Christmas Side Dishes Worth the Oven Space

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

The best Christmas side dishes are the ones that fit around the oven you actually have. Two roasted sides at most, because the ham or the bird owns the oven for most of the morning. Everything else comes off the stovetop or is built cold, and the sharp, salty things that sit beside them come out of a jar.

One oven, one main, four hours

Most side dish lists are sorted by vegetable, which is no help on the day. On 25 December the constraint is not what you feel like eating. It is one domestic oven, already holding something large, and about four hours between the first guest arriving and the meat being carved.

So sort by heat instead. Two sides share the oven with the main. Two or three run on the stovetop while it does. The rest need no heat and get built once people are already in the house. The shopping half of that plan lives in the condiments and pastes range rather than the fresh section, so it can be bought in October and left in a cupboard.

Serving lunch cold instead is a perfectly good decision, and our Christmas lunch ideas menu is built on it. This page is for the households still roasting.

Two sides worth the oven space

Two, not five. Every extra tray drops the oven temperature and lengthens everything else, and a tray that goes in at 11am comes out at the wrong moment for the meat. Pick one starch and one vegetable, and choose versions that roast at the same temperature so they can share a shelf.

Roast potatoes are not negotiable in most houses. Parboil them on 24 December, drain, rough up the edges with a fork, then leave them uncovered in the fridge overnight. A dry, chilled potato crisps better than a fresh one, and the job is off Christmas morning entirely. They go into hot fat at about 200°C and want an hour, turned twice. This is where rosemary garlic salt flakes earn their $12.95: dried garlic and rosemary in flake form rather than a powder, so they go on at the start without catching, and there is nothing to chop.

Something orange and sticky is the second tray. Sweet potato, carrots, pumpkin, or all three cut to the same size. Our glazed hasselback sweet potatoes are the version worth the knife work, and they sit happily beside a ham at the same temperature. If you would rather not slice anything, toss carrot batons with a spoonful of Ottolenghi smokey honey marinade at $22.95. It is built to caramelise, so add it for the last 20 minutes rather than at the start, or the sugars burn before the carrots are done.

Roasted vegetables want acid or fat at the end, not more sugar. Belazu tahini loosened with lemon juice and a splash of water goes over hot pumpkin or carrots and turns two ingredients into the dish people ask about. Stir a teaspoon of Belazu rose harissa through it for a rose-coloured version; the 130g jar is $14.95 and keeps for months in the fridge once opened.

What the stovetop can carry

The stovetop is the underused half of the kitchen on Christmas Day. It is free the whole time the oven is busy, it heats in seconds, and nothing on it has to be timed to the minute.

Green beans give the best return for the effort. Blanch them on 24 December, drop them into iced water, drain and keep them cold. On the day they need two minutes in a hot pan with butter and something to make them worth eating. A heaped teaspoon of caramelised onion flavour hack at $9.95 does that job: it is a concentrated onion paste rather than a chutney, so it melts into the pan without turning the beans sweet, and half a jar dresses enough for eight.

Peas with mint and butter take four minutes from frozen and are the side the children at the table actually eat. Braised greens, silverbeet or cavolo nero cooked down slowly with garlic and good oil, are the adult version, and they reheat without complaint, which almost nothing green does. Corn is worth boiling for a crowd, rolled afterwards in butter mixed with a spoonful of harissa.

Sides that need no heat at all

Three cold plates make the table look generous without another burner being lit. None takes longer than fifteen minutes, and all three can be assembled with guests already in the house.

• A shaved slaw. Fennel, cabbage, celery or kohlrabi run over a mandoline, sat in iced water for ten minutes to curl, then dressed with oil and lemon at the table. It keeps its crunch for hours, which no leafy salad manages in the heat.
• Tomatoes with tapenade. Thick slices of ripe tomato, plenty of salt, and small spoonfuls of Belazu black olive tapenade at $12.95 dotted over the top. Assemble twenty minutes before serving and no earlier, or the tomatoes weep into the plate.
• Good bread and a bowl of oil. Not a side dish in the formal sense, but it is what mops the plate at the end and it costs nothing in oven time.

The jars behind all three are the part of Christmas cooking you can settle in spring. Most of them sit in specialty ingredients, they keep unopened for a year or more, and buying them early is the difference between a considered table and a supermarket run on 24 December.

Where each side is made, and how far ahead

Read the right-hand column first. Almost every side here has a job that belongs to 23 or 24 December, and our guide to make ahead Christmas food sets out the rest of that run in order.

Christmas side dish questions

What are good side dishes for Christmas lunch?

Roast potatoes, one tray of roasted root vegetables, green beans or peas from the stovetop, and one crunchy cold plate such as a shaved slaw. That is four sides for eight people and it covers starch, something sweet and roasted, something green and something raw. Add a jar of chutney or tapenade rather than a fifth dish.

What sides can I make without the oven?

Anything shaved, blanched or braised. Green beans, peas, silverbeet and corn all cook on the stovetop in under twenty minutes. A shaved fennel or cabbage slaw, sliced tomatoes with tapenade, and bread with good olive oil need no heat at all. Between the stovetop and the bench you can build a full table without opening the oven once.

How many sides do I need for Christmas?

Four for eight people, five or six for twelve. More than that and the table runs out of room, everyone takes a spoonful of each, and half of it goes back to the fridge untouched. Spread them across the oven, the stovetop and the bench so nothing queues, and put the saved effort into one side that is genuinely good instead of two that are fine.

Can Christmas sides be made ahead?

Most of the work can, even when the dish cannot. Potatoes are parboiled and chilled the day before, beans are blanched and refreshed, braised greens are cooked fully and reheated, and root vegetables can be peeled and cut two days out. What has to happen on the day is the roasting, the final toss in butter, and dressing anything with leaves in it.

If you are shopping for the table rather than cooking it, a few jars from our gourmet condiments range do more for a plate of vegetables than another recipe will. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday leave our Corio warehouse the same day, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. For the rest of the meal, from the first board to the leftovers, start with our guide to Christmas food in Australia.