Let’s Get Italiano! Our Favorite Pizza and Pasta Flavors
From delivery pizza to gourmet pasta recipes, Italian fare is a favorite wherever you look, and it’s no surprise why this is the case. Italian combines the best ingredients in the world in the best possible way to create rich, decadent treats that are an absolute treat to enjoy. Of course, spaghetti and meatballs and pepperoni pizza are only scratching the surface of what the world of Italian cuisine has to offer. Let’s explore the world of Italian flavors, and how flavor designers can look to autentico recipes to inspire their own creations.
One of the most common flavor notes in Italian cuisine is, unsurprisingly, tomato. However, it would be a bit misleading to think that there is only one type of tomato flavor that may appear in Italian foods. Sun-dried tomatoes have a stronger and sweeter flavor note, while tomatoes may also be pickled and carry stronger vinegar flavors.
It goes without saying that Italian cuisine also has numerous different types of cheese flavors. Cheese is an important element in everything from pasta to pizza, bread, and even Italian desserts such as tiramisu, and flavor designers interested in the world of Italian cuisine should have a full understanding of the many different types of cheese that are native to this style of cooking. Sharper, stronger and more pungent notes are characteristic of cheeses such as Parmesan, while other types of cheese, such as Mozzarella, tend to have milder flavors. Using the right cheesy flavor ingredients is important to recreating and enhancing the right cheese flavors in these products.
Another key element of Italian cuisine is the particular types of spices used in the creation of Italian dishes. Some examples of common Italian spices include oregano, parsley, sage, basil, thyme, rosemary, and – of course – garlic. Flavor ingredients such as Natural Garlic Oil can be a simple and efficient way to add these spices to products such as pasta sauce, to name one example, in a way that helps to control the flavor of these spices easily in the final product.
Flavor ingredients can even be used to help enhance and recreate the flavors of vegetables in Italian style food products. These include everything from mushrooms to bell peppers and greens. No matter what type of Italian cuisine you’re attempting to produce, it’s important to use the right ingredients to strike the perfect balance between the delicacy of ingredients such as tomato with the stronger flavor notes of the herbs and spices used in this style of cooking.