5 Healthiest Dishes You Can Order At An Italian Restaurant

Taking strength from all of the wonderful ingredients found on the Mediterranean coast, Italian cuisine is renowned across the entire globe. From pizza and pesto to Bolognese and Caesar salad, an Italian restaurant can do wonders for your appetite.

Sadly though, most traditional restaurants, whether Italian, Chinese, or French, neglect their heritage and give the classical recipes a cheap, and unwanted “deep-fry” touch. Finding businesses that make true, authentic Italian dishes can be a difficult task.

But, there are certain meals that are truly difficult to spoil. To make sure you order something beneficial both for your taste buds and your wellbeing, here are the healthiest dishes you can find at an Italian restaurant:

Colorful Bruschetta

The perfect aperitivo, garnished with wonderful colors from the tastiest vegetables, bruschetta is an amazing way to start your day. This meal is very difficult to get wrong since it mainly involves bread and vegetables.

Of course, a nicely cooked bruschetta will be much more enjoyable than an amateurish one. In any case, you are definitely going to get a healthy meal. Slightly toasted bread, decorated with fresh tomato, olives, garlic, and oregano, bruschetta is a must if you are dining in an Italian restaurant.

Salads, Especially Caprese

Everybody loves salads! Whether fruit or veggie, a bowl of fresh ingredients can immediately improve a bad day at work. Experimenting with salad ingredients started in Italy. In the past, they used to mix bread, tomatoes, olives, and onions to create a refreshing meal full of quality nutrients.

Today, certain restaurants push traditional recipes to a maximum and experiment with all types of flavors. Sadly, this might make a salad lose some of its nutritional value. Ordering a Caesar sounds nice, but the sauce these days is full of harmful calories.

But nothing can go wrong with a Caprese salad. This Italian gem, consisting solely of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil is the ideal salad for boosting energy and balancing substances in the stomach.

Warm Traditional Soup

As with Caprese salad, ruining a nice and warm plate of soup is very difficult to do. On the plus note, Italians have amazing soup recipes. Of course, the quality will vary from restaurant to restaurant and one must carefully choose the location for dinner.

Minestrone is a popular all-veggie soup that can satisfy an empty stomach in no time. Made from either pasta or rice that is always mixed with various veggies like onions, beans, celery, tomatoes, and carrots, minestrone is the healthiest options you could choose.

Special Dish: Chicken Cacciatore

The drink Jagermeister bears the meaning of “deer hunter” in German. And what Jagermeister is for the German, Chicken cacciatore is for the Italian. Literally meaning “hunter”, Cacciatore is a traditional dish that includes chicken, veggies, red wine, and herbs.

If you step into a restaurant that has this meal on the menu, beware, you might be walking into a proper and traditional Italian restaurant.  Not everybody is prepared to serve this dish, especially since it is not deep-fried and is very difficult to prepare.

So start doing some hunting yourself! Search for the best Italian restaurants in Ontario and ask for chicken cacciatore. It is definitely worth trying!

Properly Cooked Seafood

Gently prepared and flavored either with rosemary, lemon, olive oil, or white wine, seafood is the perk of Italian cuisine. Instead of going to placed who deep-fry shrimp and squid, opt for restaurants that offer grilled calamari and muscles dipped in white wine instead.

The wonderful mixture of flavors will melt in your mouth while you are wondering whether it’s normal to order the same meal twice in a row. Seafood is rich with healthy minerals, while also being light and low and calories. This makes it perfect for increasing your energy and maintaining physical shape at the same time.