Julie Goodwin's Top Tips On How To Create The Perfect Christmas Dinner

She's one of the most famous celebrity chefs in Australia. so you can be sure Julie Goodwin knows a thing or two about cooking the ultimate Christmas dinner.

Lucky for us, the former MasterChef winner was willing to dish some of her cooking secrets to Yahoo7 Lifestyle, to ensure all your Christmas dinners are top notch this festive season.

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Check out her top tips below:

Do as much as you can ahead of the day

Christmas dinner is all about being prepared. According to Julie, Christmas is about relaxing and enjoying being with your nearest and dearest, not about working all day long. "Things that can be done in advance are sauces, desserts, chutneys, biscuits; salads and vegetables can be prepped the day before," she said.

Consider a cold Christmas lunch instead of a full hot roast

While this may be controversial for those who love nothing better than a hot roast, Julie recommends considering a cold lunch instead. "A glazed ham, some seafood, some festive colourful salads are beautiful, appropriate for our climate, and less work than a hot roast dinner," she said.

Don't cook too much food

Everyone gets caught out with this one. We estimate how much food we'll need to cook and then we're left with mountains of leftovers come of the end of the day. While it's tempting to over-cater, Julie recommends making food that you will actually eat. 'It avoids extra work, extra expense and food waste," she said.

If you’re having a crowd over, do some delegating

If you invite people over for dinner, they should be pulling their weight in the kitchen. Delegate separate parts of the meal to each person at the table. "Get someone to be in charge of nibbles, someone else in charge of dessert, etc," Julie said.

Let everyone help themselves

Everybody loves a good buffet on Christmas Day. It's less formal, you can take your own serving size and people will take exactly what they want to ear. "Serving lunch banquet-style (in the middle of the table to share) or buffet-style (along a bench so that people walk along and serve themselves), is much easier than individually plating meals.," Julie said.

Delegate some of the cleaning up

Nobody loves cleaning but everyone needs to help out on Christmas Day. According to Julie, when it'a time to pack Christmas lunch away, many hands make light work. "Be sure to store the leftovers properly so they don’t go to waste," she said.

Use eskys to make room for food in your fridge

During Christmas space in the fridge is usually at full capacity. Julie recommends filling a big esky or some laundry tubs with ice to keep the drinks cold to free up space in the fridge. "It also helps to freeze some larger blocks of ice in used ice-cream or butter containers – they take longer to melt than the bought, bagged ice," she said.

Research recipes for your leftovers

Have some plans and recipes ready for the leftover ham/turkey/vegetables so they don’t sit sadly in the fridge until they’re ready to be thrown out. "Consider using them in quiche, terrines, pasta, or in fried rice. The Westinghouse ‘steam reheat function’ is a great feature letting you get more mileage out of leftovers without compromising on taste or texture. It’s handy to know that according to food safety standards your food can be safely out of the fridge or oven for 2 hours," Julie said. That gives you plenty of time for a leisurely lunch before the food has to be put away in the fridge.

Don't stress if everything isn't perfect

"My main tip for a wonderful Christmas day, is to ditch the idea of everything being “perfect”," Julie said. "That’s too much pressure. Aim for enjoyable. Relax, take the pressure off yourself and enjoy the company of your loved ones with some good food, drink and some silly bon-bon jokes."

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