Italian store cupboard essentials

What are the best Italian ingredients?

From good-quality oils and vinegars to pesto and antipasti, stocking up on our expertly sourced Italian ingredients will mean there are hundreds of delicious recipes at your fingertips. Find all these in our Foodhall.

• Olive oil – whether for cooking, or drizzling and dressing.

• Pesto and pasta sauces for quick dinners.

• Jarred antipasti, from sundried tomatoes to marinated olives.

• Dried pasta – the building block of hundreds of Italian meals.

• Risotto rice – choose carnaroli for the plumpest, richest texture.

• Balsamic vinegar for acidity and sweetness.

• Dried porcini mushrooms to add a rich depth of umami flavour.

Olive oil is the foundation of Italian cooking.

• Use Italian olive oil to sweat down veg for a soffritto when making ragu or minestrone, to shallow-fry aubergines or courgettes, or alongside butter when making a risotto.

• A good quality extra virgin olive oil is your friend for dressings and drizzling over bruschetta or burrata. Choose one with complex sweet and peppery flavours, like our Collection Nocellara Del Belice Extra Virgin Olive Oil – good enough to eat with crusty ciabatta or try it drizzled over ice cream.

Traditionally made by blending herbs, nuts, parmesan and olive oil, good-quality jarred pesto is your friend when it comes to speedy dinners.

• Our Collection Pesto Alla Genovese is crafted in small batches with fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil – toss through pasta or spread into sandwiches.

• Pesto doesn't have to be green – try our Collection Italian Pepper and Calabrian Chilli Pesto to add a fiery finish to your dishes, like this easy vegetable traybake recipe.

We've worked with Italy's best producers on our small-batch pasta sauces. Made just as you would in a home kitchen with the best Italian ingredients, these are your midweek saviours.

• Toss our Collection Italian Calabrian Chilli and Wild Fennel Ragu, made with Italian Barolo wine, through spaghetti for a vegan dinner in a flash.

• Use our rich, velvety Collection Italian Creamy Mushroom with Mascarpone and Black Truffle Stir in Pasta Sauce, made with mascarpone from Piedemont, for hearty pasta bakes.

• Our Italian Calabrian Spicy Salsiccia Salami Ragu is cooked in small batches with ingredients like Calabrian pork sausage and Tuscan Chianti – heaven with gnocchi or tagliatelle.

• Toss our Collection Italian Puttanesca With Leccino Olives and Wild Capers with spaghetti – it's slow-cooked in small batches to build up layers of punchy flavour.

• Rich, creamy and indulgent, our Collection Italian Tomato and Vodka Pasta Sauce is wonderful with crispy gnocchi and burrata.

From lasagne to rich, slow-cooked ragu and quick midweek meals, a pack of dried pasta is your passport to a world of flavour-packed Italian dishes.

All our dried pasta is air-dried in the Italian alps by the Felicetti family, who've been making pasta for generations. From corkscrew-shaped fusili that clings to meaty sauces, egg tagliatelle to toss through ragu, tiny orzo, penne and macaroni, choose a shape to complement your sauce.

Crafted in Italy using organic Puglian grains with pure Alpine spring water, our bronze-die Collection single grain pasta will elevate your go-to dinner. Toss spaghettioni with olive oil, capers, anchovies and lemon, or bake our Collection Single Grain Conchigilioni with rich cheeses and butternut squash.

Tinned tomatoes

Tinned tomatoes are a staple for Italian recipes, whether for simmering into a quick tomato pasta sauce or adding to caponata or chicken dishes. All our tinned tomatoes, passata and tinned cherry tomatoes are made with Italian tomatoes that are picked in season for the best flavour.

Keep Italian jarred antipasti on hand for Italian-inspired grazing boards or to add a flavour boost to your recipes.

• Picked at their peak to retain their grassy flavour, our Collection Italian Queen Nocellara Olives are delicious served chilled with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

• Serve our Collection Italian Mixed Antipasti Antipasto Italiano with burrata and foccacia for a grazing spread, or use in this antipasti pasta salad recipe.

• Tinned beans are a mainstay of Italian dinners – cheap, versatile and delicious. Pick up borlotti beans to simmer into a classic pasta e fagioli.

• Pile Italian Grilled Mixed Peppers onto toasted soudough and shave over some parmesan for a five-minute aperitivo hour snack.

• Jarred Baby Artichokes and sundried tomatoes are delicious as they are, or in this artichoke and tomato farinata recipe.

• Our Collection Italian Chocolate Hazelnut Crème is a luscious blend of rich gianduja chocolate and roasted hazelnuts. Crafted in Italy in a family-owned atelier, this smooth spread has a deep, nutty flavour that's purely indulgent. Try it in a shortcut chocolate mousse.

• It's no wonder our Collection Pistachio Crème went viral. Crafted in a family-founded atelier in Lombardy, Northern Italy, it's as good on pancakes as it is used to fill homemade amaretti biscuits.

• Use our Collection Italian Hazelnut Crème in baking recipes, or eat it straight from the jar. Made from aromatic, buttery hazelnuts, it's smooth, nutty and very moreish.