If you want to know how to prepare an authentic Italian antipasto, keep reading and find out all the basic recipes!

Italian antipasto is a classic course in Italy, in restaurants mainly, and at home during holidays or family gatherings. Antipasto, an appetizer actually, is a mix of small dishes that may vary from vegetable to fish or meat. Depending on the main course you are going to choose, the antipasto changes. Usually there is a variety of recipes you can use to make antipasto. From vegetable gratin, to grilled or marinated vegetables or you can simply whip up a cutting board with some prosciutto, olives and slices of cheese. It’s very common nowadays to serve cheese with honey or other sweet and sour sauces. Cured meat like salame, mortadella, speck, prosciutto are also an authentic and simple antipasto.
Frittata also is a nice antipasto. You can make it thick, with a lot of vegetables and then cut it into small cubes.

Types of authentic Italian antipasto

In a pizzeria

When you go to a pizzeria in Italy, the classic antipasto is bruschetta. If you do not want bruschetta you may have “supplì”  or “crocchette” or even better “olive ascolane”. These are all fried foods, in details:

• supplì: breaded rice patties filled with cheese and deep fried.  they can be white (with no sauce) or made with rice cooked with a tomato meat sauce. Some have only mozzarella on the inside. In Rome they call it Supplì al telefono – supplì on the phone –  due to the melting cheese that leaves the string when pulled apart. Some others can contain peas and meat and then there are arancini or arancine that are the Sicilian version of the supplì.
• crocchette: breaded and fried potato patties filled with mozzarella. You can make these patties with boiled and crushed potatoes, seasoned with nutmeg, salt and then mixed with eggs to make them hold their shape.
• olive ascolane: these olive comes from Marche. This is a very typical recipe from Ascoli. Olives are pitted and then filled with a meat mixture, breaded and fried.

In Italy you can easily find all those fried goodies in the freezer aisle of any grocery store, ready for frying. And while supplì and crocchette are also easy to make at home, olive ascolane are quite tricky.

When eating fish

An authentic antipasto recipe when eating a fish meal is stewed musky octopus or squid, or sautéed muscles. Another classic recipe is octopus salad. Then you make a salad  by adding olives, carrots, celery and olive oil. Another classic fish antipasto is muscle gratin.

Muscles are opened and broiled in the oven covered with a mix of bread, cheese and herbs, salt and pepper. More refined restaurants serve also fish carpaccio or tartare. Another very famous fish antipasto is “frittura”. Fish frittura is a mix of small tasty fish, squid and shrimps that are covered in flour and deep fried. Also musky octopus are great when fried. The other fried fish antipasto well known to the Italians is “frittura di Paranza“. The paranza is a type  of net used to fish. The catch that is caught with this net is called paranza and the resulting recipe is made with fish floured and deep fried.

When eating meat

If you are a meat lover, the more authentic Italian antipasto is the “tagliere di salumi“. This is a cutting board covered with a mix of ham, salame, lonza and other typical cured meat. Usually you can serve along a mix of cheeses. What goes on the tagliere may vary depending on the area you are in. Each region in Italy has its own typical cured meat so you may order the same dish and experience a very different taste everywhere you go. That is the same with cheese. Each region has its own and you can try different types depending on the location.

In summer a classic antipasto is prosciutto and melone (cantaloupe with prosciutto). Also you can find crostini with liver paté.

Vegetarian/vegan antipasto

There are many ways to make a vegetarian/vegan antipasto. The best one is by serving mixed grilled vegetables alongside sourdough bread crostini. You can add a sun-dried tomato spread to eat with the bread. Olives are also a very classic in antipasto, no matter what you are going to eat as a main course.

A very underrated antipasto is made with beans. Borlotti beans boiled and served with fresh red onion finely sliced and seasoned with salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil are a great way to enjoy more legumes.

Regional specialities

If you go to Turin, for example, a very classic antipasto would be Vitello tonnato. The veal meat is marinated and then cooked slowly and cooled down. Then thinly sliced and served with a sauce made with tuna, anchovies, capers and eggs.

In Tuscany a very classic antipasto is made with crostini with paté, cured lard, cured meat, pecorino cheese and also occasionally bruschette with vegetables.

In Rome you can find battered and deep fried squash blossom when in season, or baccalà fillet (a large piece of cod battered and fried). Along these two classic, you will certainly find bruschette (with tomato or with only oil and garlic), marinated anchovies, olives and grilled vegetables.

In Naples you can find melanzane alla parmigiana as antipasto, or crocchette, they call it “crocché”. A traditional antipasto recipe is with “pepperoni ‘mbuttunati”: bell peppers stuffed with meat and cheese and baked in the oven.

These are only a few examples, actually there are so many different recipes that it would take ages to list them all. Next time you are in Italy try some antipasti wherever you go, to sample the regional cuisine and find the differences.

Authentic Italian antipasti suggestions

• For meat lovers
  Prepare a “tagliere” by mixing salame, prosciutto, baked olives, and some pecorino cheese.
• For fish lovers
  Try preparing a simple squid stew, or seabass skewers, some crostini with butter and anchovies, and grilled zucchini with balsamic vinegar and mint.
• For vegetarians/vegan
  Serve olives (green and black), grilled eggplant, crostini with tomato spread, and simple bruschetta with extra virgin olive oil.

Mix and match your favorite ingredients and create your own antipasto!