Italian Recipes
1418 recipes found
Stracciatella With Spinach
This light, classic Roman soup may be all you want to eat for a few days after Thanksgiving. It’s traditionally made with chicken stock, but why not use turkey stock instead?
Spaghetti al Limone With Shrimp
There are many interpretations of the classic Italian pasta dish, spaghetti al limone, or spaghetti with lemon. Some call for an Alfredo-like sauce made with heavy cream, butter and Parmesan, while others rely on just olive oil, lemon juice, Parmesan and starchy pasta water. This particular recipe, which adds sautéed shrimp, white wine and fresh tarragon to the mix, leans toward the simpler preparation. Without the addition of heavy cream, the sauce has a brighter lemon flavor, which works beautifully with the delicate brininess of the shrimp. Tarragon adds a fragrant note and a bit of complexity to an otherwise fairly straightforward dish. Finally, if there were a time to spring for freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, this would be it. In an uncomplicated recipe like this one, the quality of each ingredient is paramount.
Lemony Pasta With Zucchini and Fresh Herbs
This simple pasta comes together quickly and makes use of what can sometimes be an overwhelming bumper crop of zucchini and other summer squash come August. Browning the squash in two batches is the only semi-fussy request, and it pays off by giving the squash an almost crunchy texture. Lemon and an abundance of fresh herbs provide brightness to this soon-to-be summer staple. Serve it with a tomato and onion salad dressed with plenty of grassy olive oil.
Zucchini Carpaccio
Raw zucchini has a fresh, green flavor that is lost when the vegetable is cooked. Excellent olive oil and fresh lemon juice make the perfect dressing to bathe the slices in; the acid softens and flavors the zucchini. After the nuts and/or herbs, the garnishes are all optional. Try them in any combination, or play around with others: cracked black pepper, crushed pink peppercorns or crumbled dried chiles.
Zucchini With Shallots
This simple dish from Pierre Franey is light and delicious. It takes only 15 minutes and would be a great side dish for grilled beef or chicken or for any type of seafood. The bread crumbs added at the end provide excellent texture.
Fettuccine With Zucchini
Beautiful, glossy zucchini from the farm stand are to be treasured. Here they are diced, sautéed until tender, bolstered with garlic, pine nuts and Grana Padano, and mingled with fresh pasta.
Lasagna With Spinach and Roasted Zucchini
You may think of lasagna as a rich, heavy dish, but it needn’t be. There’s no need to compensate for the absence of a traditional Bolognese sauce by packing these casseroles with pounds of ricotta and grated cheese. Some of each of those elements is welcome, but I cut the usual amounts by half in this recipe, and it was plenty satisfying. You can get ahead on lasagna by making up big batches of marinara sauce and freezing it, or in a pinch use a good commercial brand. The noodles are no-boil, which really makes these lasagnas easy to assemble. They can be made ahead and reheated, or frozen.
Zucchini Frico
It may be daunting to imagine, but this dish is really quite simple. All you do is take some good hard cheese, grate it, spread it in a nonstick pan and let it melt until it turns golden. Montasio is traditional, but Parmesan, asiago or a young, not too salty pecorino will all work well, too, so use whatever you have. You can form frico into small individual crackers for neater serving, or you can make one large cracker the size of your pan and break it apart as you devour it. Frico on its own doesn’t need much embellishment. All it truly requires is a chilled cocktail or a glass of Italian white wine served alongside. But this one incorporates zucchini. First, I browned thin rounds of zucchini in olive oil, then I topped them with the cheese and let them cook. It took only five minutes, plus another minute or so to let the cheese crisp up after I turned it out of the pan.
Zucchini Agrodolce
Wherever the sun is powerful, it has been used to dry local produce. Sundried zucchini are commonly found in the markets in southern Italy, and this sweet-sour marinade, agrodolce, comes from even farther south, in Sicily. The flesh of the zucchini becomes dense and meaty when dried and, after frying, the slices perfectly soak up the aromatic, piquant, lively marinade. Served with slices of sopressata and a fresh orb of burrata, this dish is a delicious addition to an antipasto course. If you can use the sun to dry the zucchini where you live, do so; for the rest of us, the oven in your kitchen will do the trick.
Creamy Pasta With Roasted Zucchini, Almonds and Basil
Whole-grain pasta offerings on supermarket shelves have expanded with gusto. Unlike the gluey, good-for-you-but-not-your-tastebuds pastas of yore, the best whole-grain brands are firm-textured and tasty. The warm, nutty flavor of varieties like these is robust enough to stand up to intense, complicated sauces, yet satisfying with just a little butter and Parmesan shaved over the top. Here, pasta with creamy goat cheese and a bite of citrus is enough to keep even the most staunch of whole-wheat opponents satisfied.
Summer Squash Caponata
Caponata, a sweet and sour vegetable dish of Sicilian origin, is usually made with eggplant, but this version is made with zucchini and yellow squash, and dotted with capers and olives. Served at room temperature, caponata often graces the antipasto table at restaurants, but it can also be a main course or a side dish. At home, it can top crostini, a perfect accompaniment to drinks. For a picnic, serve it with good canned tuna and hard-cooked eggs.
Pasta Alla Norma
This traditional Sicilian pasta dish of sautéed eggplant tossed with tomato sauce and topped with ricotta salata makes for a satisfying vegetarian dinner, and it can be thrown together in under an hour.
