What To Buy For Your Vacation Rental Kitchen In Italy: Easy Grocery and Meal Ideas For Travelers

What to buy for your vacation rental kitchen in Italy: all my tips for stocking your rental kitchen in Italy like a local! Discover what groceries to buy for functional, easy to make, tasty family meals during your Italian vacation, so you can have lovely family dinner with local products without too much cooking or cleaning up.

One of the joys of staying in a vacation rental / apartment / Airbnb in Italy with family is the chance to feel at home while living a little like a local.

Having your own kitchen means you can prepare easy meals, enjoy slow breakfasts at home, and have relaxing dinners at home after a long day of exploring, without having to miss out on tasting local food.

If you have kids especially, cooking at home is a great way to get a familiar routine going, getting them settled early and even feed them familiar staples, which kids often miss more than adults, when away from home.

Mixing and matching new things with familiar staples is a great way to expand their palate and shopping for groceries in Italy can be part of the fun.

A trip to a supermarket with children an very much be part of the adventure, especially if you come from a country with a very different approach to food, this can be more culturally immersive than any tour!

In grocery stores in Italy, you’ll find plenty of familiar ingredients, but also new ones that make even the simplest dish taste wonderfully Italian.

I am an Italian mama and I know Italian supermarkets well. I am also fond of not having to make elaborate meals while I am on vacation and not having to cook for ages, clean up for ages or have any heavy chores that cut into my adventure time.

So, I have mastered the art of simple airbnb meals and today I want to share my tips with you!

Here’s a guide to what to buy for your vacation rental kitchen in Italy so you can stock up easily and always have a nice meal waiting or you: perfect for families, couples, or anyone who loves good food made simple. I hope you enjoy it!

What to Buy First: Italian Pantry Essentials

The first thing I buy for my vacation rental kitchen is pantry staples, the foundation of Italian home cooking

With these on hand, you can make a wide variety of easy, family-friendly meals.

• Olio d’oliva (olive oil) – Go for a bottle of extra virgin olive oil. I use it for everything: cooking, dressing salads, drizzling on bread, etc. You only need a little of it for each dish so, unless you are staying a very long time, a small bottle will me more than enough. In some highly touristy areas too may even find travel size bottles or little packets of it; however, this is not very common, I have only come across occasionally
• Sale & pepe (salt and pepper) – You’ll often find two types of salt: sale grosso (coarse salt, for pasta water) and sale fino (fine salt, for seasoning). I do not find cooking pasta with sale fino as good as with sale grosso, but if you only have few days and want to save on space and amount of stuff to carry, you can get away with sale fino only.
• Aglio & cipolla (garlic and onion) – The aromatic base for most sauces and sautés.
• Pasta – You’ll have a whole aisle to choose from! Stock up on a couple of shapes like spaghetti, penne, or fusilli or you can do like us: pick the most unusual and random one you may find and then rate all of them to crown a family favorite – Fun ideas! You can get our Italian food printables for kids here.
• Passata (simple tomato sauce) – Pasta is tomato sauce with no added ingredients (except stabilisers etc) This is the basis of many pasta sauces as you can use it alone or as a base for soffritto, bolognese, pasta with tuna etc. Good to know: in supermarkets, you will find ready made pasta sauces but I highly recommend you make your own instead, with the beautiful ingredients we have! For instance as simple tomato sauce for pasta takes minutes and zero effort

• Pane (bread) – fresh bread comes to shops daily, so I recommend you only buy what you need each day. For fun, you can try regional varieties: pane toscano and schiacciata  in Tuscany, pane di Altamura in Puglia, rosette or pizza bianca in Rome.
• Tuna – I find tuna one of the most versatile things for vacation meals. It last long, doesn’t need cooking and goes beautifully in pasta sauces and salads.
• Beans and chickpeas – in Italy, we make great use of pulses and chickpeas and beans come in many forms, including easy to store and ready to eat jars. These are wonderful for easy salads or pastas.
• Cous Cous or Rice – both widely available in stores, I find them great as a basis for large salads packed with fresh ingredients like tomatoes, carrots etc that you can make ahead and store in the fridge
• Basil – if you are staying a few days, a small plant of fresh basil or even a packet of fresh leaves will go a long way to make your simple rental meals a lot nicer!

Fridge Staples for Easy Meals

Italy is AMAZING when it comes to fresh produce and you don’t need to spend a fortune nor go to specialized shops or markets for it: the fresh produce aisle of the supermarket is all you need.

