Side

Like a pizza, it’s crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. Nearly any pasta shape with any sauce will do; as long as you liked the original serving, you’ll like the leftovers prepared this way.

Traditionally, this rich dish is served as a main course, and as a kid that’s the way I ate it. But it also works in our health-conscious world as a starter or a side with something fresher and lighter—say, grilled fish drizzled with lemon juice or grilled meat. A creamy, cheesy dish like this is just the thing to make you feel coddled, as if your dining room is the coziest spot on earth.

In winter, when fresh tomatoes aren’t at their peak of ripeness and flavor, this is a great way to get your tomato fix. Sun-dried tomatoes are a wonder ingredient: They offer the rich, sweet flavors of fresh tomatoes, but they’re available year-round, they have a long pantry life, they don’t take up much room, and they pack a lot of flavor into a small punch. This pesto is a great topping for sautéed or grilled fish, and it’s also wonderful for a picnic because it can be eaten cold or hot. Also perfect over penne.

A great way to add just a little something extra to my basic marinara sauce.

This is a great way to use up leftover roasted red peppers. When I and my two brothers and sister were kids, my parents often served it as an afternoon snack to ward off our hunger before dinner was ready.

It’s easy these days to buy roasted peppers in a jar, but when making a red pepper salad (where it’s all about the peppers), I take that little extra step and roast my own. Nothing beats that great fresh-roasted flavor. It’s a classic antipasto dish from the Piedmont region, now popular all over Italy.

I know! I know! Refrigerated dough? But this dish works beautifully as a side, and when you’re making the rest of the meal from scratch this recipe will come in very handy. You can use any cheeses and herbs, but this is my favorite combination: The Parmesan and Gruyère make the bread sticks perfectly cheesy, and the rosemary gives them a hint of freshness and color. Don’t tell anyone about the refrigerated dough, and they’ll never know.

This dip is the Italian version of hummus, and in my opinion it’s smoother and tastier. This is a staple antipasto when I’m entertaining. The pita chips aren’t Italian, but they work really well with this dip.

I love to prepare and serve stuffed peppers because they make such a beautiful presentation; when you cut into them and the delicious filling spills out, it’s like getting a present. My mother is also partial to stuffed peppers, which she fills with vegetables, meat, pasta—almost anything.

I first tasted a risotto similar to this one in South Africa and though at first the idea of adding vanilla to a savory dish sounded a bit odd, I found the flavor combination irresistible. The vanilla adds a lovely aromatic finish but not a lot of sweetness. I consider this the perfect fall dish.

Use this recipe as a guideline and a suggestion, as you could really serve any odds and ends you find in the vegetable bin with this versatile vinaigrette. Think about adding broccoli florets, green beans, or summer squash, just to name a few.

This is the kind of side dish you would find on a steakhouse menu, rich and decadent. Frozen artichokes make this impressive dish quite simple to create. I like to bake it in individual gratin dishes because each serving gets its own crusty browned top, my favorite part!

I know not everyone puts zucchini on their top ten vegetable list, but when you coat zucchini chunks in a delicious Parmesan crust and broil them, trust me, most people will become zucchini lovers. You can cook sweet potatoes or carrots the same way, but zucchini cooks more quickly.

When I was a personal chef, a family for whom I worked often requested latkes, and though I hadn’t made them before, I totally fell in love with them. When I added Parmesan and basil to the mixture, they were even better. The Parmesan melts into a brittle web, like a frico, making these extra crisp and delicious.

I always serve this dish at Thanksgiving, but it’s good any time during the colder months. The kale and green beans make it vibrant and bright tasting, which is welcome at a time when not many green vegetables are in season.

Fregola is a toasted semolina pasta that is very popular in Sardinia. You can substitute any small shape pasta, such as orzo, which it resembles, but do make the effort to seek it out at a specialty food shop; its nutty flavor makes this pasta salad really unusual and delicious.

It’s hard to believe a plate this beautiful is so easy to make. Crudi means “raw” and the freshness of raw vegetables is especially welcome as an accompaniment to a heavier pasta. The key to this dish is creating long, graceful ribbons of the raw zucchini; they should look almost like pale green fettuccine noodles.

Midway between an antipasto plate and a salad, this is typical of the kind of salads you’ll find in Rome, which rarely feature a lot of lettuce. Don’t be put off by the anchovies; they are chopped fine and contribute a big kick of flavor and saltiness. Serve it along with a plate of sliced deli meats for a picnic or fall lunch.

I always prefer to use Japanese eggplants when I can because I find they are less bitter and don’t require salting the way bigger eggplants sometimes do. This is a very substantial salad and also very good looking, with pretty layers of eggplant, cheese, and nuts.

Fennel is best served from fall to spring, when it’s in season, and there are a million different ways to take advantage of its crunchy sweetness. Here, the raw bulbs are sliced and dressed with a nutty pistachio pesto and salty bites of prosciutto. The flavors just pair so well together.