10 Recipes That Are Uniquely Italian-American, But Not From Italy

You might have heard this one before: that salad that is ubiquitous on the menu at every pasta joint was created by an Italian immigrant, living in California, for his restaurant in Mexico. Caesar Cardini lent his name to his creation and his version was meant to be eaten as finger food as the lettuce leaves remained unbroken.

Italians dip their bread in olive oil or use it to scoop sauce, but never smear it with butter. Italian Americans gave us this pasta sidekick using plentiful American butter, lots of garlic and sometimes cheese. Both versions are great but spaghetti seems naked without a side of garlic bread.

If you ask for salad dressing in Italy, you’ll likely get some olive oil and vinegar that you can DIY into a topper. Ken’s Salad Dressing invented the bottled Italian dressing we know in 1940s Massachusetts in the family steakhouse that later morphed into a dressing empire. Wish-Bone also developed their dressing in 1940s Missouri, also as part of a restaurant business, and both give credit to Italian Americans behind the scenes for their unique formulas.

Yes, a guy in Italy named Alfredo did make a creamy pasta dish, but it is nothing like what we call Alfredo sauce here. His was simple butter and cheese, ours is butter and cheese, sometimes even cream or cream cheese. They are not the same an Italians will make sure you understand the distinction.

Neapolitan ice cream is strawberry, chocolate and vanilla and though it sounds Italian, it's an Americanized version of spumoni, a multi-colored gelato dessert with fruits and nuts, usually pistachio, vanilla and cherry gelato to match the colors of the Italian flag. Neapolitan probably became the trio we know because they are Americas most popular flavors.

Pepperoni pizza is a standard pizza variety here, but you won't find peperoni on pizza in Italy, not to mention Neapolitan pizza is softer and thinner than New York pizza. Italy has differently flavored sausages but we have thinly sliced disks, invented by immigrants in 1919, that cup when the pizza is fired.

Italian-American bakeries gave us these Italian flag cookies that are little cakes of almond-based sponge, colored green and red and a chocolate coating. Eat these especially at Christmas, as is tradition.

Italy has scaloppina dishes, thin meats lightly breaded and sauteed in a reduction sauce. This Italian-American dish takes Sicilian Marsala wine and combines it with the breaded chicken, almost like a mashup of two Italian things.