Italian Recipes
1418 recipes found
Fettuccine With Asparagus
Finding a 30-minute dish that's elegant enough for a dinner party is no simple task, but this warm-weather pasta is one to fit the bill. It is gleefully easy to put together. Just toss slices of blanched asparagus with a tangle of cooked fettuccine slicked with butter. Shower with grated Parmesan and serve.
Pork Chops, Milan Style
Craig Claiborne’s Polenta
Classic Pesto
Classic Polenta
Tomato Risotto
Once you master the risotto technique, you can make flavorful versions throughout the year. This summery version is based on red, ripe tomatoes from the garden, but if you want to up the tomato quotient, surround the finished dish with slices of multicolored heirloom varieties. Best as a first course or vegetarian main course, it could also pair with a main course — grilled fish, for instance.
Pasta With Marinated Tomatoes and Summer Herbs
The easiest summer dinner known to man, pasta con salsa crudo, is a one-bowl, infinitely variable riot of seasonal flavors. It can be made with fancy Italian tuna and local heirloom tomatoes for foodies, or with supermarket mozzarella and tomatoes for children, or with excellent olives and extra pine nuts for vegetarians. It puts you in the kitchen for about a half-hour at the tail end of lunchtime. After that, all there is to do is cook the pasta, and serve with or without crusty bread, boiled corn, sliced tomatoes, or a nice, simple green salad.
Zucchini Parmesan
This is a simple layered casserole with three elements: roasted zucchini, a really good homemade tomato sauce and Parmesan. Roasting, rather than frying the zucchini, allows you to cut down on olive oil and time.
Brodo di Pollo con Pastina (Chicken Soup With Pastina)
Pastina means “tiny pasta,” and it’s often the first pasta shape Italian children are introduced to, typically cooked in broth. Pastina comes in a variety of shapes, like little stars and rounds. For this recipe, you can use any tiny shape you like, or use noodles broken into small pieces. Typically, the pastina is precooked in a separate pot and added to each soup bowl alongside shredded chicken, but this version cooks everything together for an easy one-pot meal. And this comforting chicken soup does not require premade or even store-bought broth: Instead, boneless, skinless chicken breasts cook in water with aromatics like onion, carrots, celery and garlic — and a good drizzle of olive oil — for a rich, flavorful broth that comes together fairly quickly.
Broccoli With Anchovies and Garlic
Admit it. Broccoli, that ubiquitous vegetable side dish, gets old. This take, which Pierre Franey brought to The Times in 1987 as part of his 60-Minute Gourmet column, will not. It is not much different – and no more difficult – than your standard broccoli sauté except for the addition of anchovies. If that word normally frightens you, fear not. Here, they are barely detectable as such, but provide a complex salinity that salt alone cannot. You'll never eat boring broccoli again.
Sheet-Pan Sausage Parmesan With Garlicky Broccoli
Using quarter sheet pans (small rimmed baking pans measuring about 12 inches by 9 inches) allows you to cook your main course and side dish at the same time in the same oven, but without the mixing of flavors that would happen if you combined everything in one large pan. So the sausage juices can mingle with the tomato sauce and melted cheese, without compromising the roasted garlicky broccoli to serve alongside. You can use hot or sweet Italian sausages here, or a combination – as long as you can remember which is which for serving.
Meatball and Sausage Casserole
As the grandfather of six oft-hungry children, Pierre Franey sought to develop dishes that would “capture their attention.” This hearty, kid-friendly casserole of meatballs, sausage, onions, peppers and mushrooms did not disappoint. It's sort of a cross between a casserole and a stew, and can be served over pasta or polenta, or with a huge hunk of bread to sop up the herb-y tomato sauce. If you'd like, you can easily substitute ground chicken, turkey, pork or veal for the beef in the meatballs (or any combination of them all). The meatballs are seasoned with Parmesan cheese, nutmeg, cumin, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper. Depending on the composition of the meatballs, you might want to try other favorite spices, too, like ginger, coriander seed or fennel.
Creamy One-Pot Pasta With Chicken and Mushrooms
Cooking pasta the way you would make risotto may sound new and hip. But it’s at least old enough to have been demonstrated to me in Rome in 1976, and I imagine as old as pasta itself. In this method, the liquid is minimized: there’s no need for a gallon per pound of pasta. The liquid is added gradually to the pasta, which absorbs it completely and thereby retains its starch. This makes the pasta creamy and rich; it also gains the flavor of the stock. You can use pretty much any pasta shape you like, but timing will vary depending on size. This approach may seem like more work than making pasta in the ordinary way. But as the making of the “sauce” is integrated into the pasta-cooking, it really becomes a one-dish meal — as interesting as risotto, and even a bit quicker. Here is a combination of gemelli with mushrooms and chicken to get you started.
Skillet Lasagna With Spinach and Summer Squash
Lasagna in the summer? It’s fine food for those long, breezy summer days when you need to fill your belly without turning on the oven. This one-pan stovetop lasagna is a true crowd-pleaser, with rich tomato, oozing cheese and just enough squash and spinach to skip salad for the night. Using no-cook lasagna, you can cook this entirely over a low flame, covered. (Use foil if you don’t have a lid that fits your pan.) Be sure to start with a well-seasoned cast-iron pan, and never let the tomato sauce boil, which can be hard on your pan and on the flavor of your sauce. If your cast-iron seasoning isn’t in tip-top shape, try this in a stainless-steel skillet instead; you’ll still get all the depth and aroma, and that same stove-to-table ease that will make this a repeat meal all year long.
