How to choose and eat the best panettone

Whether you’re going for something traditional or want to up the flavour factor with a chocolate or nut-studded panettone, read our guide to how to eat panettone, this year's must-try flavours and irresistible recipe ideas to help you use up the leftovers.

Senior Food Editor

Heather Taylor

What is panettone?

Panettone is a light, fluffy Italian sweet bread that’s thought to date back to 200AD. Made with slow-risen sourdough and enriched with butter, it also traditionally contains festive ingredients like candied peel, raisins and citrus – although these days there are a plethora of irresistible flavours to try. After being baked, panettone is traditionally skewered hung upside-down to cool and rest, ensuring the rich dough doesn’t collapse and the texture remains light and fluffy.

Browse Christmas and panettone

How to eat panettone

In Italy, panettone is traditionally eaten as it is for breakfast, sometimes gently warmed, with a cup of strong espresso. But it’s equally as good served as a dessert, with a dollop of cream or ice cream and a glass of marsala. It also makes a brilliant base for indulgent festive recipes, like Tom Kerridge’s chocolate-laden panettone bread and butter pudding, or an epic Christmas brunch when pan-fried in beaten egg and used to make panettone French toast.

Christmas recipe ideas

How to find the best panettone

At M&S, our panettone comes from the Di Gennaro family, based in Fossano, in Piedmont, 60km from Turin. They’ve been making panettone according to a traditional recipe for two generations. The dough is made with a sourdough starter that's over 60 years old, and traditionally hung upside-down – a process that takes three days.

From classic, fruit and citrus-flecked panettone to quattro chocolate, giftable mini panettones and moreish hazelnut panettone, we’ve got a panettone to suit everyone in the Foodhall this year. Keep reading for a few of our favourites.

Christmas in store

Expertly sourced panettone

The best fruity panettone

Made by our experts in Northern Italy to a time-honoured family recipe using a 60-year-old starter, our new Collection Cherry and Single Origin Chocolate Panettone is a must-try this Christmas. It's loaded with three types of cherries and studded with 75% single origin chocolate, and comes presented in a striking giftable tin. Find it in the Foodhall from 3 November.

The best chocolate panettone

The chocoholics in your life won’t be able to resist our indulgent Quattro Chocolate Panettone. It’s our signature light Italian bread studded with milk and dark chocolate chips, generously filled with an oozy milk chocolate sauce, coated in rich dark chocolate and scattered with white and blond chocolate chips. In other words, four types of chocolate for four times the deliciousness. Use any leftovers to make Tom Kerridge’s quattro chocolate panettone bread and butter pudding.

See the chocolatey one

The best panettone dessert

Available to pre-order for Christmas collection via our Christmas Food to Order service, or to buy in store from 18 December, our Collection Lemon and Mascarpone Panettone Gateau is all the best bits of a panettone in showstopping dessert form. It features layers of soft, fluffy panettone filled with lemon curd and mascarpone cream, crowned with white chocolate curls.

Order the panettone gateau

The best hazelnut panettone

Our new Collection Nocciolato Panettone features our signature butter and egg-enriched panettone dough, studded with plump sultanas and Calabrian candied orange, with a crispy hazelnut topping sprinkled with whole roasted Alupian almonds. It makes the best use of Italian ingredients, such as butter sourced from 20 minutes away from Fossano, in Piedmont, and candied orange from extra-juicy Calabrian oranges.

More Christmas cakes, puds and pies

The best mini panettone

Hang these cute mini panettone on the tree or use them as stocking fillers or Secret Santa gifts. They’re made with our same light, fluffy, all-butter slow-proved dough and come in two irresistible flavours: cranberry and orange, studded with cranberries and candied Sicilian orange peel, or double chocolate, filled with milk and dark chocolate chips and chunks, plus a classic mini panettone.

Read our food gift guide

How to use up leftover panettone

You’ve chosen your perfect panettone – now use it to make some showstopping festive recipes. Try this showstopping panettone trifle with mulled wine-poached pears and a nutty topping, or Tom Kerridge’s Christmas panettone eggy bread with a spiced fruit compote. Load up into an epic bread and butter pudding, or serve with rich clotted cream and berries as an indulgent Christmas brunch.

Festive recipe ideas

Published 11.11.2025