Spring is here, and to help celebrate, we have rounded up the best recipes for your Easter menu!
The start of spring brings great promise, not just from spring cleaning or the blooming of beautiful wildflowers, because some parts of the West still have snow. But spring is always a time of reawakening, bringing with it brighter colors, slightly warmers days, and more opportunities to gather with friends and family — particularly when it centers around a delicious Easter menu.
This Easter weekend provides the best opportunity to get together with people for a beautiful spring menu. From a delicious pimento cheese spread, in honor of the Masters Tournament, to a light and bright vinaigrette salad to springy cocktails, these recipes will pair perfectly with whatever protein your family chooses to enjoy, although a honey-baked ham sounds mighty delicious.
Check out the round-up of recipes from C&I staff and restaurants across the West for the perfect Easter feast.
View AllPimento Cheese
My mom gave me Grammy’s Pimiento Cheese recipe a couple of years ago and my husband requests it every year in the springtime. This recipe is not a sweet pimiento cheese recipe; it is cream cheese-based. But to me, that just makes it more Western.
Spicy Quinoa Salad
Executive chef Coner Seargent, of CBD Provisions, shared a recipe with C&I for a veggie fix that doesn’t feel like a salad. The spicy quinoa salad with seasonal vegetables and fresh chevre is full of flavor and easily adapted at home for an Easter first course.
Hill Country Corn Bread
Vista Brewing’s chef, Andrew Stiver, aims to shorten the distance between people and their food, using readily available ingredients from right in Vista’s backyard. This incredibly popular restaurant has a seasonally changing menu, but one dish folks at Vista swear by is the corn bread.
Roasted Heirloom Carrots with Guajillo Romesco Sauce
Culinary director Matthew Roberts of Cuyama Buckhorn created a menu full of local ingredients for 2020's leap year celebration. Part of the menu was this roasted carrot dish, elevating this root vegetable to a higher level.
Strawberry Shortcake
This strawberry shortcake recipe may be from our C&I July 4th recipes but I like to think any dessert with fruit and whipped cream is perfect for a warmer weather menu. And, if strawberries aren't quite in season where you are, you can always substitute them for another fruit; it will still be scrumptious.
Spring cocktails
Owner of Distillery 291, Michael Myers, says, “I like to taste my whiskey in a cocktail.” And heaven knows we like our spice, and whiskey, in the West. Meyers created a few different whiskey cocktails using his Colorado whiskey. For all cocktail lovers, one of these recipes will put a hop in their step.
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Pimento Cheese
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Spicy Quinoa Salad
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Hill Country Corn Bread
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Roasted Heirloom Carrots with Guajillo Romesco Sauce
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Strawberry Shortcake
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Spring cocktails
Photography: (header) Joseph Gonzalez