Last updated on November 1st, 2024
Do you struggle to make delicious meals when you come home from a busy day and don’t already have a plan for dinner? Never find yourself in this position again!
With these 20 essential Italian ingredients to stock in your kitchen pantry, you can easily whip up basic yet wholesome and quick Italian dinners in no time.
These basic ingredients will allow you to pivot easily and get inspired with simple ingredients that most Italians already have in their kitchens.
Let’s take a look at the 20 essential Italian ingredients to stock in your kitchen pantry. I’ll show you:
- how each ingredient is used in Italian cooking
- recipes to get you started
- why each is important to the basics of Italian cooking.
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Essential Italian Ingredients To Stock In Your Kitchen Pantry
These main Italian ingredients are items I always pick up at the grocery store, being sure to keep my pantry well stocked. This way, when I come back from a trip, a long day or am uninspired to cook, I can whip up a healthy and wholesome Italian dinner with little at hand.
Pasta
How To Use It: Cook dried pasta brands al dente and dress with a sauce made from other essential Italian ingredients that you would find in an Italian kitchen such as Fresh Pomodoro Sauce or Aglione Sauce.
With pasta you can do anything in Italy (or so the nonne or grandmothers always preach). Dried pasta is one of the main ingredients in Italian cooking, one that is used almost everyday. Keep several packages of spaghetti, short pasta such as penne and even mini pasta shapes such as orzo to add to soups and stews.
Learn More: Read all about popular Italian pasta and sauces.
Rice
How To Use It: Risotto or in minestrone
Rice is a popular ingredient in Italian cooking, especially in northern Italian regions. They eat it almost everyday as their primo or first course.
Similar to pasta, rice dishes in Italy often reflect seasonal and locally available ingredients.
During winter, you might encounter risotto al barolo (red wine risotto) or risotto con radicchio (radicchio risotto) in Venice.
In contrast, spring and summer favorites like risotto con piselli e zucchine (with peas or zucchini).
Legumes
How To Use It: In Italian Lentil Soup, Homemade Tuscan White Beans, or Homerun Italian Cannellini Beans Recipes.
Legumes play a significant role in the Mediterranean diet and Italian cuisine, making them a staple Italian ingredient to stock in your kitchen pantry. They are highly nutritious, packed with protein, and can be dried to use year round. They are the base for many vegan and vegetarian dishes to make and try while in Italy.
Garlic
How To Use It: The base for many Italian recipes in soffritto, the base for many famous Italian foods.
Garlic is one of the defining flavors of Italian cooking. When you seem to have nothing in your kitchen but garlic, oil and pasta, you can have a delicious meal in store for you.
Wine
How To Use It: Authentic Chicken Cacciatore and Brunelleschi’s Peposo: The Easiest Italian Stew to Learn to Make at Home.
Wine adds such an element of flavor to cooking good food, making it one of my essential Italian ingredients to stock in your kitchen pantry. Use it to deglaze pans when making a roast, pasta sauce, pan cooked fish or even sauteed vegetables.
Onion
How To Use It: In soups, soffritto, egg dishes, bean dishes or kale recipes. It’s the base to any basic Italian recipe.
Onion is an indispensable ingredient in Italian cooking, essential for creating a meal from almost nothing. Sauté some onion with spicy pepper, garlic, and olive oil to make a flavorful, simple sauce that can enhance so many seasonal ingredients.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
How To Use It: Drizzle it, cook with it or even bake with it. Use your best olive oil in Fettunta or Authentic Italian Bruschetta.
You really aren’t going to get very far if you don’t have extra-virgin olive oil in your kitchen as an Italian cook. It’s what Italians pride themselves (and their cooking) on.
More On Olive Oil: Learn all the ways to use it in How Italians Cook with Olive Oil and be sure you are storing it correctly!
Parmesan Cheese
Recommended Recipe: Minestrone, Stuffed Tomatoes With Rice and Italian Kale Pesto Recipe.
Parmigiano-Reggiano can even take a plate of buttered pasta to the next level. Grate a little on the top of any first course meal or add the parmesan rind when cooking to instantly achieve a new level of flavor and complexity.
Carrots
How To Use Them: In soffritto, roasted with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar or Italian Lentil Salad With Roasted Vegetables – The Best Lunch For Working Moms.
Carrots are one of the three holy trinity ingredients important to any Italian recipe, along with onion and celery. My Italian mother-in-law always says, “If you have a vegetable, you have a meal” so always keep a bunch of carrots in your fridge.
