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Whether it’s fantastic acting of James Gandolfini and Michael Imperioli or the incredible quotes given to us by Paulie Walnuts and Uncle June, The Sopranos is still universally loved. Let’s look at some of the Italian classics mentioned on the show.
Baked Ziti
Nothing hits the spot like a good baked ziti. The Sopranos couldn’t agree more. Carmela Soprano’s baked ziti recipe is a family favorite.
It’s also the dish that Father Phil asked after when he appeared on her doorstep (even though it wasn’t actually the ziti that he wanted).
It also was a noted dish that Mama Liv would make. Baked ziti is without a doubt a cornerstone of the show. We see and hear about frequently.
Caprese Salad
A Caprese salad is a refreshing and elegant way to showcase the major elements of Italian cuisine. And of course it gets brought up in The Sopranos.
We see this dish at Vesuvio, in the home of Tony and Carmela, even at Satriales. Its as basic as it gets and the presentation of. it is fantastic.
Serve this as an appetizer or treat it like a salad. No matter what don’t forget to be generous with the balsamic vinaigrette. It brings everything together beautifully.
Gabagool
Gabagool gets referred to endlessly in Italian-inspired TV. Capicola is a classic cold cut that highlights a valued cut of pork, the shoulder and neck.
Many people enjoy capicola on sandwiches, we frequently see Tony housing it by the pound. There are many cold cuts featured on the Sopranos.
No matter what your choice is, you can never go wrong with cold cuts. Just remember capicola is the best of the best-pork shoulder!
Manicotti
Manicotti is somewhat similar to a lasagna or a ravioli because its taking these large noodle tubes and filling them with a ricotta mix.
You can tell how delicious manicotti is by Uncle Junior’s reaction when Bobby mentions he finished the rest of the tray.
We do have to remember Uncle Junior gets rather cranky, and Bobby gets rather hungry. And we also can’t forget the deliciousness of manicotti.
Veal Parmesan
Okay here we get to one that you probably already know of. We have the classic veal parmesan which is idolized worldwide.
Thin veal cutlets are breaded and fried then covered in mozzarella and a red sauce, usually served on top of a bed of spaghetti.
Don’t offer some to Richie Aprile however…the man will not take the offer kindly! That being said, veal parmesan sandwiches are fantastic.
Linguine with Clam Sauce
Linguine with clam sauce is actually seen in the very first episode of The Sopranos at the old Vesuvio restaurant, pre-fire.
This delicious seafood dish takes minced clams and mixes them with white wine or a lemon juice mix.
This is a fantastic dish and its refreshing while also filling. The colors from the clams bring out this dish and make it a standout option.
Chicken Francese
Chicken Francese is a fantastic chicken dish where you fry chicken and cover it with lemon butter and a white wine-based sauce.
This chicken is fried similarly to say a chicken parmesan, but the sauce separates it from all the others.
It turns out that Chicken Franscese actually originates from New York. The Italian-American community came up with it! Fitting for the Sopranos.
Fettuccine Alfredo
Fettuccine Alfredo is a delicious and simplistic dish that everyone wants to make their own version of. Its filled with flavor and cheesy goodness.
Fettuccine noodles are cooked to perfection with parmesan and butter and the sauce is created as the butter melts with the parmesan.
It is a fantastic dish that has so much flavor and depth in it despite it essentially being a fancier version of macaroni and cheese.
Rigatoni with Sausage
Ah yes, the rigatoni with the sweet sausage! This is a fantastic dish that we hear about in Sopranos and see in plenty of Italian restaurants.
Its a pretty straight forward dish, where you cook rigatoni and serve it with a red sauce and pieces of cooked sweet sausage.
Sausage is incredibly versatile in Italian cuisine. Its used in sandwiches, on pastas, and over pizzas. You can’t go wrong with sweet but hot is good too!
Eggplant Parmesan
Eggplant parmesan is a fantastic dish involving crispy breaded eggplant, mozzarella cheese, and marinara sauce.
Bobby Bacala’s actor Steve Schirripa has his own eggplant parmesan recipe along with cannolis.
Its absolutely fantastic and usually involves some basil, some parmesan, and some olive oil. Its the cornerstone of Italian cuisine.
Braciole
Braciole essentially is a rolled meat dish-stuffed with cheese, pine nuts, breadcrumbs, and herbs. Its a pretty a delicious mixture.
