Italian Dinner Recipes

FAQS

Tips for Cooking Italian?

1. Quality ingredients create much better Italian dishes.
2. Using fresh herbs makes a huge difference. In general, 1 teaspoon of dried herbs = 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs. Fresh basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary, mint, and thyme will all grow in your kitchen, can’t get any fresher than that!
3. Quality cheese. Parmesan cheese, mozzarella, and ricotta are other ingredients you should invest in. Avoid pre-shredded packaged cheese.
4. Taste as you go. Add seasoning according to taste rather than an allotted amount. Give enough time for simmering for flavors to incorporate before adding more. 

Pasta Tips?

1. Don’t overcook your pasta. Al dente is usually the preferred cook.
2. Don’t discard the pasta water. The starchy leftover water can be used to thicken sauces.
3. Sauces. Another key to perfect pasta is to learn which pasta goes best with the dish.
   • Light sauces. Thin long noodles like spaghetti, angel hair, capellini, and spaghettini.
   • Creamy hearty sauces. Flat long noodles like fettuccine, linguine, tagliatelle, pappardelle, and lasagna noodles as well as short-shaped pasta like farfalle (bow tie), conchiglie, fusilli, gemelli, orecchiette, rotelle (wagon wheel), rotini, cavatelli and campanelle.
   • Light fluid sauces. Long tube noodles like perciatelli and bucatini.
   • Soups, salads, casseroles, and pasta dishes. Short tube pasta like penne, rigatoni, ziti, cavatappi, and campanelle.
   • Creamier bakes, soups, and pasta salads. Small tube pasta like macaroni and ditalini.