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How to make the ultimate Sunday lunch

By Georgina Kiely – Digital food editor, bbcgoodfood.com

Everyone's favourite family tradition, the Sunday roast. Assemble the ultimate dinner with all the trimmings and choose your future favourites from our go-to guide

Embrace the ultimate comfort meal and go the whole hog with your Sunday roast. Choose the very best mains, sides and sweets to create the most hearty meal your family’s ever seen.

Your main meat

Traditionally, the Sunday roast comprises beef, veggies and Yorkshire puds. So if you’re a bastion of proper roast rules, it’s worth trying our magnificent silverside of beef with French onion gravy. This five-star roast recipe is slow cooked to perfection and uses the stock to make a rich gravy that’ll go down in family history.

Our favourite beef roasts…

Roast sirloin of beef
One-pot beef brisket & braised celery

If you’re prepared to stray from tradition, we have a treat for you. Maybe a roast lamb, studded with rosemary and garlic is more your taste? Stud the meat in advance so the flavours permeate and have time to intensify. If you’re prepared to really branch out, no one can resist this top-rated maple-mustard pulled pork.

Perfect potatoes

Potatoes maketh the meal. Your choices are numerous: roasties, mash, gratin, Dauphinoise… so we’ve given you the best of the best. You can also read up on the best fat for cooking your roasties in our handy guide, to make sure you get the crispiest skin possible.

When it comes to roasties, we want them golden and crispy, with fluffy insides and plenty of seasoning. Our Parmesan-roasted potatoes are the ultimate flavourful cheesy roasties. They’re best enjoyed hot from the oven and won’t stick around long enough for leftovers.

Move over roasties – if you’re craving something creamy, cheesy and crisp, we’ve got the ultimate mash-up of Dauphinoise and domino potatoes and this domino Dauphinoise is a true Sunday dinner showstopper.

Never let it be said that we would limit ourselves to just one kind of potato. If you couldn’t live without a dollop of comforting mash on your Sunday dinner plate, we highly recommend our garlic mash potato bake, that goes well beyond the standard stodge.

Our favourite mash recipes…

Horseradish mash
Creamy mash

Make the most of versatile veg

Choose only the finest of sides to accompany your roast. Depending on what’s in season, you’ve got the veg patch at your feet in terms of options. We’ve picked the essentials for a proper plate of first-class veg.

A honey glaze can transform your carrots and intensify their flavour. Get a fantastic sour-sweet dimension with our honey-glazed roast carrots, or try a dollop of something different with our harissa & marmalade carrots.

We’d also never be without some greenery. Feel free to add all the roots you like to your roast. These sticky salted-maple roasted parsnips are also a must. If you need a little colour on your plate, this braised red cabbage has spice and bite.

Yorkshire pudding perfection

No roast would be complete without a gloriously puffed-up pudding. Try our ultimate Yorkshire pudding recipe for piping hot, fat and crisp, fluffy Yorkies. If you’re ready to branch out, our guide to flavouring your Yorkshire pud batter could be your ideal next step. Ever thought of mustard and herb Yorkshires? Or a bacon-filled batter?

Read up on 8 ways to flavour Yorkshire pudding batter in our guide.

Good gravy

Make ahead Prosecco & wild mushroom gravy

A decent gravy can make or break a roast, and a bit of booze can often bring out depth of flavour in a gravy. So why not try our make-ahead Prosecco & wild mushroom gravy, or a sticky port gravy for extra oomph?

A creamy bread sauce also goes well with a succulent roast, and our delectable bread & onion sauce is the cream of the crop.

Something sweet

Once the plates are cleared and everyone’s had their fill, everyone loves a little something sweet to finish off the roast. Our traditional trifle colleciton has something for everyone, or, if you’re craving cocoa our chocolate desserts are hard to resist.

Our favourite individual pudding pots…

White chocolate mousse with poached rhubarb
Apple crumble sundae
Chocolate & pistachio mousses

What’s your ultimate roast combination? Let us know in the comments below…

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