You can’t forget the countless braciole references in Sopranos. It seems like the dish everyone wants to get their hands on.
Braciole is certainly a more unique dish because its a rolled meat pin and almost is like a meat cake…but people love it!
Sunday Gravy
The Sunday gravy! You can’t forget the Sunday gravy. We endlessly hear about sauce and what the OC bunch refer to as “gravy”.
Sunday sauce usually spends a fair amount of time on the burner. It takes time and perfection to make a good Sunday gravy.
Ralphie recommends using some butter to help with the sticking and Junior likes to openly judge the gravy at funerals..
Meatball Sub
A meatball sub is fantastic for dinner when you are looking for a quick option. Its quick, easy, and super filling as well.
All it takes is a sub roll, meatballs covered in red sauce, then usually mozzarella and parmesan goes on as well.
Many different places have their own version of this. Subway and many different sub shops do it themselves and create their own beautiful version.
Lasagna
“Sweet sausage, in little pieces? And a layer of basil leaves right underneath the cheese? That’s Carmela’s lasagna.”
Lasagna gets a legendary reference in The Sopranos. Carmela apparently has amazing lasagna, so good its even unforgettable heated up frozen.
Its a fantastic dish. Some people particularly love it when its heated up frozen, as it gives time for the flavors to come together more.
Sausage and Peppers
“Ya know how hard it is to have a sausage and peppas without a cold one?! Chris did. He’s a big fan of this sandwich, and for good reason.
Sausage and peppers is fantastic and goes particularly well as a sandwich, but it can also be cooked with eggs or even eaten solo.
Sausage and peppers usually takes cut up red peppers, green peppers, and onions, cooked down with cut up pieces of sausage.
Clams Casino
Clams casino is an interesting dish. It involves taking chopped clam meat, cooked veggies, bread crumbs, oregano, and parmesan.
Its a very tasty dish as clams are full of flavor and are have serious depth to them with hints of the ocean and sea.
Its definitely more of an appetizer but its fantastic and is perfect at any time. Don’t forget to serve it with a lemon wedge!
Shrimp Scampi
Shrimp scampi is a shrimp pasta dish with a white wine sauce usually mixed with lemon and garlic. Its absolutely fantastic and is perfect anytime of year.
Shrimp scampi is an absolutely fantastic dish and you can never get over how good that shrimp is. Its just so tasty.
We may not hear about this dish a lot, but its so good and deserves mention because its a beautiful Italian dish.
Osso Buco
The Ossobuco ! Carmela’s mother brings up Ossobuco at Hugh’s birthday party, but we don’t see the dish presented really.
It involves taking wines shanks and cooking them down with veggies, broth, and white wine. Its absolutely fantastic.
Its incredibly tender while also flavorful. Being a shank its given a distinct flavor that’s one-of-a-kind.
Cannoli
The cannoli is a cornerstone of any Italian bakery. We all remember the “Tennessee Moltisanti” episode where Chris is staring into the abyss of a cannoli platter.
We see them a lot but we also hear about them worldwide. The love for cannolis is unmatched and understandably so.
These hard pastry shells filled with the cream are can’t miss desserts. They are absolutely fantastic and you will never eat just one.
Tiramisu
Tiramisu is a classy and elegant Italian dessert known for its distinct flavors and textures. Its a one-of-a-kind dessert.
If you remember, multiple times at dinners we would see this dish being served. It wasn’t talked about terribly, but it was enough.
This coffee-flavored dessert involves coffee covered ladyfingers layered with a mascarpone mix and covered in powdered cocoa.
Prosciutto with Melon
“Can I just get some prosciutto and melon to go please?”. Angie Bompensaro is one of the greatest comeback stories in The Sopranos.
Angie despite losing Sal was able to take on the car shop and become a reputable businesswoman. Its a somewhat uplifting story in a dark show.
Prosciutto and melon is pretty straight forward-it’s slices of melons with slices of prosciutto on top. The flavors mix together beautifully.
Calamari
Calamari is a fantastic bar dish that we see served at a multitude of different events. The chewy squid is coated perfectly.
The world calamari actually goes back to the meaning “ink pot” which is pretty funny, but the reality is calamari isn’t funny, its plain fantastic.
