Passover is coming—here’s how to prep your home for the holiday

While many Jewish holidays are full of intricate and rich traditions, Passover seems to have the most details. Preparing two festive meals, shopping for specialty foods, doing a deep clean of the whole house, and teaching the youngest child the four questions could have any balaboosta farmisht.

But, with some proactive planning, you can be on top of it all. For anyone preparing your home for Passover this year, this checklist should make your prep as smooth as baby Moses’ ride down the Nile.

Get started one month before Passover

While a month may seem like a lot of time to start prepping, there are so many moving parts with this holiday that it can’t hurt to get an early start on it.

Taking inventory of what you have and what you need to get for the Seders is a great first step. Checking your storage early will allow you to ask around to see if relatives might have a spare Seder plate or kiddish cup.

If you still don’t have what you need, a month's time leaves you enough time to order what you want from your favorite Judaica store or Amazon.

Here’s a quick checklist of all the nonperishable items that are necessary for Passover’s Seder meal.

• Seder plate
• Basin, bowl, and hand towel
• Cushions as chairs
• Haggadah for every person at the table
• Wine glasses/kiddush cups for every person at the table
  
• Matzah cover and Afikoman
  
• Cups for Elijah and Miriam
• Kippot

It’s also a good idea to order a large clear storage bin with latches, to act as a dedicated storage space for all things Passover. It will ensure nothing gets misplaced before the Seders and will make storing items for next year easy. Plus, the latches will keep out any plague of locusts!

Get the Sterilite 66-quart Clear View Latch Box at Target for $9.29

When you’ve still got two weeks left to prep

With only two weeks to go, preparing your house for Passover is about to get physical. It’s now the time for the cleaning process to start.

As Passover requires a deep clean of the spaces where food is eaten, it’s a good idea to make sure you have a vacuum, dust buster, broom, and mop that are all in working order.

Having a set of dedicated microfiber cloths is also a good idea to ensure no chametz (leaven or food mixed with leaven) or kitniyot (legumes) are left behind.

Vacuuming and cleaning areas where food is not often eaten, like playrooms or bedrooms, is a good place to start. Doing a deep-clean of the kitchen at this point wouldn’t make sense, but you can begin to clean out the fridge and pantry of any expired items that aren’t kosher for Passover and should get tossed anyway.

It’s also time to start shopping for some kosher for Passover food items. Grocery stores will begin to put these specialty foods on display.

To make sure a food is kosher for Passover, look for a “P” stamped next to the kosher “U” symbol. Sometimes grocery stores will put Jewish foods in a Passover section even if they are not kosher for Passover, so always check the label.

It’s good to shop early to snag your favorite coconut macaroons as some places run out of the “goods.” Matzah, gefilte fish, chips, and macaroons don’t need to be refrigerated and can be put in your handy bin.

Now is also the optimal time to order the wine. Everyone is supposed to have four glasses of wine during the Seder, and this doesn’t include any wine people may drink during the festive meal. A typical bottle of wine contains about five glasses of wine. To do some quick math, you would need around four bottles of wine for a group of five adults. This, of course, also depends on how much your group will realistically drink, but it is always a good idea to have too much wine than not enough.

It’s also important to make sure there is enough grape juice for the kids. Make sure that whatever size grape juice you get, there is enough for four glasses for each child.

• Get the 12-count Macaroon Assortment at Magnolia Bakery for $35
• Get the Kedem Kosher Grape Juice at Amazon for $11.99
• Get the De La Rosa 100% Organic Kosher for Passover Austrian Red Grape Juice, 2-pack, at Amazon for $31.98
• Get the Domaine Netofa Red 2018 at kosherwine.com for $19.99
• Get the Vitkin Grenache Blanc 2018 at kosherwine.com for $34.99

Prep during the week before Passover

The week before Passover is going to be the most chaotic, but you’ve already taken steps to make this week less stressful. Make sure to ask for help along the way since heavy hands make for light work, especially when there is much to get done.

The week before Passover is when the deep cleaning takes place. Get out your vacuum and microfiber cloths, and get to work!

You’re going to want to wipe down and clean any places that chametz may be hiding, including counters, cabinets, pantries, and the fridge and freezer. Get your partner, kids, or other family members that are staying with you to help. Turning it into a game of chametz hide-and-seek will make it fun for everyone.

Once you do a final clean-out of the pantry, fridge, and freezer, you can tape off the sections with food that are off limits, give it to a neighbor who isn’t observing the holiday to hold on to, post slightly open/used food items on your local buy nothing Facebook group, or donate unopened foods that will expire to charity.

There is no right way to go about cleaning out the chametz, so do what feels most comfortable for you and your observation of Passover.

After you’ve cleaned out the fridge and freezer, you can prepare some food. Kugels and matzah ball soup can be frozen and hard-boiled eggs and meringue cookies can all be made a couple of days before the Seder.

You can also start collecting perishable items for the Seder plate. Here is what to look for at the grocery store, plus some vegan alternatives:

• Hard boiled eggs or white eggplant or avocado pit (beitzah)
• Parsley (karpas)
• Horseradish, fresh or jarred (maror)
• Lettuce (chazaret)
• Shank or chicken bone or beet (zeroa)
• Apples, honey, wine, raisins, walnuts, and cinnamon (charoset)
• Matzah
• Optional: Orange

While most of these can be found at your local supermarket, you may have difficulty securing a shank bone. However, a local kosher butcher should have them. If you’re not near a kosher butcher, a chicken bone or a beet is a fine alternative.

Crunch time! Do this on the night before the first Seder

The Seder is almost here! One last final wipe down and vacuum and your house should be good to go for the next eight and half days.
Set the table and make sure that each plate has a kippah, wine glass, Haggadah and a clear view of the Seder plate. Bowls of salt water can be covered, labeled, and placed on the table as well.

Chag pesach!

After Passover, clean up for next year

All the prep you did this year was proactive. Now that you have everything you need, you won’t have to worry as much about making sure you have everything next year.
Once the holiday is over, take that large storage bin and put everything Passover-related in it. Make sure to bubble wrap any delicate pieces. You can even use the microfiber cloths as extra cushioning!

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