Today we’re going to be talking about Italian comfort foods, easy meals that you can make when you need something comforting. So, let’s talk about Italian comfort food.
Of course, there’s pizza and pasta. What could be more comforting? First, let’s talk about spaghetti. This is one of the easiest things to cook. You can do other pasta too if you prefer, like penne or tagliatelli, but my favorite is definitely spaghetti. It’s really important that you get good quality spaghetti.
The general options in the grocery store, especially the cheaper ones, are going to not be as tasty. Especially if the spaghetti is the main part of your meal, you’ll want to spend a little more, so look for the whitest spaghetti. If it’s very white, that means it’s been aged longer. It’ll have more flavor, and generally be better quality.
When you heat the water to cook the spaghetti, bring it to the boil, add a bit of coconut oil or olive oil to the water, and then add some salt. Like Joe Bastianich says, salt it like the ocean. After you’ve added the salt and oil, then you add your spaghetti. You can either break up the pieces, or if you’re a true Italian, just put them in and mix them around as soon as they get soft so that they don’t stick together. It’s useful to have one of those spaghetti spoons with the spikes to mix it around.
So, cook it until you’re happy with the texture, and then drain it. It’s great to immediately add a little olive oil and salt, and possibly even some Parmesan cheese if you do it soon after draining the water. Then it sticks well to the pasta, and makes it really nice and flavorful.
The first easy option of what we can do with this is spaghetti with olive oil and garlic. The fancy name for that is Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. Basically, it’s made up of spaghetti with a bit of garlic, a bit of olive oil, and maybe some chili flakes or herbs like fresh parsley. It’s very easy and quick to make.
You need to make sure that your olive oil is also good quality and it’s going to taste good. As I said, you can add it as soon as the pasta is finished cooking. Then you need to cook up a little bit of garlic. It shouldn’t get overly brown or crispy, but cook it just enough to soften it so it’s see-through. You can add some fresh parsley and give it a quick stir, then some chili flakes if you like chili, and then maybe put a bit of butter in there. If you don’t want to use butter, then the olive oil’s great. Add those things into your pasta, and mix it up. As I said, you can add a tiny bit of Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan cheese, and that gives a wonderful flavor to your spaghetti. So, that’s an easy dish to make.
The next step up would be Pasta al Pomodoro, which means pasta with tomato sauce. If you really want to make the sauce rich, you can add some herbs and some fresh vegetables like grated zucchini and grated carrot to your sauce, or you can make it from scratch. Otherwise, just use a bottle of pomodoro, which is what Italians call tomato puree. You can even add some sauce that has onions, like tomato and onion puree, or tomato and basil sauce, or anything that’s similar. Fresh basil leaves are amazing with this.
Again, just add these into the sauce and cook the pasta a bit longer. You want to let the flavors of the sauce meld. Like before, you can start with a little bit of garlic in a pan, and then add the tomato sauce and whatever else you want to, whether it’s the grated zucchini, the basil, or a bit of Parmesan perhaps. It’s important that you taste the sauce before you add it to the pasta. Add a bit of salt and pepper if you need to, and add a tiny bit of butter at the end for creaminess. Keep tasting the sauce and thinking about what you need to add. Do you need a little bit more basil? Do you need a little bit more salt? et cetera.
When it tastes good, then you can mix it into your pasta. Make the spaghetti in the same way as for the previous one, and flavor it with the olive oil, salt, and Parmesan cheese as soon as it’s been drained. Then you can mix in your sauce.
The third meal that’s easy to make with spaghetti or other pasta is to use some kind of cheese sauce. An easy cheese sauce or mushroom sauce is great with pasta. First, let’s talk about the mushroom sauce. Slice up some mushrooms and season them with salt, a little onion powder, and a tiny bit of nutmeg to bring out the mushroom flavor.
Then you can cook them in a pan. Put a lid over them so that they cook well, and when they’re soft, then you pour in about a cup of cream. Let that simmer for a little bit. You could add a tiny bit of potato starch or flour, if you want to thicken it, but not too much because it’ll thicken very fast. When that’s ready, mix it with the pasta that’s already been seasoned in the same way as previously.
To make cheese sauce. You need some butter and flour as your base – equal quantities, say a tablespoon of each. Then you mix in half a cup of milk and whisk it until it thickens. Then add your favorite cheese, whether it’s a Swiss cheese like Emmental, or something Parmigiano Reggiano. You don’t need a lot. Add some salt, and that makes a simple cheese sauce that you can then mix with your pasta. This one’s a great one to add some vegetables to – some stir fried zucchini, some cooked butternut – those go great with that cheese sauce and pasta.
Then, of course, there’s the margarita pizza. If you want to make it Italian style, all you need is tomato and cheese on top with some herbs like basil. You can use a store-bought base, you can make a base with store-bought dough, or you can make your own dough. It’s quite easy, and similar to bread dough. Basically, you need flour, a yeast mixture with a little bit of honey in there, one teaspoon of salt for four cups of flour, and a bit of butter or olive oil mixed in. This will make a good dough, or you can use any kind of dough that you usually use for your bread machine.
