Planning to host an Easter Sunday dinner on April 17? Why not simplify things by ordering part — or all — of your meal from some of the country’s top restaurants?
We found plenty of Easter dinner ideas from Goldbelly, a website that helps local eateries in shipping their food nationwide. Delight guests with elegant cheese boards, holiday-themed Italian pastries, biscuits, mac and cheese, lamb, ham and even turducken, because saving precious time in the kitchen to spend it with family is worth its weight in chocolate bunny gold.
Easter dinner appetizers
$129.95 at Goldbelly
Wanna really show off this Easter? Attend your celebration bearing this beautiful cheese and charcuterie board and get ready for a heap of oohs and aahs. Serving three to four, it comes with not only 15 gourmet hand-sliced artisan cheeses (including a bunny-shaped black truffle moliterno), charcuterie, dried fruit, nuts, crackers and chocolates but also a reusable acacia wood board and bamboo serving utensils. Consider it your hostess gift.
$69 at Goldbelly
Easter wouldn't be Easter without some serious sweets, so we recommend kicking off your meal with pastry appetizers. Serving 10, this package from the famed New York bakery founded in 1892 in New York's Little Italy includes a 1-pound assorted cookie tray, a mini Colomba (a dove-shaped sweet bread and Easter symbol), a three-egg Casatiello (a braided Easter egg bread representing the circle of life) and a mini Struffoli (a baked, bite-size puff pastry covered in honey).
$60 at Goldbelly
Easter dinner guests will be delighted with this elegant — and downright scrumptious — appetizer from the Kent Island, Maryland, restaurant celebrated for its Maryland blue crab cakes since 1952. It's made with jumbo lump Atlantic blue crab, and you get a dozen mini cakes. But if that doesn't sound like enough, you have the option to add more for an additional fee.
$85.95 at Goldbelly
As your Easter guests arrive, start the meal off right with a tray of gorgeous, pastel, multicolored hand-rolled bagels from this Lower East Side of New York bagel shop. For additional fees, add on cream cheese, smoked salmon, black and white cookies, babka or everything crunch seasoning.
$129 at Goldbelly
You needn't hail from St. Louis to appreciate the splendor of toasted ravioli and Provel cheese balls. From the Missouri pizzeria, in business more than 50 years, comes this package that includes two bags, about 116 pieces of Provel bites (Provel is a combo of cheddar, Swiss and provolone cheese) and a case — about 175 pieces — of oven-baked toasted ravioli. Should there be any leftovers (and we find that highly unlikely), save them for a quick meal later on.
Easter dinner sides
$39 at Goldbelly
Of course there's nothing wrong with green bean casserole or scalloped corn at Easter, but when lobster mac and cheese is an option, you order it. This decadent dish from the legendary Cambridge, Massachusetts, fish house is filled with sweet lobster meat chunks, al dente pasta and white cheddar cream sauce. Serves four as a side or two as an entree.
$51 at Goldbelly
Technically, this is a dessert, but we love it as a decadent side dish for Easter dinner. From one of New York's last old-world Italian bakeries (in business for 125-plus years), this pie is made of wheat, ricotta, diced fruit and a hint of orange. Serves eight to 10.
$79.95 at Goldbelly
Bring a little barbecue flair to your Easter meal with this side dish combo pack from the beloved North Carolina restaurant. Choose from five 1-pint sides with the options of collard greens, black-eyed peas, mac and cheese, hush puppies and Brunswick stew.
$49.95 at Goldbelly
Run-DMC's Rev Run is known for more than his rap skills: In addition to other things, he hosts a cooking show with his wife, Justine. Make them a part of your Easter dinner when you order their combo pack of 2 pounds of smoky sautéed string beans and a 2-pound tray of four-cheese mac and cheese.
$131.95 at Goldbelly
If you're planning a Southern-themed Easter dinner, you know biscuits are simply required. This package from the Charlotte, South Carolina, bakers makes serving the standard a breeze: It comes with six iced blueberry, 12 buttermilk and 12 country ham frozen handmade biscuits, plus cheese crisps, cocktail pecans, pimento cheese, raspberry pepper preserves and — just for good measure — a pound of bacon. Serves eight.