That, plus cheese, cured meats, eggs and milk (dairy and non dairy options available) area all easy to find. We normally stock up with:

• Formaggi (cheese) – Parmigiano Reggiano keeps well and is perfect for pasta, then you can choose between a million varierieties: soft, aged, blue, cow, goat, packaged, fresh…
• Prosciutto or salame (cured meats) – Great for quick snacks, sandwiches, or aperitivo platters. You will find a huge variety, mostly from pork – mortadella, prosciutto cotton (cooked ham), prosciutto crudo (Prosciutto di Parma or San Daniele), coppa, lonzino…
• Fresh vegetables – Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, carrots, rughetta (rocket/arugula) are versatile and easy to find.
• Eggs – Perfect for omelettes (frittata) or a quick breakfast.
• Yogurt and fruit – Ideal for breakfast or a healthy snack for kids.
• Meat – easy to find in supermarkets and butcher shops, meat cuts like chicken breast, thin cuts of beef (fettina, straccetti etc), steak, turkey steaks are super easy to pan fry

Breakfast items

Between the cereals aisle, biscuits aisle, the fresh deli counter and the fridge, you will find all you need, whether you are going for a savoury breakfast or a traditional Italian breakfast.

Bread, jam, biscuits of all possible sorts, cakes, eggs, yogurt, cocoa, coffee, tea… all widely available.

Simple Italian Meals to Make in Your Airbnb

You don’t need elaborate recipes or special ingredients to cook well in Italy. Here are a few classic dishes you can make anywhere — even with a limited Airbnb kitchen setup- and that can make for a beautiful dinner. These are our go-to!

• Pasta al pomodoro: Just passata, good quality olive oil, salt and fresh basil and you have a perfect plate of pasta! With or without parmesan, to taste.
• Bruschetta al pomodoro: Toast slices of bread, rub lightly with garlic, drizzle olive oil, and top with chopped tomatoes and basil.
• Frittata: Beat eggs, add leftover vegetables or cheese, and cook until set — delicious hot or cold, you can also easily add vegetables and and potatoes to make it more complete
• Caprese salad: Fresh mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and a pinch of salt. Simple and refreshing.
• Straccetti with arugula, tomatoes and parmesan: super thin cuts of beef, pan fried, with arugula, fresh tomatoes and shaved parmesan on top
• Couscous or rice salad with tuna, fresh tomatoes, carrots, eggs, peas, beans or anything else your tastebuds love

All of these are family-friendly, quick to prepare, and don’t require fancy equipment, just basic cooking implements you’ll find in all kitchens

Add a Local Touch: Regional Specialties to Try

Every region of Italy has its own flavors: if you are not familiar with them, I have here >>> my essential guide to regional food in Italy. I recommend you read it before deciding what to buy for your airbnb kitchen in Italy as when it comes to food, there is more than one ‘Italy’ to experience!

Adding a few local products to your Airbnb pantry makes your meals even more special.

• Liguria: Try pesto Genovese and local focaccia, the simple version or the cheesy focaccia di Recco (spoiler: real focaccia is so much nicer than anything you can ever find abroad with the same name, you won’t believe the difference!)
• Tuscany: Pane senza sale (no salt bread, absolutely delicious and typical of Tuscany), cured meats, cantucci, schiacciata (the local focaccia)
• Emilia-Romagna: Famous for Parmigiano Reggiano and prosciutto di Parma of course
• Sicily: Look for pistachios, capers, and citrus fruit, but also eggplants and ricotta
• Campania: Home of mozzarella di bufala and San Marzano tomatoes — perfect for pasta or pizza nights.

Buon appetito (this is bon appetit in Italian!)

What to buy for your vacation rental kitchen in Italy – niceties and treats

One of the nicest things you’ll discover when grocery shopping in Italy is how easy it is to add a touch of luxury to pretty much any meal with little money and effort.

For instance, we love to buy fresh olives, taralli, crisps, aperol soda and juice so we can make our own aperitivo.

Or we make a simple dish of parma ham a little fancier wrapping it with breadsticks or we often find nice meals in the grocery stores, for instance fresh pesto you can simply add to pasta, filled pasta like ravioli you can easily cook or even freshly made lasagne or eggplant parmigiana.

For dessert, you have ample choices of cakes (fresh and packaged), biscuits, chocolate or of course ice cream (the industrial variety is in the freezer of pretty much all supermarkets. So really, it is very east to have a fun and delicious meal with next to no effort!

What to buy for your vacation rental kitchen in Italy – pin this!