Once you’ve got the dough, you can roll out the crust and pre-bake it. It helps to make it slightly crispy before you add anything else. Then you can put some tomato puree, tomato paste, or whatever you like on top. Perhaps you can add some garlic and some basil leaves. Then slice your mozzarella. It’s best to use a really white mozzarella, and put it in circles around the pizza, or you could just use grated mozzarella as usual. You can even put some fresh tomato slices on there. Add a bit of salt and oregano on top, and then bake it. That’ll be delicious.
Bruschetta is also a very easy Italian comfort food. Take some slices of a baguette or a French loaf, add some butter and garlic, and pre-cook them. You can either bake them in the oven or fry them in a pan if you don’t have too many. Once you’ve got some nice, crispy toast that’s flavored with butter and garlic, you can add your toppings.
These can be things like Italian cheeses that you enjoy, or any cheese, soft or hard. You could add salami, prosciutto, or other cured Italian meat. Those are all fabulous. Of course, you can add things like tomatoes, or anything else that you enjoy on top of your toasty bruschetta. This works great as an appetizer for an event; a party or a dinner with friends.
Another classic Italian comfort food is Minestrone soup, which is hearty and delicious. First, you want to cook your vegetables. You can do some onions, carrots, and celery – the usual base for a soup. Cook them in a bit of oil until they’re softened; about five minutes. Then add in a bit of garlic and maybe some finely chopped or grated zucchini. Those things take a bit less time to cook, so you add them in later.
Then you’re going to pour in your broth and your tomatoes. These can be diced tomatoes with their juice included, and some broth like chicken broth, beef broth, or even vegetable broth. You can add a few herbs, dried or fresh. Add some oregano, basil, thyme, and a bit of salt and pepper. You want the soup to have that flavorful base, and then you add the tomatoes and perhaps some other vegetables in there.
So, you’re going to simmer that, bring it almost to a boil, and then reduce it. Simmer it for about fifteen minutes, and you can add cooked beans or even pasta if you like. Simmer it for a little bit more until the pasta and vegetables are tender and they’ve assimilated the flavor. You can also stir in spinach at the end if you like.
Then season it with a bit more salt, some pepper, and some herbs as needed. It’s nice to top it with a little bit of Parmesan and some fresh herbs when you serve it. The important part is to let it simmer, let the flavors develop, and to taste as you go. Make sure that the tomato base tastes good before you add the vegetables and beans, and that it also tastes good afterwards.
Another fun comfort food is Eggplant Parmigiana. This is basically slices of eggplant or brinjal as it’s sometimes called. If you don’t really like eggplant, like some of my family, then you can make it with large zucchini. You want big slices that are quite thick, about half an inch thick. Cut the slices of eggplant or zucchini, and then crisp it up. First, you need to let the bitterness and the liquid drain out of the eggplant a little bit. This is an important step. Once you have the slices, you can sprinkle both sides with salt and lay them on a tray or on paper towels, and let them sit for about forty-five minutes to draw out the moisture. Then pat them dry with paper towels.
Then you can cook them, either in a pan with olive oil or coconut oil – fry them in batches on both sides, about two to three minutes per side, until they’re a little crispy – or you can brush them with olive oil and bake them in the oven. Bake them at 400 Fahrenheit, 200 Celsius for about twenty minutes, and flip them halfway through. They’ll be lightly golden.
Then you can cook the sauce. In a saucepan, you heat some oil, and then add onion or garlic – maybe you don’t eat both – and soften them. Add some tomatoes, oregano or basil, and salt and pepper, and simmer the sauce until it tastes good.
You can do this next part in a baking dish, or you can do it to individual slices. Sprinkle some mozzarella over the slices, and then add Parmesan or Parmigiano Reggiano, and a few bay leaves. You can make layers of eggplant slices to make a sort of casserole for a side dish, or as I said, you can do individual ones, which are nice for snacks. You can put breadcrumbs on top if you want to. But basically, if you’re doing the layered version, each layer will have eggplant or zucchini slices, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and other cheese. Then bake that for about half an hour, and let it rest before serving.
Here are a couple of other Italian comfort foods. There’s tiramisu. If you want, you can look up how to make that. It’s a fabulous Italian dessert. There’s risotto, creamy risotto rice which you cook slowly, and then you add broth, butter, and Parmesan cheese as it cooks. That’s a wonderful base, and you can add various other things to it, like cooked red peppers or mushrooms. Then lastly, there’s Chicken Piccata, which is cutlets of chicken in a lemon butter sauce, tangy and amazing.
So, those are some ideas for a quick, easy Italian dish for a comfort food on a cozy full evening, or even on a summer’s day, or if you want some good snacks. The zucchini or brinjal slices can also be used as chips. Just do the first step of salting them and draining the moisture, then add salt and oil, bake them or fry them, and then eat them just like that without the sauce on top.
