Italian Christmas Menu Ideas: 25 Traditional Dishes to Bring Italy to Your Holiday Table
Discover the best Italian Christmas menu ideas, from appetizers to desserts and drinks. Easy festive recipes you can make anywhere for a delicious Italian holiday.
If you love Italian food and want to bring a touch of Italy to your Christmas celebrations, this guide is for you.
I’m Italian, but I often spend Christmas in Ireland (my husband is Irish), and over the years I’ve recreated all my favourite Italian festive dishes abroad: with great success!
This is because Italian Christmas recipes are surprisingly easy to make anywhere, and use simple, widely available ingredients that can, with the right recipe, make an amazing dish even if they dont’ come from the sun brimming fields of Italy.
Here you’ll find a full list of Italian Christmas appetizers, mains, sides, desserts and drinks, plus a few sample menus to help you create your own Italian-inspired feast at home.
This is a long post! You can use this image to save it on Pinterest or the heart button to the bottom right of the screen to bookmark it and find it again whenever needed!
Italian Christmas Appetizers
Italian Christmas appetizers tend to be simple, elegant, and based on high-quality ingredients. Many require minimal cooking and they always make a great impression as they are naturally colourful, pretty and so varied, they span across many dietary requirements, meaning all your guests are likely to find something they can eat and enjoy.
Find more ideas in my full guide to Italian Christmas Appetizers.
1. Antipasto Platter / Charcuterie Board (Antipasto all’Italiana)
Charcuterie boards are the simplest type of appetizer you can offer since they require no cooking at all and they are quintessentially Italian.
In Italy, you would have them with local cheeses such as pecorino from Pienza or cured meat from Umbria, but you don’t need to break the bank if these are not easy to source for you: whatever is easy to source for you, will do the job beautifully!
A colourful board with cured meats, cheeses, olives, and artichokes is a perfect Christmas starter . No cooking, no fuss needed!
2. Selection of Bruschettas (Classic, Pesto, etc)
Simple but festive, bruschetta is another fantastic starter that requires little to no work. Lightly toast bread and top with tomatoes, pesto (you can find my easy pesto recipe here), or add mozzarella cut in festive shapes for a super fun and Christmassy bruschetta look!
If you want to make it gluten free, you can also skip the bread and make a fun and super inviting Christmas caprese salad instead.
3. Smoked Salmon Crostini (Northern Italy Inspired)
Smoked salmon is expensive in Italy and strongly associated with special occasions, like Christmas! For an even stronger Italian connection, spread toasted bread with mascarpone or ricotta and smoked salmon on top; finish with lemon zest for an elegant extra touch.
4. Vitello Tonnato (Vitel Tonne)
Vitel Tonne is a specialty from Piedmont and one of the simplest yet most delicious Christmas appetizers you can have.
It is simply made with thin slices of veal topped with a tuna-capers dressing. The most standard way of presenting is flat on a platter but in Piedmont I saw it presented beautifully in little rolls that look almost like flowers!
5. Prosciutto wrapped Grissini
Super simple and perfect to eat with your fingers while you chat with Prosecco in hand, breadsticks wrapped in prosciutto (parma ham) are simple, beautiful and take virtually no time nor skill to make.
6. Spinach and ricotta mini bites
Super easy to make and a sure success due to the tried and testes spinach and ricotta combo, spinach and ricotta bites take very little time to make and can get hot and golden in the oven while you entertain your guests. You can find the full recipe here.
Italian Christmas Main Courses
This are some Christmas main ideas. If you want more, you can find here > Italian Christmas Dinner Ideas.
7. Lasagne al Ragù (Classic Lasagna)
The ultimate Italian Christmas comfort food. Layers of ragù, pasta sheets and béchamel: a classic for a reason and one recipe I make often! You can find my step by step classic lasagna recipe here.
8. Lasagne al Pesto
Lasagne al pesto are one of my favorite alternatives to the classic lasagne as they are as indulgent, as impressive, as delicious, yet significantly easier to make and also not as expected! A beautiful green festive twist to a classic: fresh lasagna sheets layered with béchamel and pesto. Find my full recipe for lasagne al pesto here.