So next time you have a Super Bowl party or need a tasty appetizer to serve before a big meal, try some calamari, you won’t regret it.
Pasta Fagioli
Ah pasta fagioli is quite a delicious and appetizing dish. Its an Italian pasta soup. Some people refer to it as ‘pasta fazool’.
A variety of beans and pasta bind together with some vegetables, seasonings, olive oil, and tomato paste.
This is really a tasty soup that you cannot go without trying. The pasta noodles always become so tender simmering with the soup.
Minestrone Soup
Never forget the soup! Soup is delicious and minestrone specifically is a fantastic mixture of different flavors.
Minestrone contains meats, veggies, and pasta. The ingredients vary as their is no set recipe for minestrone soup.
Minestrone is a great appetizer or pre-dinner bowl to serve. Its really fantastic with a side of warm bread and butter.
Arancini
Arancini is a classic Italian street food. Its just balls of risotto deep-fried. Its simplistic, but filled with depth and flavor.
Carmela mentions once how Cynthia Ricci loved the little rice balls, to which Carmela responds “like she never had arancin’ before”.
Its usually served with some parmesan and also bedded over a red sauce. Its a great appetizer and works well for watch parties too.
Gnocchi
Gnocchi is a delicious pasta dish that takes pasta dough wrapped around either a cheese or potato filling. Usually served with a red sauce.
Gnocchi is brought up a couple times in Sopranos, like at a family gathering of Phil’s. According to Carmela it had a “scoop of cold ricott”.
Gnocchi is incredibly rich as well as incredibly filling. It only takes one or two servings to get absolutely stuffed.
Spaghetti Carbonara
Christopher was waiting for carbonara when he returned from a long adventure in North Carolina.
He was probably looking forward to the carbonara because of how tasty of a dish it is. It involves delicious bacon so its a can’t-miss.
What you do is make a very basic sauce with cooked pancetta or bacon, egg, parmesan, olive oil, and salt & pepper.
Antipasto Platter
Ah the antipasto platter. We see it multiple times in the show, but most notably Tony’s love of cold cuts and cheese…
The man frequently would roll out of bed, pull out some cold cuts and cheese and go to work. It was a spectacle with his famed robe and gold chains on.
What’s best about antipasto platters is you can choose whatever you want. There’s veggies, cheeses, meats, sometimes some fruits and nuts too.
Ravioli
Ravioli is a fantastic Italian dish where pasta is shaped into these square-circles filled with cheese and spinach.
Mentioned by Charmaine Bucco, Artie had been struggling with the restaurant’s identity, she mentions how Artie’s “mooshata ravioli’s” weren’t helping.
It is indeed an art, making ravioli. You have to do it by hand and apply fork presses to all corners for that distinct shape.
Polenta
Seen at Artie Bucco’s restaurant Visuvio, polenta and braised beef is a delicious dish that most people will call tasty and some may even claim is “too rich”.
Polenta with braised beef on top is absolutely outstanding. The polenta which is a cornmeal that creates almost a grit-like dish.
The best thing to do is make the polenta and make braised beef with veggies, then you can put it on top. The contrast balances itself out beautifully.
Don’t Forget The Beverages: White Russian
Now this beverage had one star appearance, via season 5. Adriana is having severe stomach issues and claims that these are to help.
Now its somewhat hard to understand how a beverage like this could actually help your stomach, but Sopranos is quite funny in this regard.
This is another prime example of a Sopranos head-scratcher. Its a truly bizarre beverage but some must believe it helps with sour stomachs.
Curaçao
Curaçao is what Junior tries drinking with Tony after Tony’s alleged “carjacking”. The awkward tension in this season 1 episode truly defines Sopranos.
This orange tasting liqueur is quite unique. Many enjoy it as a cocktail but there are those like Junior Soprano who will drink it on its own.
You will commonly see it in tropical beverages. The blue color is very helpful in making body of water-themed beverages.
Acuto di Soprano (Or Any Red Wine)
Now as one may remember, the Sopranos were wine makers back in the day! They had their own vineyard, which years later Tony is beginning to enjoy in the states.
In countless dinner scenes, we see people in the show drinking wine. Red wine during dinner, and white wine during lunch seems to be the norm in Sopranos.
You really can’t go wrong pair a glass of red with Italian food. They just go together so perfectly.
