Italian

This yolk-heavy carbonara is beyond creamy—without cream!—with a heady mix of peppercorns (you can substitute black pepper for all and it's still great). It's unlike any clumpy carbonaras you've had. It's a pasta worth mastering.

Lemon makes the perfect foil for carbonara’s salty richness. You may never go back.

You will think this pasta recipe calls for an absurd amount of kale, but it will shrink a ton when cooked.

This recipe makes a lot of ragù, but it freezes well and is worth having around. If making the gnocchi feels like a project, serve over polenta instead.

This hearty vegetarian ragout—served on a bed of creamy polenta—gets a boost of rich flavor from umami-packed tomato and miso pastes.

Packed with a creamy cashew spread and plenty of hearty mushrooms, this rich, vegan dish will win over even the most passionate meat eaters.

Chickpeas are the basis for this savory Italian stew, which gets an extra kick from a spoonful of intensely flavored pesto at serving time.

This decadent Italian-American classic is a combination of sweet lobster meat, spicy tomato sauce, and toothsome spaghetti.

Roasting grapes is fun and unexpected, although very popular in the wine regions of Italy. I remember being surprised to find juicy grapes cooked into a dense olive oil cake in Tuscany years ago. Here the sweetness of the grapes balances the earthy truffle oil and rosemary, and the feta adds a salty kick. The flavors are just perfect, and this flatbread takes me right back to Tuscany every time.

Stuffing salad still counts as salad, right?

This easy slurry method takes polenta into weekday fare. And this recipe shows how to make a deeply flavored mushroom sauce with the simple addition of dried porcini. Both techniques are in my go-to repertoire.

Deconstructed with fresh tomatoes and by quickly hand-pounding chicken into cutlets then broiling, this becomes a fresh, modern alternative to a time-consuming classic.

This recipe is a classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, especially when prepared and eaten outdoors, in warm weather, with bread and unconscionable quantities of Italian or Spanish rosé, ideally in Sardinia or at least with Sardinians. Female lobsters, with their delicious red roe, are a must. Ask your fishmonger, or look for animals with broad tails and soft, translucent feelers that cross at the tips.