Sicily Cuisine - By food author Howard Hillman

Famous Sicily dishes

Food tips you can trust

Most famous
dishes of Sicily

Caponata

Chopped vegetables such as eggplant (the most essential ingredient), tomatoes, onions, green peppers, olives, and celery individually cooked in olive oil, then combined. Caponata is similar in concept to the French Ratatouille.

Pasta con le Sarde

Macaroni cooked with sardines along with various flavorful seasonings. This dish is particularly popular in Palermo.

Cassata alla Siciliana

A sponge cake sliced into several layers and spread with a Ricotta cheese, cream, candied fruit, chocolate, and liqueur mixture, and then reassembled and covered with chocolate icing. Cassata alla Siciliana may also refer to an Italian ice studded with candied fruits.

Cannole

A confection consisting of a hard, tubular pastry shell stuffed with Ricotta cheese enriched with cream, candied fruit, and sometimes chocolate.

Popular Sicily
food ingredients

Seafood

It's Sicily's leading protein source because of its abundance. Tuna, swordfish and sardines head the charts. Meat is usually tough and expensive, owing to a lack of suitable pasturage.

Produce

They are flavorful and well liked in Sicily.

Ricotta

Sicilians adore fruits and vegetables, especially tomato, eggplant, artichoke, citrus fruits, almonds, and olives.

Olive oil

It is Sicily's favorite cooking medium (except in Palermo, where cooks prefer butter).