Authentic Italian Cooking
Italian Christmas dinner
Here you can find all my Themed Dinner menus for Christmas holidays according to Italian style: Christmas lunch ideas or dinner menus for Christmas Eve and suggestions for New Year's Eve too. Menus are thought for meat lovers, fish lovers and vegetarians. You can choose among traditional Italian Christmas menus and new ideas, for example one-plate meals. Looking for Christmas table setting new ideas too?
Holiday Season menus, Italy-style
When I was a child Christmas holidays were a magical time and their food an essential aspect. Christmas was expected by me to make Russian salad, eat handmade ravioli or turkey. And then there was panettone, pandoro, panforte. What do we open at Christmas: Pandoro or Panettone? Because traditional cakes had to be well distributed over the entire period. Then the economic situation has changed dramatically. Packaged Russian salad is found all year round, the turkey is on the table every day, Panettone is eaten from November to February.
And so the question of what to bring to the table at Christmas and New Year has moved. We Italians have also passed through the choice of exotic ingredients over the years :(( Nowadays it touches other points including choices to protect our health, the environment and, alas, our portfolio!
On this page there are very different Christmas menu ideas, some of them accompanied by a menu card which you can download for free. I hope you can find the right one for you or at least a starting point ;)
Italian Christmas dinner or lunch ideas and Holiday Season menus
Christmas dinner with seasonal flavors
What are the main flavors of the season? pumpkin, chestnuts and citrus fruits for example. Add the traditional Italian dishes such as ravioli and capon to these flavors and you have this real menu, Italian-style. These are the bases of a Christmas menu for people who eat according to the season and environmental protection.
This refined menu is made with seasonal ingredients but the sequence of its courses is different from the traditional scheme. In fact first course is substituted by spinach soufflé and a chocolate cake is served instead of panettone. According to me it is ideal for people obliged to plan both dinner on Christmas eve and lunch on Christmas day.
This New Year's Eve menu is thought for food lovers who prefer to wait for the new year "with your legs under the table". A manner of speaking Italian, in other words a sit-down dinner. Classic Italian traditional menu with an appetizer, a classic and delicate risotto, a second course with fish followed by another dish with meat and finally a dessert. Very tasty, really!
Christmas Menu with wood flavors
Deer, wild boar, pheasant, wild berries and mushrooms (frozen wild berries and mushrooms and not fresh because otherwise they'd come from the southern hemisphere). These are the main ingredients. A bit more expensive than other Italian Christmas menus but certainly spectacular and full flavored.
What does lucky charm dish mean? according to Italian tradition it means preparing dishes with ingredients that can be counted as lentils and pomegranate. These ingredients are combined in traditional dishes and some new recipes. To be chosen especially for your New Year's Eve invitations.
Low-calorie menu for Christmas
Menu based on seafood, truffles and various vegetables: light, low calorie and low fat Christmas menu. To eat well even when you have serious metabolic disorders, which is much more common than you might think. We Italians think of it too.
You can find two menus on this page: for beginners and experts. Tips and recipes to put together a Christmas dinner or lunch that is tasty and doesn't crush the hopes for a good party even if you are forced to save. Crisis is still with us. I think they are good ideas for a dinner of greetings with friends too.
Christmas Eve dinner, Italy-style
In Italy we have the habit of cooking fish for Christmas Eve dinner. Here I suggest two seafood menus: the first is very easy for beginners, the second, more elaborated, is for experts. The combination of dishes saves the tradition of fish on Christmas Eve but introduces new ideas such as rice pudding with grouper meatballs, a recipe of mine.
One plate meal as Christmas menu
I thought of all people who don't want to make a sumptuous Christmas dinner with many courses (and here the reasons could be many ... ) but still want special dishes. Three menu ideas: for meat lovers, fish lovers or vegetarians.
A special birthday dinner for Christmastime
A starter, a first and a second course, and finally a seasonal cake according to an Italian traditional menu. They are tasty and nice to see, for a birthday to celebrate in a time when lunch and dinner parties sometimes are so many ...
A very special Christmas menu Members-only area
This menu is a real list of goodies. So good that you can find it only in our section reserved for subscribers, ie those people who are looking for a personal and unique touch to impress their guests. Special menu because it's made with refined ingredients and particular flavors. So tasty that it can be chosen for different occasions all winter round.
An authentic Italian Christmas menu: Piedmont
This is a typical Italian Christmas menu as we have the habit to do in Piedmont. The menu scheme is traditional: assorted antipasto platter, first course, second course and a dessert. Our starter is very rich in ingredients ;)
Autore: Loretta Sebastiani
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