Italian Easter Food and Easter dinner menu ideas you will love

Italian Easter Food and Easter dinner menu ideas: what to expect on Italian tables at Easter and how to make an Italian Easter dinner at home.

Italian Easter food is a big celebration of spring products and ingredients that symbolize a new start of life.

The star foods of Italian Easter cuisine are eggs, wheat and lamb, all connected to the Christian festivity of Easter, but you also find an abundance of spring vegetables, sugar, almonds and tons and tons of chocolate!

This is a list of the popular and traditional Italian Easter food you can taste in Italian households and restaurants on Easter Sunday.

See also >>> how to wish someone Happy easter in Italian

12 of the most popular Italian Easter foods: list

If you want to make an Italian-inspired Easter lunch, then you can build your menu around these most popular Italian Easter foods.

You can pick and choose those you want and serve them all – Easter in Italy is not a time diet! The only two I would not serve together are lasagne and crespelle however, you wouldn’t be the first to have two first courses on Easter Sunday, especially if cooking for a crowd.

Name	Course*	Type of dish
Corallina	Appetizer	Cured meat/salami
Blessed eggs (uova benedette)	Appetizer	Hard-boiled eggs
Frittata	Appetizer	Pan fried egg omelette
Torta Pasqualina	Appetizer/side	Spinach and ricotta pie
Crespelle ricotta e spinaci	First Course	Stuffed savory pancakes
Lasagne	First Course	Pasta bake
Lamb (cutlets, rack, etc)	Second Course	Meat, usually grilled or roasted
Puntarelle	Side	Vegetables/Salad
Carciofi (artichokes)	Side	Cooked vegetarian side
Patate arrosto al rosmarino	Side	Rosemary roast potatoes
Colomba	Dessert	Almond and sugar cake
Pastiera Napoletana	Dessert	Wheat, ricotta and orange blossoms cake

*Find the traditional Italian meal structure here

Colomba (lit. Dove)

Colomba is a traditional Easter cake baked in the shape of a dove (colomba, in Italian), symbol of peace and reconciliation.

A little like panettone at Christmas, this is a cake that could be baked at home but that it is more often bought in the shops and usually consumed over several days – on Easter Sunday and then the following days for breakfast.

Colomba has the consistency of a bread and has a delicate crust made of sugar and almonds that make it light in flavor yet satisfying.

A huge symbol of Easter, it is not the most exciting Easter food you can have in Italy but it is kind of a must-have: if you are looking for a no-stress, typical Italian Easter dessert, this is the one!

Pastiera Napoletana

Another very popular Easter dessert in Italy is Pastiera, a delicious cake from Naples made with wheat grains, ricotta, pastry and orange flowers essence.

Unlike colomba, this is a cake with a huge homemade tradition but it is pretty laborious to make, so the mamas who do usually get lots of kudos – a good pastiera is one of the most delicious things you can taste and, in my opinion, the most delicious Italian Easter dessert you can ask for!

Pastiera is a cake from Naples.

Torta Pasqualina – Italian Easter Pie

The name torta is deceiving in this case as this is a savory dish, somewhat reminiscent of a pie. 

Easter cake in Italy is two layers of puff pastry filled with spinach, ricotta and whole eggs and is usually served as a starter or a side dish.

It is a popular Italy Easter foods in many households as it is easy to make and keeps well: you will find it on Easter tables but, even more commonly, in Easter Monday pic-nice baskets. It is the ultimate Easter Monday getaway food!

Torta Pasqualina is originally from Liguria, the region of Genoa and Cinque Terre, but it is now popular all over Italy. Its filling is made with ricotta, spinach, herbs and eggs. You can find my recipe for Torta Pasqualina here.

Hard boiled eggs

In Italy at Easter, the eggs are also eaten hard boiled and usually for breakfast, something not usually done in Italy where breakfast tends to be a non-cooked, simple affair.

Traditionally, the eggs you eat on this day would have been blessed by a priest on Easter Saturday and would take the name of uova benedette (blessed eggs). 

However, nowadays eggs feature on the Easter breakfast tables also of non-religious households. 

My aunt used to serve them decorated with a leaf of an olive tree, taken from the olive branch from Palm Sunday, a presentation that is at the same time super simple yet effective.

Corallina – salami

Another classic Italian Easter food is corallina, a type of salami and while it is originally from Umbria.

Corallina is much loved in Italy and typical of this day: it is simply served on a wooden table with a sharp knife for each person to carve out a slice (or two, or three!).

Frittata 

Frittata is a simple dish served in Italy all year but especially at Easter, when it is served as a starter. 

Frittata, in its simplest form, is made of eggs, beaten and pan-fried (find my plain frittata recipe here), but the type you have at Easter and most commonly in Italy also has some veritable in, usually artichokes or zucchini, like in the photo.

