Traditional Italian New Year’s Foods: What Italians Eat on Capodanno

Discover traditional Italian New Year’s foods for Capodanno! Learn why Italians eat lentils, cotechino, capitone and more, and how these festive dishes bring luck, abundance, and celebration to the new year.

If there’s one thing you can count on in Italy on New Year’s Eve, it’s a very generous table.

The cenone di capodanno (new year’s big dinner) is the most established of all Italian New Year’s tradition and it is as big and generous as the name suggests!

Unlike Christmas, which tends to follow well-defined regional menus, the Italian New Year’s Eve dinner is a much more relaxed and varied affairs when it comes to the food offered.

Families choose the dishes they love most, traditions vary from region to region, different types of gathering call for different things, but everyone agrees on two essentials: there must be plenty of food, and you must eat lentils with cotechino or zampone for good luck!

All the rest is deliciously flexible.

I am Italian, form Rome, so Italian New Year’s Eve is very much my tradition!

This guide walks you through the foods most commonly enjoyed on New Year’s Eve in Italy and the meaning behind them, so you can recreate your own Italian-style cenone at home or you know what to expect if invited to a New Years’ Eve dinner while on Italy!

Lentils: The Good-Luck Essentials

If there is one truly universal New Year’s food in Italy, it’s lenticchie (lentils).

Lentils are an Italian food staple all year round and are the start ingredients of many dishes. However, they have a special place on Italian NYE dinner tables as they are considered lucky!

Shaped like small coins, they symbolise wealth, prosperity and financial luck.

Traditionally, we eat lentils after midnight, as the very first food of the new year, but plenty of families enjoy them during dinner too. Whatever the timing, don’t skip them! As we famously say in Italy: it is not true, but I believe it (Non e’ Vero, ma ci credo)

Cotechino & Zampone: Rich Italian New Year’s Foods for Abundance

Lentils are almost always paired with cotechino or zampone, which are two pork based dishes typical of this type of the meat.

Cotechino is a slow-cooked, beautifully spiced pork sausage, while zamppone is stuffed pig’s trotter.

This duo + lentils is the core of an Italian New Year’s Eve menu and it is peculiar as it is one of the few foods that are truly only found this time of year.

Capitone: The Traditional Eel for festive gatherin

In many southern regions, a very traditional New Year’s food is capitone, a large female eel.

In my family, capstone is very much a Christmas Eve food, but NYE celebrations have a lot in common with Christmas ones and so I was not surprised when I discovered it was also popular in other households to ring in the new year.

My family usually has it as a starter, as part of an elaborate buffet also with smoked salmon, charcuteries boards etc.

I was told that capitone has ancient symbolism tied to protection and “keeping evil away” for the coming year, which is fitting with trying to start the new year on the best foot!

Seafood Dishes (Common Across Italy)

Seafood is very common on New Year’s Eve but not because they are ‘lucky’: they are just festive and, for the most part, a little more expensive than others, and therefore great for a special dinner.

Popular dishes include calamari, octopus salad, baccala’, seafood antipasti and spaghetti alle vongole.

If you are hosting, these are wonderful options for a truly impressive dinner (good to know: we often buy these! Especially the starters are commonly found in shops, you are not expected to slave away to make them from scratch!)

Festive Pastas

New Year’s Eve dinners are often pot-luck, with each guest contributing with something. because of this, the most popular dishes are dishes that travel well, for instance lasagne, cannelloni or a roast.

Good to know! If you are invited to a NYE dinner and need ideas for food to bring, have a look here at my suggestions for pot luck dinner recipes with Italian flare!

If you are hosting and do not need to worry about transport, risotto and tortellini in brodo are also typical.

Panettone, Pandoro, Torrone: Sweet Beginning

To close the evening, Italians almost always bring out traditional Christmas and seasonal treats, specifically:

Panettone, originally from Milan but now a truly national staple, rich with raisins and candied fruit.

Pandoro, also originally from Verona but now a national dish: soft, buttery, star-shaped and dusted with vanilla sugar and often accompanied by pastry cream or mascarpone cream.

Torrone, aka Italian nougat, which is delicious and truly seasonal.

Ricciarelli, traditional, soft Italian almond cookies from Siena, with a chewy, marzipan-like texture and crisp crackled sugary top

The Countdown and Midnight Toast

Ok ok, this is not a uniquely Italian tradition but it is a strong one!

Before midnight, we count down to it with: dieci, nove, otto, sette, sei, cinque, quattro, tre, due, uno… (these are the Italian numbers one to ten backwards).

Then, as midnight strike, Italians toast the new year with Spumante, a clink of glasses, a cheerful “Buon Anno!” (this is Happy New Year In Italian), fireworks outside, and perhaps a spoonful of lentils right after: the perfect start to the year!

What a Typical Cenone Might Look Like

A classic Italian New Year’s Eve menu often includes:

Antipasti: seafood salads, cheese & salumi boards, olives, fried snacks – there is no rule about what gets offered as appetizers, but usually they are colorful and varied!

Main courses: lasagne, risotto, parmigiana di melanzane, cotechino or zampone with lentils, seafood, roast meats

Side dishes: roasted vegetables, potatoes

Dessert: panettone or pandoro

After midnight: lentils and sparkling wine for luck

But remember, in Italy we are pretty relaxed about the New Year’s menu. The only real rule is: the table must be abundant, and lentils must appear somewhere! Buon Anno!