21 Italian Dinner Ideas To Keep in Your Back Pocket
When you need a meal that's guaranteed to please, reach for these recipes.
Italian Dinners Everyone Will Enjoy
When it comes to world cuisines, we can’t pick a favorite. We truly love them all. But we will make a case for this: When you need a no-brainer, no-sweat, no-drama crowdpleaser, you could do much worse than to opt for Italian. It’s just so easy to like—kids, adults, picky eaters and adventure-seekers. When you want a home run, look no further than Italy, or even closer, to Italian-American dishes, to get everyone in a festive spirit.
If you ever travel to Rome, do yourself a favor and order this dish on the very first day, because you will want to eat it every day after that. Named lovingly for every woman from the nearby town of Amatrice who has ever cooked it, Amatriciana is now nearly synonymous with Rome (along with other sauces that use guanciale, cured pork cheek: Carbonara (guanciale and egg) and gricia (guanciale drippings—heaven!). This one marries the bitter-salty pork with tomato sauce for a zesty depth that fills you immediately with a melancholy that you will eventually hit the bottom of your bowl. While it’s worth seeking out real guanciale, pancetta is a fine stand-in if you have trouble finding it.
Photo By: Con Poulos
Chicken Scallopine with Sage and Fontina Cheese
You’ll find rolled, stuffed meats all over Italy, but particularly in the north. They’re cooked in volume deliberately, enjoyed hot at dinner and then leftovers eaten cold at subsequent meals. This chicken gains woodsy depth from sage and melty fontina; served with tomato sauce, it’s a natural with crusty bread.
Baked Shrimp Scampi
We love this variation on scampi, itself a decidedly Italian-American dish. Though you’ll encounter shrimp—and scampi, which are actually langoustines—cooked with olive oil and sometimes garlic and topped with fresh parsley all over Italy, this buttery, garlicky dish became a mainstay in Italian-American restaurants in the 20th century. Here, Ina Garten gives the scampi the gratin treatment, getting extra crunch and toastiness from the breadcrumbs.
©2012, Television Food NEtwork, G.P. All Rights Reserved
Pork Marsala with Spinach
You’ll find lots of lore if you search for the origin of marsala, the dish (the provenance of Marsala, the wine, bears no mystery; it hails from Sicily). Still, most agree that the combination of pairing thin cutlets with mushrooms and a Marsala wine sauce is likely an Italian-American creation, and it certainly still looms large on red-sauce joint menus across the country. It should be in the repertoire of all home cooks, as it tastes so special but comes together in a flash. It’s also hard to imagine a side that it doesn’t go with—pasta, rice, mashed potatoes and crusty bread all do the gravy justice.
Photo By: Antonis Achilleos
Osso Buco
Gotta hand it to the Italians, who pull no punches with the names of their most famous dishes, like this one from Milan. “Osso buco” simply means: the bone with the hole. Indeed, the whole point of this braise is not only the super-tender meat and unctuous sauce, but access to the bone marrow, which can be scooped out and eaten with the meat (or spread on bread, yum). Lemon zest and fresh parsley brighten up the finished dish, which is delicious over polenta, buttered orzo or risotto.
Chicken Parmigiana
If there was a dish that symbolizes Italian-American restaurants, it might be chicken parmigiana, AKA chicken parm. The checkered tablecloth is practically required, and serving alongside linguine will always be the right choice. Here are the takeaways: Pounding chicken cutlets thin is a smart tactic, rendering them tender, letting them cook through evenly and quickly, but perhaps most crucially, bringing the ratio of breading to meat to a very happy zone. Breaded then sauced and topped with bubbling mozz (and parm, of course), chicken parm always hits the right note.
Photo By: Tara Donne
Fettuccine Alfredo
This iconic dish is said to be name for a Roman restaurateur who popularized it, and once it casts its spell on you, it’s hard to order anything else in an Italian restaurant. Luckily, it is one of the quickest dishes to make—that is, if you’re just making the sauce. Here, Tyler Florence takes a truly Italian tack, as cream and butter sauces are often served over homemade noodles in Italy, and makes the noodles as well. The result is ethereal and bewitching, but truly, if you don’t have time for the noodle part, don’t forget how easy the sauce part is.
©2012, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved.
Tilapia Milanese
Though the most commonly thought-of protein given the milanese treatment—that is, pounded thinly, breaded and fried until crisp and served, sauceless, with wedges of lemon—is veal, it is one too delicious to confine to just veal. Indeed, even humble, sustainably raised tilapia is a prime candidate, because frankly, we all know that just about anything crumbed and fried is going to be a winner for dinner.
Photo By: Antonis Achilleos
Meatballs and Spaghetti
Channel your inner Italian-American with a real Sunday sauce that doesn’t have to simmer all day. This is the way you do it, browning the meatballs first, then deglazing with wine so that all the delicious bits from the bottom of the pan infuse into the tomatoes, and finally poaching the meatballs the rest of the way in the sauce. Though in Italy, this sauce would be served over the pasta (which would more likely be a short shape) and the meatballs served separately, as a second course, we have to admit that we love the Italian-American innovation of serving it all in a tangle with spaghetti.
©2012, Television Food NEtwork, G.P. All Rights Reserved
Artichoke Gratinata
A gratinata is the Italian answer to the French gratin, anything baked with a crown of cheese and sometimes breadcrumbs for extra crunch, until golden and gooey. Starting with frozen artichoke hearts eliminates the labor that comes with fresh baby artichokes, transforming this extra-special side into something you can make on the regular.
