Greek Easter is the most significant celebration in the Greek calendar, more important than Christmas, and it is centred almost entirely around food. The weeks of Lenten fasting that precede it, the midnight feast of magiritsa after the Resurrection service, the slow-roasted lamb on Easter Sunday, these are rituals that have been repeated for generations and remain the emotional heart of Greek family life.

Growing up in Sydney’s Greek community, Easter was the event of the year. My mother would begin preparations a week in advance. The house smelled of baking and cooking for days. Extended family gathered, children ran through the garden, and there was more food than any reasonable number of people could eat. It was magnificent.

The Lenten Fast

The forty days before Easter, known as Great Lent, are traditionally a time of fasting. Strict observers avoid meat, dairy, eggs, fish, and olive oil on most days. This might sound impossibly restrictive, but Greek Lenten cooking is actually some of the most creative and delicious food in the tradition.

Fasolada - white bean soup, often called the national dish of Greece, is a staple during Lent. It is hearty, warming, and entirely plant-based.

Gigantes plaki - giant beans baked in tomato sauce with herbs. Rich and satisfying despite having no meat or dairy.

Horta - wild greens boiled and dressed with olive oil and lemon. Simple, nutritious, and deeply traditional.

Taramosalata - the Lenten version is made without the egg yolk that some recipes include, using just carp roe, bread, lemon juice, and olive oil.

The fasting serves a purpose beyond the spiritual. By the time Easter Sunday arrives, you are genuinely hungry and the feast that follows feels earned and extraordinary.

Holy Saturday Night: Magiritsa

After the midnight Resurrection service on Holy Saturday, Greek families return home to break the fast with magiritsa, a soup that is both celebrated and divisive.

Magiritsa is made from lamb offal: the liver, lungs, heart, and intestines, simmered with spring onions, dill, and finished with avgolemono (egg-lemon sauce). It is rich, tangy, and deeply savoury.

I will be honest: magiritsa is not for everyone. Some of my Australian friends have politely declined when I describe the ingredients. But for Greeks, it is the taste of Easter. You eat it at 1am, sitting around the table with red-dyed eggs, candles still burning, and the joy of the Resurrection service still in the air.

If offal is not your thing, some families make a lighter version using just the liver and lots of herbs, which is more approachable.

Easter Sunday: The Lamb

Easter Sunday is all about the lamb. In many Greek-Australian families, this means a whole lamb on a spit, rotating slowly over coals for hours. In Sydney’s western and southern suburbs, you will see spits set up in backyards across the Greek community. The smell of roasting lamb on Easter morning is unforgettable.

The lamb is typically seasoned simply: olive oil, lemon, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. Some families add a rub of mustard or stuff the cavity with herbs and lemon halves. The spit-roasting is slow, usually 4 to 6 hours depending on the size, and the result is meat that is crispy-skinned, succulent, and falling off the bone.

For those without a spit, a butterflied leg of lamb on the barbecue or slow-roasted in the oven produces excellent results.

Tsoureki

No Greek Easter is complete without tsoureki, the braided sweet bread. It is flavoured with mahlepi (ground cherry pit kernels) and mastiha (mastic resin from Chios), two aromatics that give it a distinctive flavour unlike any other bread.

Tsoureki is rich with eggs and butter, soft and slightly sweet, and traditionally decorated with a red-dyed hard-boiled egg nestled in the braid. It is eaten throughout Easter week, often toasted with butter for breakfast.

Finding mahlepi and mastiha in Australia used to be difficult, but most Greek grocery stores now stock both. They are essential for authentic flavour and there are no real substitutes.

The Red Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs dyed red are a central symbol of Greek Easter. The red represents the blood of Christ, and the egg represents the tomb and resurrection.

On Easter Sunday, there is a game called tsougrisma: everyone holds a red egg, and you crack your egg against someone else’s. The person whose egg survives uncracked is said to have good luck for the coming year. It is competitive, noisy, and children take it very seriously.

The eggs are dyed using commercial red dye available at Greek groceries, or sometimes with natural onion skin dye for a deeper, more rustic colour.

Kokoretsi

Perhaps the most controversial Easter dish: kokoretsi is lamb offal (sweetbreads, heart, lung, kidney) wrapped in intestines and roasted on a spit. It is crispy on the outside, rich and soft inside, and absolutely delicious if you approach it with an open mind.

Kokoretsi is often cooked on a small spit alongside the main lamb. It is ready before the lamb and is served as a snack while the larger animal continues to cook. With a squeeze of lemon and a cold beer, it is one of the great Easter traditions.

Greek Easter is about more than food, of course. But the food carries the memory and meaning of the celebration. Each dish connects you to generations who ate the same things, at the same time of year, with the same joy. Whether you are in Athens or Ashfield, those connections hold.

Kali Pascha.