9. Cannelloni Ricotta e Spinaci
Pasta bakes are a fantastic Christmas main as they are indulgent, easy to make ahead and always elicit a homely feel, which is a lot of what Christmas is about: real connection with loved ones.
If you pair this with the tried and tested combination of ricotta and spinach filling, you are in for a real winner and you can do it easily with my vegetarian cannelloni recipe! Rolled fresh lasagna sheets filled with ricotta, spinach, Parmesan and nutmeg, baked in béchamel and tomato sauce.
10. Ravioli with butter and sage
Stuffed pasta is a very popular choice on Italian Christmas tables and it can be as easy to make as adding some lovely butter and fresh sage onto ravioli or basic tomato sauce with fresh basil!
The key for this dish is the quality of the stuffed pasta itself: if you are in the mood for making it, then amazing! But you truly do not have to, unless you want to: just make sure you source high quality one and you choose really nice butter, fresh sage and good parmesan for your dressing or make your sauce with real basil for a perfect result.
11. Risotto allo zafferano (saffron risotto)
Risotto is a typical preparation from the North of Italy and is infinitely versatile as you can, truly, make risotto with almost anything. During a recent trip to Marrakesh, we got some delicious saffron, so this is the one I love most right now ( a homage to risotto all Milanese, which uses is as one of its star ingredients), but you can also choose mushrooms, peas, even seafood and be sure to have a beautiful main.
12. Earthy lentil soup
Lentils are very much traditional at Christmas and New Year’s as they are associate with prosperity and they come with wishes of fortune for all those who partake!
A lovely way to include them in your Christmas menu is with soothing and warming lentil soup, which is a beautiful dish to serve also if watering to a vegetarian or even vegan set of guests.
13. Roast with Rosemary (Arrosto)
A simple Italian-style roast with with rosemary and garlic aromas, served with roast potatoes and salad is a fantastic main for Christmas. Veal and pork are popular for Christmas, but you can also choose lamb (In Italy, lamb is more an Easter dish but if you can source nice one locally, it works beautifully for Christmas too.
14. Pesce al cartoccio (fish in parcel)
Pesce al Cartoccio is one of the most impressive dishes you can serve but it is super easy to make and truly traditional especially if serving it on Christmas Eve, when Italians tend to serve a fish and seafood menu (The seven fishes things is not Italian, it is Italian-American but we do have a meat-free Christmas Eve, traditionally).
You can make peace al cartoccio with a whole fish or a fillet and it is as simple as putting your (clean and gutted) fish on parchment paper, dress with salt, slices of lemon, rosemary, close the paper to make little parcel and oven bake until fully cooked.
15. Salmone in crosta (salmon en croute)
Salmon in crosta (salmon en croute) is an impressive, easy to make and very festive fish Christmas main popular in Italian households.
It consists on fresh salmon wrapped in a of puff pastry, then baked to golden perfection: the preparation is as easy is as it wounds, the visual impact strong and the flavor delicious as it has the buttery flakiness of the pastry, the juicy meats of the salmon and the comforting warmth of a bake. One of the most successful and easiest Italian Christmas mains you can think of.
16. Bollito with Sauces (Northern Italy)
Boiled meats served with salsa verde and mostarda are very traditional for Christmas Day and they are also a fantastic way to make two dishes in one as the water you use to boil them becomes a beautiful broth you can also use as a base for additional dishes such as risotto.
To make bollito, you want to select several types of meats such as chicken (capon, ideally), beef, pork and boil with onion, carrots, celery etc, like you would to make a delicious bone broth. The difference is that you put the meat into hot water (for broth, you start from cold) so that the meat retains more flavour.