Easter dinner main courses
$99.95 at Goldbelly
Niman Ranch, near San Francisco, has been raising high-quality cattle using humane and sustainable methods since the early 1970s. Order up its full-cooked, applewood-smoked, spiral-cut, bone-in ham (about 9 pounds and serves 25) that comes with a glaze packet, and simply thaw and reheat for a no-fuss delicious Easter dinner entree.
$159.95 at Goldbelly
If you'd rather spend time on Easter Sunday with your family than sweating away in the kitchen, consider this dinner package with enough food to feed four to six. From the New Orleans butcher shop/restaurant comes a combo of a 2.5-pound butcher ham with a cane syrup glaze, 1 pound each of crawfish gratin and bacon-braised collard greens and six dinner rolls. Allons manger!
$199.95 at Goldbelly
Planning a formal Easter feast? Ilili, an upscale Lebanese restaurant in the Flatiron neighborhood of New York City, serves a popular slow-braised lamb, now available on Goldbelly. It serves four, and you'll receive two lamb shanks, lamb sauce, lamb stock, mint cucumber yogurt, Lebanese dirty rice, pita bread, hummus, Brussels sprouts, harissa sauce, mint yogurt and fig jam, plus grapes, walnuts, turnips, zucchini, radishes and carrots.
$189.95 at Goldbelly
If Easter ham isn't your thing, we have a mouthwatering alternative: fried chicken! Indulge in this feast from Blue Ribbon, known for its extra-crispy fried chicken dredged in spices, covered in egg whites and coated in crumbs of matzo meal. The restaurant's meal kit serves eight to 10 and includes four pies each of fried chicken breast, thighs, drumsticks and wings, plus 2 quarts each of mashed potatoes and collard greens, along with chicken gravy, wildflower honey and fried chicken seasoning.
$199.95 at Goldbelly
Go whole hog (and, we guess, bird) with a 12-pound Cajun turducken — that's a turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken — from the well-known Tulsa, Oklahoma, eatery. Prefer something a little more traditional? The package also includes a Cajun or regular honey-glazed ham. Serves 15.
Easter dinner desserts
$59.95 at Goldbelly
End your Easter dinner on a super-sweet note with 12 cupcakes from the famous Washington, D.C., bakery. You'll get one each of the following flavors: carrot, cherry blossom, coconut, peanut butter fudge, vanilla confetti with sunshine buttercream, vanilla confetti with an Easter egg, chocolate caramel, red velvet, salted caramel, hummingbird, lavender Earl Grey tea cake and cherry cheesecake. And, just to gild the Easter lily, all feature cute holiday-themed fondant accents.
$65.95 at Goldbelly
Let the kids gorge on jelly beans. The grown-ups, meanwhile, will be thrilled to bite into these decadent, hand-dipped chocolate truffle cake balls from Florida’s popular 4 Rivers Smokehouse. Beautifully decorated with white chocolate and colorful pastel drizzles, they come 20 to an order.
$79.95 at Goldbelly
Guests will hop with joy when you present them with this stunner of a 6-inch, four-layer carrot cake from Duff Goldman of "Ace of Cakes" fame. With vanilla cream cheese frosting and buttercream decorations, plus adorable fondant bunny ears, it comes on a silver board for easy presentation. Serves eight to 10.
$69.95 at Goldbelly
Order up the famous New York original cheesecake from Junior's straight to your door, made extra special with a festive Easter holiday design. From the Brooklyn, New York, landmark, in business since 1950, you'll get a 9-inch egg-shaped cheesecake covered in chocolate ganache and decorated by hand with pastel swirls and curls. In a word? Whoa. Serves eight.
$59.95 at Goldbelly
If Easter desserts get much cuter than these Easter Bunny sugar cookies, we'd like to see them. From the Ogunquit, Maine, bakery comes these six hand-decorated cookies, made simply with butter, flour, cane sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder and food coloring. Almost (we said, almost) too adorbs to eat.