The 30 Best Christmas Steam Oven Recipes

This article pulls together all my best Christmas steam oven recipes in one place, plus a few other festive recipes that I love to make every year! Stick around and I’ll have you ready to go forth into the kitchen and start cooking, confident you can pull of your best Christmas meal (and gifts) ever. 🙂

Using your combi steam oven for Christmas cooking opens up a whole world of delicious, and often easy, food. I’m a firm believer that Christmas dishes should be enjoyable and mostly fuss-free to make. It’s a busy time of year and simplifying wherever possible means I can spend time with loved ones instead of slaving in the kitchen.

Simplifying doesn’t mean skimping on great Christmas eating. But it does mean preparing ahead, making use of my freezer and using the occasional cheat to make things faster (bought pesto or dip, for instance, or pre-made and rolled pastry). This collection of recipes means you’ll be well prepared and relaxed in the knowledge you’ve got all your food sorted no matter how many guests are coming.

You won’t need to make everything from this list. Instead, choose a few ‘star’ dishes to show off your steam oven skills. Then mix and match with easier sides and snacks and your own favorites to create a welcoming and delicious holiday table.

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

Sticky, fluffy and perfect with coffee, it would not be Christmas morning without a batch of cinnamon rolls. These are fully prepped the day before, ready to be popped into the oven first thing in the morning and served warm with cream cheese glaze.

Sous Vide Egg Bites

A couple of years ago when we had a full house on Christmas morning, I made a couple of batches of these delicious little egg bites, served per the picture with mixed cherry tomatoes (and a side of steam oven bacon for those who wanted it). They went down so well, and required so little effort on the day!

Combi Steam Oven French Toast Sandwiches

French toast, leg ham and oozing, melted cheese? Check. These indulgent sandwiches become something else in the steam oven, where the eggy French toast soak cooks into a souffle-like puffy delight. Make the classic ham and cheese version or go sweet with chocolate and sliced bananas or berries.

Scrambled Eggs in the Steam Oven

Need something a little more everyday-simple and packed with protein to get you through the Christmas morning rush? Steamed scrambled eggs should be on your radar. They’re easy to make, can be doubled (or tripled, quadrupled or more!), and they’ll be the softest, creamiest eggs you’ve ever made.

Steamed Steel Cut Oatmeal (Pinhead Oatmeal)

As with the scrambled eggs, sometimes we just need proper sustenance when the day ahead is going to be filled with treats, excess and running around. My go-to for this is ‘fancy oats’, aka steel cut oatmeal (porridge). It would never fly with my kids for Christmas morning but I could eat the stuff every day.

Cruffins or croissants

Sweet and Spicy Party Nuts

These are my favorite snack to have with drinks around the holidays. Sealed up in an airtight container or a little cello bag, they last for a good couple of weeks if you don’t eat them all before then!

Puff Pastry Cheese Straws

You can completely assemble these cheesy flaky delights ahead of time and keep them in the fridge or freezer until your guests arrive. Just bake and serve to great acclaim!

Steam Oven Cherry Tomato Tarts

These little gems are one of those dishes which look and taste like you’ve spent hours in the kitchen, except you don’t have to. Bought pesto and ricotta, a punnet of cherry tomatoes and some frozen puff pastry will see you turning out absolutely delicious and elegant little appetizers as quick as can be.

Mini Quiche in a steam oven

Prep everything for these little bites a few days before, assemble in the morning and bake just before serving. Or make them from start to finish and freeze, then reheat from frozen!

Puff Pastries with Ham and Cheese

I know, there’s a lot of pastry in this section! But remember that these dishes are just a precursor to the main event of Christmas dinner, and you only need to serve a couple of small things per person. This year, one of my things is these ham and cheese puff pastries with asparagus and honey mustard. I plan to make half-sized ones so they’re small and easy to grab and eat with one hand – if you want to do this too, cut the asparagus spears in half or thirds and cut down your cooking time by a minute or two.

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How to Roast Turkey in a Steam Oven

All my best tips and tricks for a whole turkey cooked in a steam oven. It’s straightforward and reliable, and produces the most flavorful and juicy bird I know of.

Are you enjoying this post? If you’d love more Christmas steam oven recipes, check out my cookbook Steam Oven Christmas. It’s a carefully curated collection of the best festive recipes to cook in your steam oven!

Sous Vide Turkey Breast with Herbs and Garlic

This skin-on turkey breast is dry brined with herbs and garlic, sous vide cooked in your steam oven to retain all the moisture, then browned with plenty of butter for crispy golden skin. If you want the best Christmas steam oven recipe for easy turkey, this is what you should turn to.

