Italian ingredients
Ideal herbs & vegetables for Italian recipes
Do you love Italian food ?
If you are struggling to get the authentic delicious flavours you might tasted when visiting Italy. Then the ‘secret’ is to grow your own authentic Italian ingredients.
The 3 key Italian ingredients to focus on:
- Genovese Basil
- Italian Parsley
- Roma or San Marzano Tomatoes.
So, why these 3?
1. Genovese Basil & Italian Parsley
If you buy basil in shops then you are most likely to get sweet basil – whereas genovese basil is the type used by most professional chefs. And you will notice a real difference in taste.
Similarly most parsely sold in shops tends to be french or curley leafed parsley, whereas italian or plain leafed parsley is also the one used in restaurants. (Although to be fair a key reason is that it’s simply a lot easier to chop and wash than the other type)
A very easy way to start is to begin by using our key ingredients growing plan – because this already automatically includes genovese basil but all you do is to also add italian parsley.
To find out why these are important just follow the links below
- Sweet or Genovese Basil
- Average Height when grown 60 to 75 cm
- Time from seed to harvest – 50 to 75 days
- Italian Parsley
- Average height when grown 15 to 30 cm
- Time from seed to harvest – 70 to 90 days
- Please note – this is the type of parsely used in most restaurants, as opposed to the parsley you will buy in shops.
2. Roma or San Marzano Tomatoes.
These are the most important items to grow.
For example if you currently make Italian style tomato sauce (such as Bolognese) using tinned tomatoes…
Then you will notice a real difference when using the right type of authentic Italian fresh tomatoes.
If you have never used fresh tomatoes before, then the video below will show you how to make a basic Italian tomato sauce using fresh San Marzano tomatoes.
.
San Marzano Tomatoes are very easy to grow at home.
How to grow Italian ingredients
Just to summarise, if you want to grow your own fresh Italian ingredients then the ones to focus on are:
.
More information
.