21 Italian Dinner Ideas To Keep in Your Back Pocket

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.

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.

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.

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.