Frittata di Zucchine is simple to make at is easy to replicate at home. For the best result, prepare it the day before and offer cold, when the flavor truly comes out!

Crespelle Ricotta e spinaci – spinach and ricotta crepes

A very popular Easter main in Italy is crespelle, thin crepes (=pancakes) stuffed with spinach and ricotta.

Crespelle are delicious, satisfying and easy to make and have the same egg+spinach+ricotta combination that you find in torta pasqualina, clearly a favorite this time of the year!

Lasagne

Lasagne appear pretty much any time Italian families celebrate anything and Easter is no exception! There is no special lasagne recipe for Easter and you can have them with traditional ragout (aka beef and pork), lamb ragout or even vegetarian. a delicious variation and super easy to make is lasagne al pesto (pesto and bechamel), from Liguria.

Wonderful vegetarian Italian Easter dish (not vegan, there is butter and milk in them)

Lamb

Easter wouldn’t be Easter without lamb and you find it served in many different ways, depending where you are in Italy and individual family traditions.

One of the most satisfying ways to prepare lamb is from Rome where, at Easter, you have the finger-licking good abbacchio scottadito.

‘Abbacchio scottadito‘ which literally translates into ‘lamb that burns your finger’ are lamb cutlets grilled on a super hot BBQ and eaten with your fingers. They are a delight and super easy to make too!

This name give away the popular origins of this dish, eaten with your fingers, but also the most distinctive characteristics of it: the fact that you eat it very hot, straight from the grill.

You can find my recipe for lamb scottadito here

Puntarelle alla Romana – Italy style puntarelle (chicory)

A typical side dish from Italy and one that goes well with Easter food, if in season, is puntarelle all romana, a typical salad from the Italy / Lazio / Campania region.

Puntarelle (lit. small points or heads) are the sprouts of chicory and they make a lovely crunchy refreshing salad. In Italy, they are usually served with anchovies, either made into a paste or added in the form of small fillets. 

Carciofi – artichoked

Carciofi (artichokes) are also a very popular side dish and you can make them several ways, grilled or sauteed being the most popular. A recipe I love is the Roman intepretation of artichokes, which is perfect a side to any Easter main: find the recipe for carciofi alla romana here.

Sugar sweets

During the Easter season, sweet shops and pasticcerie also start selling Easter sweets made of sugar, usually in Ester-themed shapes such as bunnies, lambs and eggs.

They are super cute and only make their appearance this time of the year so they usually make the happiness of small kids because really ,if you are a kid, what can be best that a sugar little lamb?

Easter Eggs – Chocolate eggs

A list of Italian Easter foods for Easter simply must include chocolate eggs, maybe the most distinctive Easter sweet of all! They are a tradition in Italy, in two versions: just chocolate (dark, milk, white – the choice is endless) or in the form of sugar-coated chocolate eggs, usually in pastel colors. 

So, if you were to come up with an Italian Easter dinner menu, what would it look like?

You could make your Italian Easter dinner like this:

Appetizers (display as buffet or put in the center of the table for each to serve themselves): corallina, torta pasqualina (cut in small, square slices as mini bites), hard-boiled eggs, hard cheese like pecorino, ricotta and broad beans, skewers with cherry tomato mozzatella and a leaf of basil, slices of frittata (plain or with zucchini/ artichokes)

Pasta dish (pick one or 2): traditional lasagna, lamb lasagna, lasagna al pesto, spinach and ricotta crepes, ricotta and spinach cannelloni, pasta bake, pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines), asparagus risotto

Second course (pick one): lamb cutlet, lamb rack, rabbit, polpettone con uova sode (Italian meat loaf), rolled veal. Fish is also an option however it is more common on Easter Friday when meat is traditionally avoided

Sides (pick potatoes and one green): artichokes, puntarelle, sauteed spinach, asparagus, roast potatoes

Desserts: pastiera napoletana, colomba, chocolate eggs

Italian digestif – you will need one! See Italian difestif drinks here.

The symbols behind Italian Easter food

I mentioned that Italian Easter foods have symbolic meaning. Let’s look at some of them:

Wheat / corn: Corn at Easter symbolizes the triumph of life over death. In the Christian tradition, the faithful are called to grow a small plant of grain in their home in the days preceding Easter, under the strict direction of depriving the plant of light. Forced in a dark environment (symbol for a sepulcher) the plant grows pale but grows, and therefore becomes a symbol of life no matter what. The pale plants are brought to church on Holy Thursday as decoration.

Lamb: symble of obedience and of Jesus himself, as in the expression ‘Jesus, Lamb of God’

Eggs: symbol of a brand new, perfect life entering the world. The tradition of chocolate eggs, huge in Italy, is however not local in origin! You can read why we have chocolate eggs at Easter here.

I hope you enjoyed this overview of the most common Italy Easter foods and has inspired you to taste them and who knows, maybe even try to make them at home. Happy Easter!