Italian Christmas food: 20 traditional regional recipes

Christmas festivities used to be the time of the year when people ate plenty, highlighting with cooking the little they had. Now the world has changed, as is the food; but it’s thanks to dishes and products of the regional tradition that we can still rediscover the sense of celebration, fun, and the joy of being together.

For this reason, we are about to discover the traditional Italian Christmas food traveling around Italy in search of 20 typical Christmas recipes. We’ll find the most sincere and authentic flavors of the whole country, feeling even today like children eager to live a happy Christmas lunch with the family.

Our journey through the traditional Italian Christmas food starts from the North, specifically from the Aosta Valley. In this region with a beautiful nature, historic villages, spas and picturesque markets, the Christmas festivities are highly regarded and very heartfelt. 

This passion is particularly evident at the table: one of the inevitable recipes during Christmas lunches and dinners is the Seupa à la Vapelenentse (Zuppa alla Valpellinese): hot and crunchy bread toasted in butter and savoy cabbage covered with fontina cheese and melted butter, all immersed in the warm embrace of a tasty beef broth.

It’s a traditional and delicious dish, perfect to warm up during the long winter evenings, which tells a lot about the conviviality typical of high mountain territories.

One of the most typical Italian Christmas food is the recipe of the traditional Natalini in brodo, characteristic of the beautiful Liguria. The Natalini, locally called Natalin in to Broddo, are a sort of long macaroni to be enjoyed in a tasty capon broth, with the accompaniment of sausage presented in form of small meatballs.

It’s a dish that fully represents the true meaning of the holidays, and in fact it’s generally found only in this particular time of the year. 

In Genoa, Natalini also have an auspicious meaning: to be precise, it’s the sausage added as an accompaniment to be considered a good luck charm, because traditionally it represent the palanche, which in Ligurian dialect means "money" (the palanche were copper coins once in use between Liguria, Veneto and Tuscany).

In winter Friuli is particularly enchanting, offering wonderful landscapes, endless activities on the beautiful ski slopes and, of course, tasty and unmissable recipes of the regional tradition.

One of these is Brovada and Muset, a classic of Friuli Christmas cuisine. 

It’s a dish based on white turnips and muzzle: the outer leaves are removed from the turnips, which are soaked with black grape skins, salt and water mixed with wine or vinegar, and then left to ferment for almost two months, thus easing the strong taste of turnip and giving way to a fragrance of marc.

Musetto, instead, is a sausage that contains only parts of the pig’s snout, similar to Cotechino but without the addition of pork rind.

Abbacchio al Forno is a dish that is traditionally eaten during holidays in Rome and throughout the whole Lazio. "Abbacchio" is in fact the Lazio term for the lamb. It’s a product that has very ancient origins, closely related to the agricultural tradition of the territory. 

Born as a poor dish, over time it has turned into a classic regional recipe, which today is commonly eaten both at Christmas and Easter.

Lamb is a meat that should be appreciated when it is still very hot, at the peak of its flavor, and is served with a side of tasty potatoes, cooked in the same pan in order to absorb the essence.

From the hill where the picturesque village of Canzano stands, this traditional Italian Christmas food has spread throughout Abruzzo, and today the Tacchino alla Canzanese is an unmissable dish on every Christmas table of Teramo.

It is told that one day of the mid-19th century, two canzanesi farmers prepared a turkey broth in the morning, letting it rest in anticipation of a dinner with their friends. After many hours, the broth formed a jelly that was used to make the meat richer and tastier.

In addition to the use of jelly, there’s also another fundamental characteristic of the Tacchino alla Canzanese: it’s necessary to use the meat of a female turkey, which is more tender and with a stronger flavor. Thanks to these two elements, jelly and turkey, and to the intuition of the farmers of Canzano, a recipe was born that has become over time a true regional gastronomic institution.

Frascateglie con Polenta: a traditional Christmas recipe from Molise, a region as small in size as excellent in its gastronomic products.

It’s basically a dish made with polenta and pork liver sausages. The pork is a very present product in Molise cuisine, which consists mainly of poor and simple dishes, based on the ancient pastoral and peasant tradition typical of the inland areas of central Italy. 

It’s a cuisine that, however, as demonstrated by recipes such as Frascateglie, can offer delicious, decisive and intense flavors, also through a significant use of aromatic herbs and spices.

Cartellate is a typical recipe of Apulia, consumed in the Christmas period and in general during holidays. It’s a fried pastry with a circular shape, which according to tradition recalls the baby headbands in which the Holy Child was wrapped after his birth (or the crown of thorns of the Crucifixion, when this product is prepared for Easter).

Still today, the etymology of the name is rather uncertain: perhaps it derives from the particular shape of the cake, or maybe from the Greek "kartallos", which means "basket": in fact it’s thought that Cartellate could have a Greek origin, dating back to the 6th century B.C.

An aura of mystery that contributes to the charm of this pastry. But, above all, it’s his excellent and particular taste (in the dough is used cooked must) to make it a product not to be missed for everyone in Apulia, and not onlythere, at the end of Christmas meal.

Pettole are a traditional Lucan food to be consumed within family during Christmas meals. It’s a recipe that perfectly expresses all the typical conviviality of Basilicata, a land where Christmas traditions, like for example the representation of live nativity scenes, are held in high regard.

Precisely, the recipe of Pettole Lucane consists in the preparation of a sort of shortbread donut which is left to rise before being fried in oil. 

There is both a salty version, made with the use of the extraordinary products of the region, such as cheeses and meats; and a sweet one, that includes the addition of honey.

Now we arrive in Calabria, a land of traditions and simplicity, also with regard to Christmas recipes. But it’s a simplicity that lacks nothing of inebriating aromas and flavors; a simplicity able to describe all the thousand facets of this beautiful and complex territory.

Pasta con Alici e Mollica (Muddrica) di pane tostato (toasted bread) is a first course that can not miss at Christmas, especially in the area of Cosenza (although the recipe is widespread in much of the South).

It’s a dish born from the poorest classes, as evidenced by the crumb of bread put on pasta, generally spaghetti, to give crunchiness to the plate. For this reason, for its frankness and simplicity, and because every taste takes you back to childhood, it’s an ideal recipe to enjoy in company during Christmas holidays.

A dish to enjoy on holidays in the wonderful Sicily, especially in Messina, where this recipe is a must. The Pasta 'Ncasciata is a kind of baked pasta and a recipe also made famous by the writer Andrea Camilleri: his most known character, inspector Montalbano, was very greedy of this plate.

If its name refers to the terracotta pan on which the pasta was once cooked, or to the presence inside it of caciocavallo, we can not say for sure. What is certain is that this is a traditional Sicilian dish to be enjoyed avidly during Christmas lunch.

As type of pasta, macaroni are generally used; while the filling (net of variations that are present within the regional territory) involves the use of salami, caciocavallo, Sicilian pecorino cheese, fried eggplant and peas. Simple and local ingredients, for a complex and extraordinary set of flavors: Montalbano guarantees!

Let’s conclude our journey among the traditional Italian Christmas food by flying in the magical Sardinia, a place of great gastronomic culture and extraordinary dishes.

In Sardinia, at Christmas, the Culurgiones de Casu take the lion’s share as a first course typical of the holidays. The culurgiones are like ravioli made of wheat flour, handmade and filled with Sardinian pecorino cheese, accompanied by a tomato sauce.

Also in this case, it’s the victory of the simplicity of a rustic and wild land, a simplicity that enhances the tasty flavor of local ingredients and that leads us to live a Christmas lunch or dinner under the banner of the traditional values of this beautiful territory.