is his potato pancake recipe (also known as latkes), which are thinner cakes cooked in a nonstick pan or griddle rather than fried in oil. Personally, Puck likes his potato pancakes topped with smoked fish and low-fat sour cream seasoned with chopped dill, lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper. He recommends this recipe for Hanukkah (Puck's second wife Barbara Lazaroff, with whom he has two sons, is Jewish), any holiday brunch, or as part of a buffet table. For Hanukkah dessert, Puck makes dessert pancakes cooked on a griddle or in a skillet, with raspberry sauce and crème fraîche.