10 Delicious Hanukkah Recipes (2024)

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Hanukkah foods don't get more iconic than latkes. This bite-size iteration of the crispy potato pancakes makes a great holiday appetizer, and you can top them however you want (say, with sour cream and applesauce, or cream cheese and smoked fish).

The eight days of Hanukkah are observed with the lighting of a menorah after sundown and meals featuring foods challah bread, kugel, potato latkes, jelly doughnuts called sufganiyot, and festive drinks.

In America, Hanukkah food typically refers to two things: latkes, Eastern European fried potato pancakes, and sufganiyot, jelly-filled doughnuts that are favored in Israel and increasingly popular here.

There are two foods you're almost certain to encounter at a Hanukkah dinner: fried shredded potato pancakes known as latkes, and sufganiyot, which are jelly or custard-filled donuts. Other items you might see on the table include various fried pastries, fried fish, and even fried chicken.

While the Hanukkah menorah is usually lit after sunset, a lazy weekend morning is also a great time to celebrate the Jewish holiday. So many traditional Jewish foods double as brunch favorites, from potato latkes (hash browns, anyone?) to doughnuts and challah.

"By the 14th century, there's quite a strong tradition that people eat cheese on Hanukkah and it's associated with Judith giving cheese to the enemy to make him drunk," Weingarten says.

We count cheese as a Hanukkah miracle.

Did you know that in addition to foods fried in oil, we also eat dairy on Hanukkah to commemorate the bravery of Judith? Her courage—fueled by bravery, salty cheese and wine—led to the Maccabee victory.

Latkes and jelly donuts

Speaking of oil, eating food fried during Hanukkah is considered a symbol of the oil used to light the menorah. Hence, jelly donuts.

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Sephardic Hanukkah dishes include cassola (sweet cheese pancakes), bimuelos (puffed fritters with an orange glaze), keftes de espinaka (spinach patties), keftes de prasa (leek patties) and shamlias (fried pastry frills).

Sufganiyah (Hebrew: סופגנייה or סופגניה, Hebrew: [ˌsufɡaniˈja]; pl. : sufganiyot, Hebrew: סופגניות, Hebrew: [ˌsufɡaniˈjot], or in Yiddish pontshke פּאָנטשקע) is a round jelly doughnut eaten in Israel and around the world on the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

Each night, add a new candle before lighting. Now, here's the tricky part: candles are placed in the menorah from right to left but candles are lit from left to right. "Left to right, that's how you light!"

Although there was barely enough oil for one day's light, it burned miraculously for eight, giving the soldiers time to rededicate the temple and give it back to the Jewish people. To pay homage to the oil, during Hanukkah, Jews eat fried foods.

Some nonreligious customs of celebration are eating treats fried in oil (which recalls the miracle of the oil), giving children gifts of money (Hanukkah gelt), and playing a game with a four-sided top called a dreidel.