Bread
How To Use It: Ribollita or pappa al pomodoro, cavolo nero crostini or cheese and sausage crostini.
With fresh bread, you can turn anything into a meal. The tradition of breadmaking has been integral to Italian culture since ancient times and continues to be one of the most cherished practices in Italy today. Slice fresh bread and keep it in your freezer so you are never without.
Bread Lovers: Read our comprehensive guide to bread in Bread in Italy – Types of Italian Breads & Where to Eat Them for in-depth descriptions, details and where to find various regional breads in Italy.
Herbs
How To Use Them: Add last minute before serving to sauces that have been cooking for a while such as stews, salads or roasts. Try making Italian Peas With Bacon, Tuscan Bean Salad, Authentic Italian Pizza Sauce, and Italian Gremolata.
Italians love to use both fresh and dried herbs to bring life to their cooking, making it one of the main ingredients in Italian cooking. Dried herbs are rarely preferred over fresh but it’s good to keep a bit of dried sage, thyme, rosemary and oregano on hand for when fresh herbs aren’t available.
Lemons
How To Use It: Italian Pastry Cream, salad dressings or right before serving soups and stews.
Adding a squeeze of lemon or a bit of lemon zest to any dish will immediately brighten up the flavor, making them an essential Italian ingredient to stock in your kitchen pantry.
Breadcrumbs
How To Use It: In meatballs or stuffed vegetables or for frying
Breadcrumbs come in handy in Italian cooking for creating stuffings for summer vegetables, in meatballs, with fish or for coating vegetables and poultry for frying.
Flour
How To Use It: In Apple cake, desserts, cookies and to make sauces, pasta and pizza.
Flour is a staple in cooking Italian food. In Italy, it’s one of the main ingredients in Italian cooking for famous foods such as pasta and pizza. Keep 00 flour and semolina on hand.
Canned Tomatoes
How To Use It: In lentil soup, stew or other Italian dinner recipes, tomato sauce and authentic chicken cacciatore.
Italians always prefer fresh tomatoes when possible in the summer but in the off season, canned tomatoes are a good second choice, making it an essential Italian ingredient to stock in your kitchen pantry.
Dried Mushrooms
How To Use It: In stews, soups, pasta dishes, polenta, or hearty meat dishes in the winter.
Dried mushrooms are absolutely one of the main ingredients in Italian cooking. Having dried porcini mushrooms allows you to doctor staples like pasta, polenta or rice.
Italian Tuna
How To Use It: Italian Tuna Salad or served as is.
Italian tuna is an essential Italian ingredient to stock in your kitchen pantry. It can be served cold alongside other summer dishes such as caprese salad, prosciutto and melon, cheese and charcuterie when it’s hot out, used in salads and even in pasta with capers, onions and olives.
Capers
How To Use It: Salsa Verde or Tuscan Salsa Verde or using it to make pizza or pasta sauces.
Capers come either packed in salt or in vinegar. Either way you choose to keep them, they will bring a ton of flavor to your Italian table, making them an essential Italian ingredient to stock in your kitchen pantry.
Anchovies
How To Use It: In stews such as White Chicken Cacciatore, on pizza, in salads or dressings
Anchovies are in many more recipes than you might think, especially southern Italian recipes. Oftentimes, they are fried in a bit of olive oil and then cooked with meat, thrown in a salad, baked with vegetables or added to stews.
Olives
How To Use It: In Italian Fennel and Orange Salad or White Chicken Cacciatore or served with your aperitivo.
Every region in Italy produces its own olive oil and olives. Olives can be added to so many Italian recipes, adding a salty, briny bite including in pasta sauces, on salads, on pizza or stewed into roasted meats.
Other Essential Italian Ingredients To Stock In Your Kitchen Pantry
Here is a brief list of additional Italian ingredients to stock in your kitchen pantry. I don’t include them in the main list because they are regional ingredients, meaning you may not find them in every pantry across all 20 regions.
Having these items readily available can enhance your Italian cooking experience and expand upon your flexibility with recipes but are they by no means essential ingredients to stock in your kitchen pantry:
- Aceto balsamico di Modena – balsamic vinegar from Modena
- Peperoni cruschi – dried spicy red peppers
- Pinoli/noci – pine nuts or walnuts
- Burro – butter
- Polenta – polenta or corn flour
Nuts for Nuts: Check out my guide to Italian Nuts!
If you are just learning how to cook, you may be interested in Best Italian Cookbooks for Beginners and Italian Cooking Tools.
