Italian Christmas Cookies To Try (That We Actually Make And Eat In Italy)

Last updated on January 12th, 2025

Whether you’re visiting Italy during Christmas and looking to chow down on some of the best cookies around or you’re hoping to expand your baking repertoire and add some traditional Italian cookies to your recipe box – this list of authentic Italian cookies is where you want to start!

Our family has been celebrating Christmas in Italy since 2012, and you can bet that with four kids, we do a fair amount of cookie baking and eating.

Let’s look at:

the most traditional Italian Christmas cookies and their characteristics
where to try them
which Italian Christmas cookies are easiest to make based on first hand experience
cookies you won’t see at Italian Christmas meals

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Eating Traditional Italian Cookies

Window display at pastry shop in Venice, Italy. Woman behind window working to serve customers.

Typically, cookies are not eaten for dessert in Italy. Instead, they are enjoyed for merenda or a snack or even for breakfast in Italy. On Natale, however, cookies are served for dessert in Italy along with other classic Italian Christmas desserts.

Most of these traditional Italian Christmas cookies are now made year round but historically, they were only made for the holidays.

Cavalucci

Cavallucci are soft cookies from Siena, originally baked only for the Christmas season. While today they come filled with various nuts and fruits, the original recipe was much simpler, consisting only of flour, sugar, honey, and anise seeds.

Ricciarelli

Ricciarelli are a gluten-free cookie from Siena similar to a soft macaroon dating back to the Middle Ages. They’re one of my favorite gluten-free Italian desserts.

Make Them: Don’t miss my Tuscan recipe, Ricciarelli – Italian Almond Cookies from Siena.

Mostaccioli

Sometimes called mustacciuoli, mostaccioli are chocolate glazed Christmas cookies from Naples (Campania) that you will find throughout Southern Italy. The chocolate cookie is spiced with citrus, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, star anise, and nutmeg and finished with a dark chocolate glaze.

Cavallucci di Apiro

Cavalucci di Apiro is an ancient cookie recipe served during the holiday season in Italy made from simple, local ingredients. It’s one of those recipes that is never going to be the same as every single family has their variation or favorite way to spice it up. A plain cookie dough is filled with a stewed mixture of dried fruit, nuts, chocolate, bread, spices and citrus. The little packages are baked until golden and served through the New Year.

Susamielli

Traditional Venetian cookies in a display case in a bakery in Venice, Italy. — *Susamielli are similar to Venice’s esse cookies*

Susamielli are traditional Christmas cookies from Naples that are shaped into an S and flavored with rich spices like cinnamon and cloves.

Calzoncelli

Calzoncelli are traditional Christmas cookies from Basilicata made from thin sheets of pastry filled with chestnuts, chickpeas and chocolate. They are fried until golden and dusted with powdered sugar. Labor intensive but worth it if you are a real Italian food lover!

Petrali

Petrali are a traditional Christmas Calabrian cookie made by filling rounds of pastry dough with a mixture of figs and almonds. The cookies are then dipped in chocolate and decorated as you like with sprinkles.

Papassini

Papassini (sometimes spelled different ways depending on where you are in Sardinia) are small rustic cookies flavored with raisins from Sardinia shaped into a diamond and covered in a sweet white icing. Its name actually comes from the Sardinian dialect papassa, meaning raisin, referring to this essential ingredient.

Kipferl alla Vaniglia Altoatesini

Sometimes called Vanillekipferl, these crescent shaped cookies are rooted in Austrian Christmas tradition that have been adopted over the centuries by Trentino-Alto Adige. Made with simply butter, sugar, eggs, almond flour and vanilla, these traditional Italian cookies are a must-try melt cookie to try this holiday season!

Baking Traditional Italian Cookies

a hand holding a brown bag with plastic window showing snow dusted cookies inside with written mini cavalucci on the package. — *Cavalucci cookies*

If you are looking to make some of these traditional Italian cookies at your home, I would start with these, as they are less labor intensive and usually well like by all:

Cavalucci
Ricciarelli
Susamielli
Mostaccioli
Kipferl alla Vaniglia Altoatesini
Papassini

Cookies You Won’t See Served At Italian Christmas Dinner

While eating cookies on Christmas in Italy is tradition, we only eat traditional Italian Christmas cookies – not other cookies made in other times of the year or international favorites.

Below is a short list of cookies you are unlikely to see served for dessert at an Italian Christmas dinner: