Italian recipes
These Italian recipes are home-cooking classics, and they reward restraint: a few good ingredients, handled with care. A cacio e pepe is pasta, pecorino and pepper, and the skill is in the timing, not the shopping.
Make lasagne alla bolognese for a Sunday, margherita pizza on a slow-risen dough, chicken cacciatore on a weeknight, and cannoli when you want a weekend project. Each recipe gives exact quantities, scales to the number of people at the table, and puts the ingredients you do not have yet onto a shared list, grouped by aisle.
34 recipes
Margherita Pizza馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 11 h 30 min
Lasagne alla Bolognese馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 4 h 15 min
Caprese Salad馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Side dish 路 1 h 10 min
Cannoli馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dessert 路 10 h 20 min
Cacio e Pepe馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 20 min
Arancini馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Snack 路 9 h 45 min
Butternut Squash Risotto馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 1 h
Creamy Mushroom Pasta馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 35 min
Pear Cake馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dessert 路 2 h 35 min
Pumpkin Pasta馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 1 h 5 min
Bruschetta馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Snack 路 20 min
Calzone馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 8 h 40 min
Eggplant Parmigiana馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 2 h 15 min
Focaccia馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Side dish 路 13 h
Frittata馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Breakfast 路 40 min
Limoncello馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Drink 路 7 days 1 h
Panna Cotta馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dessert 路 4 h 50 min
Panzanella馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Lunch 路 55 min
Pasta e Fagioli馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Lunch 路 1 h
Polenta con Funghi馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 1 h
Ribollita馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Lunch 路 13 h 55 min
Spaghetti alle Vongole馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 1 h 30 min
Chicken Cacciatore馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 1 h 20 min
Gnocchi al Pomodoro馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 2 h 5 min
Minestrone馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Lunch 路 1 h 25 min
Mushroom Risotto馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 55 min
Osso Buco馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 2 h 55 min
Chicken Parmigiana馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 1 h 5 min
Fettuccine Alfredo馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 15 min
Penne all'Arrabbiata馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 35 min
Risotto alla Milanese馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 40 min
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 25 min
Spaghetti Carbonara馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dinner 路 30 min
Tiramis霉馃嚠馃嚬 Italian recipes 路 Dessert 路 4 h 30 min
What makes Italian cooking different
Italy was unified late, and its cooking still reads like a map. Naples gave the world the margherita pizza and the calzone, Rome the cacio e pepe and the original fettuccine Alfredo, Bologna its slow rag霉 and the lasagne built on it, and Sicily the arancini and cannoli.
Recipes stay close to those roots. Rome鈥檚 fettuccine Alfredo is butter, parmigiano and pasta water turned together in a hot bowl, with no cream at all. Chicken cacciatore, the hunter鈥檚 braise, takes its depth from white wine, olives, capers and anchovies rather than a rich sauce.
The Italian pantry: what to keep in stock
A short list covers most of this page. Keep good olive oil, tinned tomatoes, dried pasta and flour, plus a piece each of pecorino romano and parmigiano, which keep for weeks well wrapped in the fridge.
Buy the fresh things close to cooking: basil, ripe tomatoes for bruschetta and caprese salad, fresh mozzarella for pizza and eggplant parmigiana, and ricotta for cannoli and calzone. Buffalo mozzarella and ricotta lose their texture within days, so shop for them last.
One detail worth knowing: parmigiano and pecorino are made with animal rennet, so dishes that depend on them, eggplant parmigiana and cacio e pepe included, are not marked vegetarian here. The margherita pizza is tagged vegetarian, though it is worth checking that the fior di latte you buy is made with non-animal rennet.
How to put together an Italian meal
A traditional Italian meal runs in courses, and this page covers each of them. Start with an antipasto such as bruschetta, caprese salad or arancini, move on to a primo of pasta, then a secondo like chicken cacciatore or eggplant parmigiana, with focaccia on the table and cannoli to finish.
Nobody cooks all of that on a weeknight. Cacio e pepe and fettuccine Alfredo take 20 minutes or less, while focaccia, pizza dough, arancini and cannoli need starting the evening before or first thing in the morning, mostly for proving and chilling. Plan those for a weekend and the waiting takes care of itself.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the most famous Italian dish?
- Pizza and pasta are the dishes most associated with Italy, and the margherita pizza from Naples, topped with tomato, mozzarella and basil, is probably the best-known single recipe. For pasta, lasagne alla bolognese and cacio e pepe are close behind. All three are on this page, with exact quantities for the number of people you are feeding.
- Does authentic fettuccine Alfredo have cream?
- No. The Roman original, fettuccine al burro, is fresh egg pasta tossed with soft butter and parmigiano, loosened with a little cooking water until the cheese and butter thicken into a sauce. Cream came later, with the American restaurant version. The fettuccine Alfredo recipe here follows the Roman method, made in a hot bowl, and takes about 15 minutes.
- Is eggplant parmigiana vegetarian?
- Not strictly. Parmigiano Reggiano is made with animal rennet, so a recipe that relies on it is not tagged vegetarian here, and eggplant parmigiana is one of them. If you are cooking for vegetarians, use a hard cheese made with microbial or vegetable rennet instead. The recipe is tagged gluten-free, as nothing in it contains wheat.
- What cheese is used in cacio e pepe?
- Pecorino romano, a hard, salty sheep鈥檚 milk cheese. Grated finely and stirred with starchy pasta water and plenty of black pepper, it melts into a sauce that clings to the pasta without any cream or butter. Take the pan off the heat before the cheese goes in, because pecorino clumps if the water is too hot.