If you and your family celebrate Passover (or Pesach) every year, we bet you’ve got some tried and true classics you make for seder dinner and all week long. From matzo ball soup to brisket, with lots of fun sides in between, you might have your savory menu covered—where things can get a little tricky is when it comes to dessert. It’s hard to come up with fun, creative options year after year! These 40 flourless dessert recipes have your back—they're great for Passover, and all year long.
If you’re unfamiliar, the term “Passover” refers to the biblical stories of the 10 plagues sent by God to convince the Egyptian pharaoh to “let the Jewish people go” and the eventual exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt. As the story goes, they packed in such a hurry that they didn’t have enough time to even let their bread rise (if you’ve ever made homemade bread, you can imagine), and only were able to bring unleavened, cracker-like bread called matzo with them. To celebrate this exodus, Jewish people today continue to remove chametz from their diets (and their homes, for some strict households) for the duration of Passover, as well as make sure all other ingredients they’re using are specified Kosher for Passover. Simply put, chametz is basically any flour product like bread, cereal, cake, cookies, pasta, etc. In addition, they must continue to follow general Kosher rules (meat and dairy can’t be eaten in the same meal, though fish and eggs are considered neutral, or pareve; no pork products; etc.)
Here we’ve included some fun ideas for desserts to make with matzo (toffee! icebox cake! MAGIC BARS), as well as other traditional Passover desserts, like coconut macaroons and meringues. Want to jazz up your meringue game even more? You're going to love our pavlova, or our pavlova cupcakes with raspberry sauce. We’ve also got a flourless chocolate cake, plus a peanut butter version (if you allow kitniyot, or legumes, during Passover) and a salted chocolate coconut version. They’re so good, you’re going to want to make them year round.
You’ll note a number of desserts we’ve included are vegan, like our vegan cheesecake or coconut ice cream—because they don’t contain real milk, you’re in the clear for eating them even after a meat-heavy dinner. You won’t even miss the dairy, we promise!
This time of year, we love making extra sweet treats to share with our friends and families. Everyone loves being gifted cookies, like our walnut snowballs or snickerdoodle shortbread, or barks, like our sweet 'n' salty chocolate bark or almond toffee. Just be mindful of how strict your gift receiver is about Passover guidelines—when in doubt, buy Kosher for Passover ingredients.
If baking seems too stressful, check out our list of our favorite store-bought Passover desserts too.