Chicken Marsala and Mushrooms
Served over a tangle of linguine or with side of roast potatoes, this classic Italian-American dish made with chicken breasts, mushrooms and Marsala wine is comfort home cooking at its absolute best. Good news: It's also weeknight easy. First, pound boneless chicken breasts (you can use boneless thighs, too, but they might need a little more cooking time) with a mallet or a rolling pin until they're about 1/4-inch thick. Season them generously with salt and pepper, dredge in flour and fry in a little olive oil until they're golden brown. Make a quick sauce of mushrooms, shallots and Marsala and pour it over the chicken. Garnish with a little chopped parsley or chervil for color. That's good eating.
Chicken Puttanesca
Classic Italian puttanesca sauce is typically served over pasta, but it is paired with chicken in this comforting weeknight dish. Chicken thighs are browned, then set aside while you assemble a simple but bold tomato sauce made with briny capers and olives, salty anchovies and spicy red-pepper flakes. Serve the chicken over rice, orzo or egg noodles, with a hunk of bread to round out the meal.
Elaine’s Fettuccine Alfredo
This recipe came to The Times in a 2004 article about Elaine Kaufman, the founder and proprietress of the famed New York restaurant and celebrity hot spot that bore her name and where this dish was served. There is nothing fancy or complicated about it — it’s glorified macaroni and cheese, really — but it is delicious and deeply satisfying. (Fun fact: Jackie O. was a fan.)
Spaghetti all'Assassina (Spicy Singed Tomato Pasta)
This spicy one-pot pasta dish is common on menus in Bari, Italy, but can easily be prepared at home. Like many classic dishes, there are a couple versions of its origin story. According to one, a distracted chef accidentally left his pasta cooking until the sauce burned, while another attributes the recipe title to the dish’s killer spiciness. The method involves treating spaghetti as you would risotto: Heat some garlic, red-pepper flakes and tomato paste in oil, then add the pasta and cook it gently, slowly adding tomato broth little by little. Once the pasta soaks up the flavorful liquid, it starts to char. Bari is famous for serving this dish extra “piccante,” but at home, you can make it as mild or spicy as you wish.
Spaghetti With Burrata and Garlic-Chile Oil
Burrata — a cousin of mozzarella with a creamy core — is a splurge, but it does all the heavy lifting in this simple dish, adding a rich finish that renders a basic bowl of whole-wheat noodles sophisticated. A spicy-sweet seasoned oil made by sautéing fennel, garlic and red-pepper flakes in good-quality olive oil over low heat is drizzled over the top, complementing the velvety texture of the cheese and the nuttiness of the noodles.
Midnight Pasta With Anchovies, Garlic and Tomato
Tomato paste gives this speedy midnight pasta, studded with anchovy and garlic, its color and umami. If you’re not an anchovy fan, you can substitute a few tablespoons of chopped capers or olives. Be generous when adding the pasta water to the pan. The mixture should look soupy at first, but the sauce will thicken up as you toss.
Pasta With Green Puttanesca
Puttanesca is a sauce that plies its trade all year round, with ingredients — pantry staples like anchovies, garlic and olives — at the ready whenever the desire strikes. But this puttanesca takes advantage of spring greens, using fat green garlic cloves and baby spinach to lend a pungent verdancy to a tried-and-true dish. (If green garlic isn’t available, use regular, but use less.)
Pasta With Brown Butter and Parmesan
Sometimes you just want a big bowl of pasta with butter and Parmesan. Starchy, silky and salty, it’s always good — and practically foolproof. To make it a little more grown up, just take it one step further: Brown the butter. When you slide the butter into the skillet, let it cook until the milk solids turn a toasty brown. It adds a rich, nutty flavor that makes the dish a bit more sophisticated with very little extra work.
One-Pot Pasta With Sausage and Spinach
This is the one-pot recipe to make when chopping an onion feels like too much work. Cooking the pasta in a combination of passata (puréed raw tomatoes) and water seasoned with cumin and red-pepper flakes infuses it with flavor all the way through. Cumin adds a subtle earthiness to the dish, but you can also use the same seasonings as those in the sausage you’ve chosen, like dried oregano, thyme, basil, paprika, fennel seeds or garlic. (Check the ingredients list on the package, if you're not sure.) Baby arugula, kale or other leafy greens could be substituted for the spinach, just make sure to tear or cut them into small, bite-size pieces. To make a vegetarian version, you could use mushrooms in place of the sausage at the start of the recipe, then continue with the rest.
Penne al Baffo (Creamy Tomato-Ham Pasta)
“Al Baffo” is said to be the abbreviated version of an Italian expression “da leccarsi i baffi,” which translates to “it is so good you’ll lick your whiskers,” because the sauce is abundant, thick and creamy. Tomato, ham and cream come together in this simple pasta sauce to form a comforting and easy weeknight meal. Cooked ham (as Italians call it, “prosciutto cotto”), is a hearty addition, as it provides texture and necessary salt. This recipe calls for deli ham, but you can substitute prosciutto or even pancetta if the mood strikes. An extra shower of Parmigiano before serving is a must for this filling meal.