Italian Christmas Side Dishes
17. Rosemary Roast Potatoes (Patate al Rosmarino)
Crispy, simple and always welcome on an Italian table, these go well with both meat and fish mains
18. Kale salad (Insalata di cavolo riccio)
Fantastic is you are serving rich mains with béchamel or a roast, as they introduce a refreshing touch and lovely fibres, salads are one of the most common Italian side dishes, traditionally made with whatever was in season in the vegetable patch . Infinite ways to make them, you can find my kale salad ideas here.
19. Grilled Vegetables (Verdure Grigliate)
Courgettes, aubergines and peppers, lightly coated I breadcrumbs, drizzled with olive oil and baked to perfection
20. Italian orange and fennel salad
A fresh salad with oranges, fennel and black olives — especially popular in the South of Italy (Sicily especially, with their amazing oranges!)
Italian Christmas Desserts
Italian Christmas desserts are delicious and they come with an added advantage for the house host: they are almost always store bought!
While, of course, you can try your hand at elaborate preparations like panettone or pandoro, in Italy we do not: we simply buy the best we can find! The most traditional are:
21. Panettone
The classic Milanese sweet bread with raisins and candied fruit. Lovely served with mascarpone cream.
22. Pandoro
A star-shaped cake from Verona. Often sliced and dusted with icing sugar to resemble a snowy Christmas tree.
23. Torrone (Italian nougat)
A delightful confection of honey, almonds and sometimes chocolate, it is delicious and truly seasonal.
24. Tiramisù (Christmas Version)
If you are in the mood for making something, you can never go wrong with home made tiramisu. Make it festive by adding crushed amaretti or a splash of Baileys (not traditional, but wonderful).
25. Soft chocolate cake
It is hard to beat a chocolate dessert, especially if it comes in the form of a super easy to make, super melt-in-your-mouth cake made with chocolate and little more!
My tried and tested version is lactose free and gluten free and absolutely delicious: add red berries or orange mascarpone cream on the side for a super Christmassy twist. Find my delicious gluten and lactose chocolate cake recipe here.
Italian Christmas Drinks
26. Vin Brulé (Italian Mulled Wine)
Italy’s version of mulled wine: red wine simmered with citrus, cloves and cinnamon.
27. Bombardino (Alpine Ski Resort Classic)
A warm, creamy liqueur drink made with egg liqueur and whipped cream — hugely popular in the Alps.
28. Italian Hot Chocolate (Cioccolata Calda)
Thick, pudding-like hot chocolate made with cocoa, sugar and starch.
29. Amaretto Coffee
Espresso with a splash of amaretto liqueur — simple and festive.
Sample Italian Christmas Menus
In Italy, we serve several courses in special occasions such as Christmas: appetizers, first course (pasta or rice), second course (meat or fish), side and desserts. Desserts are usually all offered: so, you would bring to the table pandoro, panettone, torrone, Ricciarelli etc.
1 – Traditional Northern Italian Christmas Menu
- Vitello tonnato
- Lasagne al pesto
- Bollito di carne
- Salad
- Selection of desserts or have a star one such as Panettone with mascarpone cream
- Selection of drinks (vin brule’, bombarding, hot chocolate, negroni etc)
2 – Easy Italian Christmas Dinner (Family Friendly)
- Bruschetta trio
- Classic homemade lasagne
- Roast
- Italian Christmas salad
- Selection of desserts or have a star one such as Pandoro with pastry cream
- Italian hot chocolate
3- Southern Italian Seafood Christmas Eve Menu
- Selection of starters such as smoked salmon crostini, tuna pate, salmon pate etc
- Risotto (vegetarian, with salmon etc)
- Baked fish (pesce al cartoccio)
- Fennel and orange salad
- Selection of desserts and home made tiramisu with amaretti crumble
- Selection of drinks (vin brule, bombarding, hot chocolate, negroni etc)
4- Vegetarian Italian Christmas Menu
- Selection of starters such as vegetarian bruschetta, frittata bites, caprese salad etc
- Lentil soup
- Cannelloni ricotta e spinaci
- Fennel gratin
- Selection of desserts and home made chocolate cake
- Amaretto coffee