Eggplant Caponata
Caponata became part of Sicilian cooking centuries ago, when the island was under Arab rule. The Arabs brought eggplants and sugar, along with citrus and spices. Other versions of caponata contain raisins and pine nuts; this one has capers and green olives. Some cooks add a lot of tomato, but I prefer just a touch of good tomato paste. The seasoning is sweet, sour and salty, and laced with olive oil. Like pickles and other savory preserves, caponata is often made in quantity and stored in jars for use throughout the year. Serve it on little toasts as an appetizer or to accompany a meal.
Eggplant Focaccia With Ricotta and Olives
A generous amount of olive oil in the dough gives this flatbread its especially crisp edges, and a soft, bready crumb. The topping, a mix of thinly sliced eggplant slathered with garlic-imbued olive oil and minced olives, is silky, rich and very flavorful — even without the optional (but excellent) anchovies. Just as good devoured warm from the oven and as it is at room temperature, this makes perfect picnic fare. Or serve it with a leafy salad for a light but satisfying dinner.
The Best Fried-Eggplant Sandwich
In the spring of 2016, my most favorite sandwich was fried eggplant, mozzarella and roast beef on an Italian hero, with hot peppers and a slash of mayonnaise. I adapted the recipe from a sandwich served at Defonte’s Sandwich Shop, on Columbia Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It is a beautiful torpedo of food, crunchy, silken, sweet and spicy all at once. You can certainly omit the roast beef to make it vegetarian or at any rate a little smaller, the sort of meal that offers satisfaction without hurting anyone, that delivers deliciousness at a lower cost to the body that consumes it. It is still a colossal feed. It is still the best sandwich.
Crunchy Eggplant Parmesan
In most eggplant Parmesan recipes, crusty slices of fried eggplant go into a casserole with sauce and cheese -- where they quickly turn to sludge. This recipe holds on to the crunch by transforming each whole eggplant into a crisp cutlet. You can make one eggplant per person to serve this as an appetizer, or add a bed of pasta to make it more substantial. There's no Parmesan cheese in this recipe, but that's not a mistake: in Italian the phrase "alla Parmigiana" refers to a style of dish. It doesn't refer to Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Eggplant Caponata Pasta With Ricotta and Basil
This weeknight pasta is inspired by traditional caponata, a tangy, salty-sweet Italian dish made with sautéed eggplant, tomatoes, caramelized onions, capers, anchovies, olives and vinegar. Though caponata is often served as a side, salad or relish, this eggplant sauté forms the foundation of a hearty vegetarian pasta. For the best results, taste and season your eggplant mixture with salt and pepper as you cook little by little. It should taste quite salty and tangy on its own, but will mellow when tossed with pasta, pasta water and creamy ricotta.
Baked Eggplant With Ricotta, Mozzarella and Anchovy
I learned this dish from a Sicilian cook in a small town outside Palermo. She makes it by layering thinly sliced eggplant with fresh curd cheese and caciocavallo (I use fresh ricotta and provolone instead), as well as pecorino and Parmesan cheese — a bit like a lasagna without pasta. It is quite delicious and unusual in that there is no tomato sauce, as there often is in so many Sicilian baked eggplant dishes. The anchovies, melted into the crisp bread-crumb-and-cheese topping, provide a sharp contrast to the sweetness of the eggplant. I like to serve a tomato salad alongside.
Pasta al Pomodoro
Pomodoro, the Italian word for tomato, comes from pomo d’oro (“golden apple”), and also refers to this sauce. A good pomodoro leans into the inherently savory, umami-rich flavor of the tomatoes, so use the best ones you can find. Any combination of low-water, high-flavor tomatoes like plum, grape, cherry and Campari, cooked down to their purest essence, makes for the most vibrant result. Thin spaghetti works best here, as its airy bounciness catches the pulpy tomato sauce beautifully, but regular spaghetti would taste great, too. Add basil at the end, if you’d like, or a dusting of cheese, but a stalwart pasta al pomodoro made with peak-season tomatoes needs neither.
Pasta With Fresh Tomato Sauce and Ricotta
This wonderful pasta is made with nothing more than fresh tomato sauce and good ricotta, plus a little pecorino. It’s most delicious if you keep the pasta quite al dente; use just enough sauce, no more; give it a good pinch of crushed red pepper; and season it with enough salt of course.
Pasta With Asparagus, Arugula and Ricotta
This recipe works best if you use thin asparagus and peppery wild arugula, available at some farmers’ markets.
Linguine With Asparagus Pesto
Asparagus dresses this spring pasta in pastel green. Use the stems to make a finely ground pestolike mixture with garlic, olive oil and cheese; reserve the tips for quickly cooking and then tossing into the skillet with the linguine and sauce just before serving.
Fast Tomato Sauce With Anchovies
Despite their reputation, anchovies are not overpowering, at least once cooked. Used with garlic as the start of a fast pasta sauce, they dissolve almost instantly and add a mysteriously meaty complexity that makes the sauce seem as if it had simmered for hours. Tossed with linguine and arugula, they make a simple dish sophisticated. If you're feeding a crowd, it doubles or triples beautifully.
Fettuccine With Asparagus and Smoked Salmon
Fresh pasta, asparagus and smoked salmon are tossed with shallot cream sauce in this elegant weeknight dinner that can be prepared in well under an hour.