Turkey Breast Stuffed with Pancetta, Walnuts and Spinach

An impressive turkey breast roll is straightforward in your steam oven, and you can change up the stuffing suit whatever flavors you prefer. My turkey breast roll with pancetta recipe is exclusively available in my digital cookbook, Combi Steam Cooking at Christmas.

The best Christmas Roast Duck

I am out and proud about the fact that I actually prefer to eat duck over a turkey at Christmas. For some reason I find it more luxurious and special, and I love the richness of the meat (plus, a little duck fat never hurt a roast potato!). This is the way I make mine.

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Combi Steam Roasted Cauliflower

For the vegetable lovers in your life, I highly recommend adding this whole roasted cauliflower to your menu. It’s a very special dish and looks beautiful on the table. More importantly, it works as both a delicious main meal and a substantial side dish.

Crispy Roasted Potatoes

I can all but guarantee these potatoes will be one of the first things to disappear off the table at dinner time. They’re crispy, salty and absolutely glorious. For a special Christmas treat I make them with duck fat, as it gives extra depth and savoriness.

Sausage and Herb Stuffing

I prefer my stuffing cooked separately from the bird, where I can control the texture and get lots of crispy edge bits. Steam oven stuffing is the best because it browns and crisps perfectly but never dries out in the center.

Easy Potato Rolls

Whenever I make mashed potatoes, I try to keep a little back so I can make my favorite potato rolls the next day. In fact, I can highly recommend making mash for the sole purpose of baking these soft, perfectly textured rolls.

Green Beans with Almonds and Balsamic Dressing

Call them boring, but I am firm believer that at least one bright green vegetable is necessary and tasty, even at celebration meals. These balsamic-dressed beans with crunchy roasted almonds fit the bill every time.

Festive Lentil, Grain and Herb Salad with Orange

A special salad for a special day. This is a little more involved than a simple green salad, but you can prep the components well ahead of time and put it together fairly quickly on the day of serving. I love the zing of the orange against the earthy grains in this dish.

Christmas Rice Salad

This is a recipe that’s lived on the blog for years, and it has a loyal following among many of you! If you’ve never tried it, the combination of brown rice, tart cranberries, salty feta and crunchy pistachio nuts is both beautiful and exciting to eat.

Basque Cheesecake

This crustless cheesecake is so easy to put together – just mix up the batter and pour into your pan. Baking the cake using combi steam makes it smoother and creamier than any other version I’ve tried.

Christmas Cheesecake with Cherries

Is two cheesecakes too many?? Not at my house, it’s not! This festive beauty nods to the fact that cherries are in peak season over Christmas here. If you live in a different part of the world, frozen cherries will work just as well. Get the recipe for my Christmas Cheesecake in the Combi Steam Cooking at Christmas eBook.

Creme Caramel

Creme caramel cooked sous vide is the ultimate make ahead party dessert. They’re not difficult to make, and the low temperature sous vide cooking makes them foolproof. Cook several days ahead and serve them straight from the fridge, so you don’t need to stress at the end of a big meal.

Fig, Orange and Apricot Christmas Steamed Pudding

It’s a mouthful to say and a mouthful to eat! It’s also one of the best Christmas steam oven recipes I know. This pudding is best made a few weeks (or even months) ahead of time, so it’s got plenty of time to mature and mellow. It’s a modern twist on the traditional English plum pudding, using candied apricots, lots of orange and sweet figs.

Individual Steamed Christmas Puddings

If you find the thought of steaming a large pudding daunting, try these cute little single-serve puds instead. They’re a very classic recipe but their small size makes them faster and simpler to cook.

Fruit Mince Pies in the Steam Oven

A staple in UK and Aussie kitchens at this time of year, if you haven’t tried a fruit mince pie before, you’re missing out. Made with a rich filling of soaked and aged dried fruit, the best fruit mince pies have home made pastry. Mine is a walnut-based affair that’s more cookie than pastry, but they’ll work equally well with traditional shortcrust.

Best Ever Gingerbread Cookies

These cookies really are the best ever. I developed the recipe almost 20 years ago and still bake hundreds every year, for Christmas gifts and for my kids and their friends to decorate, in all shapes and sizes. They never disappoint as a thoughtful and pretty gift.

Macadamia, Ginger and Apricot Panforte

A couple of the ingredients for this special Italian-style confection can be a little tricky to get hold of, but they’re worth seeking out. Panforte can be baked weeks ahead and it actually improves with age. Plus, this is the most ship-able food gift I know of, because it’s so sturdy and can tolerate heat changes during shipping without suffering in quality.

What a list! I hope my Christmas steam oven recipes inspire you to use your steam oven a whole lot more over the holidays, especially if you’ve been a little afraid to use it for Christmas cooking before.

Happy steam oven cooking, and happy Christmas, see you here again soon.