Vegetarian dishes from Italy are as diverse as the country's 20 regions, which are laden with quality produce.
The variety and calibre of vegetarian food in Italy has led it to become sought after around the world.
Here is a vegetarian dish from each of Italy's regions for you to consider for your next meal.
In Basilicata, they fill baked eggplants with ricotta, passata and herbs then bake them again. Source: Jono Fleming
is a simple summer vegetable stew. It mixes sautéed spring vegetables like zucchini, potatoes, onions, eggplant and tomatoes with wine and olive oil.
Basilicata
, is probably one of the easiest baked eggplant recipes to make. This is because the eggplant pulp is kept and a herbed breadcrumb mixture is worked into a scored vegetable flesh. To finish, more breadcrumb mix is decorated on top of the eggplant before it is baked.
HOW TO COOK EGGPLANTS
Twice-baked stuffed eggplant
Calabria
fuses history with pasta and chickpeas. Lagane is thick durum wheat pasta (also found in Campania and Basilicata) that's believed to be one of the oldest dry pastas in Italy, . When the pasta is combined with chickpeas, rosemary, garlic, onions, parsley and chilli, it perfectly suits vegetarian tastes.
Pasta and chickpeas is native to Calabria in the southwest of Italy. Source: Cook Like An Italian
Silvia Colloca, host of SBS Food program, Cook Like An Italian, creates a gnocchi alla sorrentina in series two, using a regional recipe familiar to the coastal town of Sorrento.
The comfort dish is typically made with uncomplicated ingredients of tomatoes, garlic and basil (used to make a sauce) and potato gnocchi.
Emilia-Romagna
Crescentine (also called or crescenza) is a popular street food found in the Modena area, resembling an English muffin.
The flat bread is made with warm milk, yeast, and flour and deep-fried in oil. Although it's common to stuff the bread with cured meats and cheese, it's also eaten plain or served flavoured with garlic and rosemary.
A POPULAR BOLOGNA STREET FOOD
Crescentine (pan-cooked flatbread)
Friuli- Venezia Giulia
Try the traditional Friulian prune-stuffed gnocchi dish, , which hails from the city of Trieste, for a savoury and sweetness hit.
The potato dumplings, stuffed with prunes, are finished with parmesan cheese, butter, breadcrumbs and cinnamon. You can eat them for dinner or dessert.
Latium (Lazio)
You have Rome to thank for alla Romana (). Round Roman artichokes are stuffed with mint, parsley, garlic, lemon and salt. They are then cooked in a mix of water and olive oil, before they are served tender.
ROMAN ARTICHOKES
Stuffed artichokes (carciofo alla romana)
Silvia Colloca mixes zucchini with prawns and lemon slices. Source: Jono Fleming
Go no further than Marche for deep-fried vegetables (verdure fritte), which can be served alone or as part of a mixed fried platter. You can use zucchini, artichoke or eggplant — although vegetables in season are always best.
Liguria
Combine two specialities with the dish, . The meal uses trenette — a long type of narrow, dried flat pasta that's similar to linguine and fettuccine, and works well with Ligurian pesto. Add green beans and potato to the pesto pasta and you've got a dish that captures the flavours of Italy's northwest.
A classic regional dish, complete with Ligurian pesto. Source: Supplied
To make minestrone soup that's true to Lombardy, like otherwise called minestrone with risoni, use lots of fresh vegetables, rice and Parmesan cheese.
PACKED WITH NUTRITION
Minestrone with risoni
There's an option to add pork or pancetta to the soup, but if you want to go vegetarian, omit the meat. Serve the soup hot in winter and cold in summertime.
Minestrone with risoni is filled with vegetables, bulked out with rice and topped off with cheese. Source: Jono Fleming
When you live in Molise in southern Italy, a region that's home to forests and mountain ranges, you've got permission to enjoy lots of hearty dishes.
One of these is with tomato and mozzarella or fettuccine con salsa di aromi. Use tomatoes, garlic, mint, basil, parsley and chilli to make your sauce. Drizzle over cooked pasta before topping with cheese and baking.
Piemonte
This region is famed for , hailing from Piedmont, made with only egg yolks. To make the silky pasta into a rounded meal, pair it with a simple sage and butter sauce.
Puglia (Apulia)
One of Italy's flattest regions, Puglia, is famous for orecchiette: 'little ears' of durum wheat pasta. Toss the pasta with , a bitter green that comes into season throughout the region in autumn.
Orecchiette with cime di rapa and pangrattato (breadcrumbs). Source: Cook like an Italian
Traditional flatbread from Sardinia, , is so thin that it has acquired a second name — carta da musica meaning ‘sheet music’. The idea is that when you roll out the dough, it should be so thin that you can clearly read a sheet of music through it. Cook the unique bread twice and savour its crunch.
Try it for breakfast
Pita with passata, pecorino and egg (pane frattau)
Sicilia (Sicily)
(caponata Siciliana) has many versions throughout the island. But for a truly vegetarian recipe, stick to the vegetables that make the dish famous — mainly eggplant as well as zucchini, tomatoes, onion, red and yellow capsicum. Add basil, capers, pine kernels and raisins to your heart's content.
Toscana (Tuscany)
According to Silvia Colloca, the Tuscan method of stuffing zucchini flowers with herbed ricotta cheese and then baking them is one of Tuscany's "most elegant vegetarian dishes". Zucchini flowers are best picked in spring.
This dish can be served as an appetiser or first course.
Zucchini flowers taste especially good when stuffed. Source: Jono Fleming
(or mezzelune) is a semi-circle shaped pasta, filled with spinach, ricotta and potato, which are native to this mountainous area bordering Switzerland and Austria.
Toss the pasta in brown butter and serve with a fresh grating of Grana Padano cheese on top.
Umbria
To celebrate the flavours of this region, make an () using small Castelluccio lentils if you can find them. But if you can't, opt to feature French puy lentils instead.
The soup features a soffritto and includes tomato concentrate, white wine and stock.
WARMS YOU UP IN WINTER
Broken pasta and lentil soup (pasta rotta con lenticchie)
Valle d'Aosta (Aosta Valley)
Here's your chance to eat hot cheese for dinner: create a — a Valle d'Aosta-style fondue. To stick to tradition and honour the alpine region, use Fontina cheese melted into a sauce thickened with egg yolks. Pair the hearty fondue with potatoes, green vegetables or pickles.
Silvia Colloca adds chicken stock and pancetta but you can omit it and swap chicken for veg. Source: Jono Fleming
Rice and pea risotto ( is quite soup like, with the peas and rice intentionally floating in a thick vegetable broth. The dish is traditionally served at the annual Doge's banquet on the feast day of St Mark, the patron of Veneto's capital city of Venice.
COOK LIKE AN ITALIAN
The first book that taught Aussies to cook like Italians
