21 Easy, Restaurant-Worthy Italian Dinners To Make at Home

Your kitchen has never smelled so good!

By
Robin Shreeves
Robin Shreeves
Robin Shreeves
Robin Shreeves is a food and beverage writer.
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Updated December 31, 2023
Robin Shreeves

There's a reason Italian food is so popular here in America. It's just flat-out delicious. Whether a recipe is exactly like you'd find an Italian Nonna (or her grandson) making in Italy or it's an Italian American dish created by immigrants, the combinations of flavors the Italians have perfected over centuries appeal to all.

These 21 recipes all call on the Italian tradition, and you'll find them in Italian restaurants—both independent and fast casual—throughout the US. They range from irresistible tomato, cheese, and pasta casseroles and flavorful soups to everyone's favorite spaghetti and meatballs. These don't need to be relegated to restaurants.

Quick and easy gluten free eggplant parmesan served with pasta and wine.
Sally Vargas

Adding a few of these Italian recipes to your regular rotation will make your taste buds happy, your tummy happy, those you cook for happy, and you happy.

  • Bruschetta with Tomato and Basil

    Close-up, overhead photo of bruschetta with tomato and basil

    Simply Recipes / Mihaela Kozaric Sebrek

    Bruschetta at home will always be better than any restaurant starter. Blanched, peeled tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, salt and pepper. Does it get more Italian than these simple ingredients? Mixed together they become a topping for toasted baguette slices.

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  • Chicken Piccata

    Chicken Piccata

    Simply Recipes / Michelle Becker

    While this may not be a traditional dish from Italy, it's inspired by its flavors and served in many Italian restaurants. It's so easy and quick to put together that you'll serve it often. Cook flour-dredged thin chicken breasts in olive oil, white wine, and chicken stock, squeeze in some lemon, and throw on handfuls of beautiful, briny capers. In about 30 minutes, you'll have all the yumminess!

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  • Classic Minestrone Soup

    minestrone soup in bowl

    Elise Bauer

    Italians have as many recipes for minestrone as they have individual families. It's that customizable. This version has the trio of carrots, celery, and onion of course, and also fennel, potatoes, cabbage, zucchini, and tomato plus white beans. Pasta is optional but recommended.

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  • Cheese Stuffed Manicotti

    Manicotti Removed From Casserole Dish Filled With Manicotti Using a Wooden Spoon

    Simply Recipes / Ciara Kehoe

    Ricotta, parsley, and mozzarella—with a touch of lemon—create a manicotti filling that's hard to resist. Cook manicotti shells and fill them with the cheesy mixture, or make it easier by piping the filling on fresh sheets of pasta and then rolling them. Then bake with seasoned tomato sauce for a satisfying Italian feast.

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    Continue to 5 of 21 below.

  • Spaghetti and Meatballs

    Platter of Spaghetti and Meatballs With a Piece of Toasted Bread and Topped With Fresh Basil Leaves, and in the Surroundings, a Burgundy Table Napkin, a Bowl of Parmesan, Bite Size Bread Pieces Scattered on the Table, and a Plate With More Spaghetti and Meatballs

    Simply Recipes / Ciara Kehoe

    Adding mushrooms keeps these beef and pork meatballs from drying out. Cremini mushrooms are in both the meatballs and the sauce. Make the sauce. Make and brown the meatballs. Then finish the meatballs in the sauce, mingling them together for maximum flavor. Spoon over pasta and make everyone happy.

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  • Easy Tuscan Bean Soup

    Tuscan Bean Soup

    Simply Recipes / Sheryl Julian

    In Italy, simmering pots of soup are plentiful in homes throughout the country. This version makes use of canned beans to make a little less work of it all, but it's still a robust Italian-inspired soup with plenty of vegetables that begs for a topping of Parmesan cheese.

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  • Potato Gnocchi From Scratch

    Potato Gnocchi

    Simply Recipes / Sally Vargas

    Gnocchi is easy to make and needs no special equipment. Bake potatoes, then mash them and work in flour, egg yolks, and salt. Roll into long cylinders and cut into 1-inch pieces. Then cook or freeze to serve with any sauce such as Butternut Squash Parmesan Sauce.

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  • Osso Buco

    osco busco in a dutch oven with a serving spoon
    Elise Bauer

    This Italian dish of braised veal shanks gets the flavor for its rich sauce from the marrow of the shank bone. Brown the shanks in fat rendered from pancetta and then sauté carrots, celery, and onion in the fat of both. Then add wine and simmer it all for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. It's not difficult, but it does take time. Serve with gremolata.

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    Continue to 9 of 21 below.

