3 Dishes Gordon Ramsay Always Makes Ahead Of Christmas Dinner

You might think that you need to make your whole Christmas dinner the day of to maximize how fresh everything is, but a professional like Gordon Ramsay knows otherwise. There are a lot of lessons that can be drawn from someone with the unparalleled resume Ramsay has, and with almost four decades of experience running kitchens, he knows the power of prepping ahead of time.

Holidays dinners are best spent relaxing with family, not sweating over a stove, and even someone with Ramsay's standards knows that you can make a lot of delicious dishes the day before or even earlier and have them come out just as well as they would if made the same day. And when it comes to his own Christmas dinner, Ramsay's favorite make-ahead dishes are stuffing, cranberry sauce, and chocolate truffles.

As he explains in a video on his YouTube channel, each of these dishes are easy to throw together, and can be easily cooked or reheated before your holiday dinner with no loss in taste. Ramsay's stuffing is a pork-based meat stuffing as opposed to the traditional American bread stuffing, but his lessons cut across both. Since you should not be cooking stuffing inside your turkey anyway, there is no reason to make it the day of. Ramsay's meat stuffing can be mixed ahead of time and only needs to be tossed in the oven on Christmas, but bread stuffing can even be precooked, stored in the fridge, and then reheated for 15 minutes to finish crisping up the top.

Cranberry sauce is even easier than stuffing and, as Ramsay says, letting it sit in the fridge actually helps it develop more flavor than it would if served fresh from the pot. Ramsay's sweet caramel and citrus cranberry sauce is made just like any other recipe, by boiling cranberries in liquid with different seasonings, and he likes to bring it to a more jammy consistency. You can apply this to any cranberry sauce, even if you prefer more tart or savory recipes like our fresh cranberry sauce recipe. Ramsay also explains that fresh cranberry sauce can be prepared up to four days before your dinner, making it an ideal dish to get out of the way ahead of time, and when you want to serve it you don't even need the oven, just let it come to room temperature.

Ramsay likes to cover all his bases and thinks chocolate truffles are an ideal dessert for the holidays. Homemade chocolate truffles are festive, and the bite-sized snack is perfect for a party. Ramsay notes that they are very easy to make, hitting a great balance between feeling special and being convenient. Truffles can also be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks without a loss in quality, so they give you maximum planning flexibility. And if pros like Ramsay value anything as much as quality, it's whatever makes their job easier.