Photo By: Adrian Mueller ©2012, Adrian Mueller / AMueller.com, Cooking Channel, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Roasted Cauliflower Risotto
Risotto often plays second fiddle to pasta in the imaginations of most who dream of Italy, but rice is an important crop for the country, and many northerners eat it daily. The grain is a short one, typically arborio or carnaroli, which is cooked in broth with constant stirring, a method that releases its starches into the liquid for a finished product that’s unctuous and creamy. There are famous risotto dishes, like risi e pisi (rice and peas) of Venice, or risotto Milanese, tinged bright yellow and heady with the fragrance of saffron. But there are countless ways to prepare risotto that have no famous names attached per se, and recipes that incorporate a single vegetable are common. Here, cauliflower lends its inherent creaminess to a base of risotto, and a topping of roasted florets plus the crunch of sliced almonds makes for a special bowl, whether as a main course with salad and bread or on the side of a main course. Incidentally, this version is baked, which also eliminates the nonstop stirring.
Photo By: Antonis Achilleos
Margherita Pizza
What an exalted place in Italian cuisine sits pizza, and margherita is elevated to the top of all pizza varieties. Though historians believe mozzarella was first used on pizza before 1889, it was in that year that a pizzaiolo created this pie for the Savoy queen of the same name, and to celebrate the unification of Italy, he topped it with the tricolore, the red, white and green of the Italian flag. Thus, these three ingredients are essential to margherita: tomato sauce, mozzarella and fresh basil.
Chicken Cacciatore
Cacciatore means “in the hunter’s style,” and though you’ll see cacciatore recipes that use just thighs or just breast, using the whole chicken maintains the spirit of the dish, where it might be prepared to celebrate the capture of a whole animal (just as often rabbit). Dredging the skin in flour is a fancy touch that lends the skin on the finished dish a better texture, maintaining its integrity despite the stewing.
Photo By: Matt Armendariz ©2012, Television Food Network, GP. All Rights Reserved
Conghilie with Clams and Mussels
You’ll often find pasta with clams or other seafood on menus on Fridays across Italy, a special of the day, handed down from the traditional Catholics who still prefer not to eat meat on Fridays. Still, some of us love the dish enough to order it any day of the week. Here, Giada cleverly pairs the bivalves with shell pasta—appealing due to the riot of shells, but also because this pasta shape will catch those clams and mussels that fall out of their own shells while cooking—divine.
Tortellini with Peas and Prosciutto
Tortellini can be found all across Italy, but they are believed to have originated in Bologna, where their nickname—“umbelichi sacri,” or sacred belly buttons—harkens back to their origin story, thought to be a pasta maker so inspired by the sight of Venus’s navel that he invented a pasta shape to pay homage to it. Tortellini can be simmered in broth or tossed with sauce. Here, a very common northern Italian variation on the combination of cured pork, dairy and peas comes together in a symphony of salty and sweet, complementing the delicate flavors of the meat tortellini.
Meatball Subs
While you might occasionally see a meatball sandwich in Italy, you would never recognize it as a sub, per se; sandwiches in general in Italy are a daintier affair, as are the meatballs that land inside them. No, the huge hoagie, grinder, hero, etc., stuffed with also-huge, saucy meatballs, is a glorious creation of Italian-American excess, where more is always more. Though they are a genius leftover idea when you have a generous batch of Sunday sauce, this recipe recognizes that the itch that this particular sub scratches merits its own fresh batch of meatballs for just this purpose.
Photo By: Joseph de Leo
Chicken Piccata
Another one of the grand dishes made with cutlets, “piccata” implies the combination of lemon juice, butter, parsley and often capers (although Ina eschews those, here). It is a dish you’ll encounter in Italy, although perhaps more often with veal, and often with a different name (they’ll say simply, chicken with lemon and capers, or something of that sort). In any case, it’s a wonderful quick dish made from simple ingredients that is supremely satisfying.
Photo By: Matt Armendariz ©2014, Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved
Penne with Vodka Sauce
Though the true origins of vodka sauce elude us still, it’s undeniable that something about this queen of the pink sauces (what happens when heavy cream is added to tomato) hit big in the 1970s and 80s, and we’ve adored it ever since. In theory, the ethanol in the vodka is particularly adept at carrying aromas, which may be in part why this sauce tastes so incredibly bold. This version cooks up about as fast as it takes to boil water for pasta, so it will likely become a weeknight favorite, too.
Photo By: Antonis Achilleos
Shrimp Fra Diavolo
You can guess that a dish named for the devil is bound to pack some heat. This makes an appetizer that truly lights up a crowd. Pour some wine and have plenty of crusty bread on hand both to cool down palates and to soak up more sauce (ah, pleasure and pain).
Photo By: Armando Rafael
Taleggio and Pear Panini
In virtually every bar in Italy—remember, there, a bar is more of a café than a drinking establishment—you’ll see stacks of handmade sandwiches ready to go. Order one, and they’ll pop it on their panini press, standard-issue. The combinations of the fillings are always carefully composed to really work in a hot sandwich—something melty, something piquant, and of course, the crisp toasty bread keeping it all together. Here, the stinky—in the best way—and oozy Taleggio complements the sweetness of the pear, which itself gets an almost melting texture from the warmth of the sandwich, and the arugula lends a peppery bite. Finish it off with an espresso for the full effect.
Ribollita
Ribollita is synonymous with Tuscany, capturing the spirit of the region by bringing all of its goods together in one pot: wild greens, usually several types of cabbage and kale, white beans and tomato, and day-old bread to thicken it up. This soup typifies the glory of cucina povera, or peasant cuisine, where the ingenuity of the people, when scarcity led them to dream up dishes that are the tastiest things we can imagine today.
Photo By: VideoFocus