  • Skillet Eggplant Parmesan

    Skillet Eggplant Topped With Fresh Basil in a Cast Iron Skillet With a Spoon, and in the Surroundings, a Bowl of Salad Greens, a Bowl of Garlic Bread, and a Mint Kitchen Linen on the Handle of the Cast Iron Skillet

    Simply Recipes / Micah Siva

    Why make eggplant Parm in a skillet instead of the traditional baked method? You'll have a much easier cleanup because you bread and fry the eggplant in the same skillet you cook the whole dish in. You'll need an oven-safe skillet—like a cast iron skillet—because it has to go from stovetop to oven.

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  • Eggplant Parmesan

    Baked eggplant parmesan in a casserole dish.
    Ciara Kehoe

    When you need to serve a crowd, go for the classic. As opposed to frying on the stovetop, these eggplant rounds are roasted in the oven before assembling the casserole, which makes far less of a mess. Don't skip salting the eggplant first to drain its moisture, or you'll end up with a soggy mess.

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  • Antipasto Salad

    Spoonful of Dressing Poured Onto Antipasto Salad in a Bowl, and in the Surroundings, a Robbin Egg Colored Kitchen Towel, a Bowl With More Green Olives, and a Jar With More Dressing

    Simply Recipes / Mihaela Kozaric Sebrek

    Entrees are great and all, but don't overlook how well received a good starter can be. Antipasto salad is hearty and perfect for sharing. Most of the work is chopping and assembly.

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  • The Best Homemade Lasagna

    Side view of a piece of lasagna on a plate.
    Cambrea Bakes

    Easy in the eye of the beholder, right? Some may find building this lasagna from scratch easier than buying a sub-par store-bought version that's so very disappointing. Taking the time to make this ooey, gooey, scrumptious lasagna does not disappoint, especially if you freeze half of it (it freezes really well) and have a second lasagna dinner with no work at all!

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    Continue to 13 of 21 below.

  • Baked Ziti

    Oval baking dish filled with a cheesy pasta bake
    Cambrea Bakes

    Baked ziti has many of the attributes you love about lasagna but with less fuss. Choose your favorite—ground pork, beef, or veal—for this version that's bursting with mozzarella, ricotta, and Parmesan. Use store-bought or homemade pasta sauce.

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  • Stracciatella alla Romana

    Italian Egg Drop Soup
    Elise Bauer

    Sometimes referred to as Italian egg drop soup because of its resemblance to Chinese egg drop soup, Stracciatella is full of hot chicken broth, and drop dumpling-noodles of beaten egg, Parmesan cheese, spinach, and panko. It's ready to serve in just 20 minutes.

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  • Italian Meatballs

    Baked Meatballs in Tomato Sauce served in a bowl
    Elise Bauer

    Meatballs don't have to be the partner to pasta or a hot sandwich filling. They can be a dish all of their own, and these meatballs are perfect for just that. Made with ground beef and pork, ricotta, Parmesan, fresh bread soaked in warm milk, and the rest of the usual meatball ingredient suspects, you tuck them in homemade or store-bought sauce to finish cooking them.

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  • Risi e Bisi

    Risi e Bisi Italian Rice and Peas
    Elise Bauer

    Risi e bisi is Italian for rice and peas. This Venetian, risotto-like dish also has ham, either in the form of diced prosciutto or other dry ham, and gets finished with plenty of Parmesan cheese and parsley.

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    Continue to 17 of 21 below.

  • Classic Bolognese Sauce

    Pasta with bolognese sauce on a white plate.
    Sally Vargas

    A good Bolognese sauce is a thing of great beauty. Simmer slowly for 2 hours with onions, carrots, celery, clove, cinnamon, tomatoes, milk, and meat such as beef or pork. Serve it over fresh pasta or your favorite cooked dried pasta.

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  • Pasta e Fagioli

    pasta fagioli soup in bowl
    Elise Bauer

    This traditional peasant soup is full of beans and pasta plus vegetables and tomatoes. Made with chicken stock, leftovers get thicker after refrigeration because the pasta absorbs the stock, but it's still delicious either way.

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  • Linguine With Clam Sauce

    linguine and clams on a blue plate
    Elise Bauer

    This red-sauced version of the classic Italian American linguine dish uses both fresh and canned clams. It gets a punch of flavor from some fennel and a little dash of anise liqueur. Serve with crusty Italian bread to sop up all the yummy sauce.

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  • Caponata

    how to make Caponata
    Elise Bauer

    This versatile Italian relish can be a pasta sauce, a dip, or a spread. Made with eggplant, onions, garlic, tomatoes, pine nuts, olives, raisins, capers, parsley, vinegar, sugar, and basil, then cook then cool the ingredients before serving.

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    Continue to 21 of 21 below.

  • Pasta Puttanesca

    Pasta Puttanesca
    Elise Bauer

    Quick puttanesca uses pantry staples: canned tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, canned anchovies, and jarred olives and capers. Garlic, onion, and oregano season the sauce that's traditionally served with spaghetti.

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