The UK is having a heatwave! When summer gets really hot in Italy, many of us turn to simple, fresh dishes that don’t require hours in the kitchen. In this video, we’re sharing three of our favourite Italian summer dishes that we genuinely grew up eating:
🍅 Tomato and mozzarella with fresh basil
🥩 Bresaola, rocket and Grana with olive oil
🍈 Prosciutto crudo (ham) and melon
Marco absolutely loves tomato and mozzarella. Anna will happily eat prosciutto crudo and melon all summer long. And both of us agree that these dishes are perfect when it’s simply too hot to cook.
As always, we’re not speaking for all Italians—just two slightly weird Italians sharing our own experiences, family memories, and personal opinions.
If you’re experiencing the current UK heatwave, these dishes might become your new summer favourites too! Which one would you try first?
🍅 Team Tomato and Mozzarella?
🥩 Team Bresaola?
🍈 Team Prosciutto Crudo and Melon?
Let us know in the comments!
Thanks for watching! ❤️
#ItalianFood #SummerFood #ItalianCulture #heatwave
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42 Comments
Serious question: when it's too hot to cook, what's YOUR comfort food? 🤔
In this video we share some popular Italian summer dishes. Have you ever tried them?
🍅 Tomato and mozzarella
🥩 Bresaola, rocket and grana
🍈 Prosciutto crudo and melon
Do you have your own summer favourite? ☀️ Let us know in the comments!✨️😊
Your last video pretty much answered this question – a crisp butty is perfect for during a heatwave! 😊
Good afternoon, just wanted to say I love how wholesome and positive your chanel is – We really enjoy your content and stay cool in the heat !
Looks beautiful..nice and easy yet sophisticated….cheers..🍸
I used to serve Insalata Caprese as a starter dish and it's good to know I chose the correct name – sliced buffalo Mozzarella, sliced vine-ripened tomatoes and whole Basil leaves laid out in a circle so it was white, red, green repeated around the plate. I'd never have raw Oregano sprinkled over as the texture would be all soft with a crunch of raw herbs and also I think it would overpower the delicate flavours. But I did serve it with an e.v. olive oil, balsamic and oregano vinaigrette, which the customer could drizzle over – it went especially well with Mozzarella. The Braesola and Rocket with oil sounds robust but a delicious combination. Melon and Parma Ham is a very delicious dish and olives are always in my fridge. PS Over the past few days, I made my favourite Summer dish that involves no cooking – Salmorejo, an Andalucian Gazpacho. All you need is a knife and chopping board, a large bowl and a hand blender! It's so simple but so delicious – I've had it with serrano ham on top and nice bread rolls for the past 3 days!
SALMOREJO – Andalus Gazpacho (my recipe, after much research in Huelva, Andalucia)
Put the following into a large bowl:
1-1.5kg (6-7) large beef tomatoes (the riper the better), top, white core removed, cut into ¼’s
½ a cucumber, seeds scraped out, unpeeled, cut into 6-8 pieces
1 green pepper, seeds and core removed, cut into 8-10 pieces
½ large onion, cut into 6 pieces
2 cloves of garlic, hard top removed, cut into 8 pieces
2 TBS white wine vinegar
200ml good olive oil, extra virgin preferably (don’t panic and think it’s too much – it’s good for you!)
8 large pinches of salt
Blend with a hand blender until very smooth and creamy. Stir through for any pieces of unblended veg and blend again if needed. Blend in 3-5 TBS of cold water if too thick, one at a time, stirring in well before adding more – this is a thick soup but liquid, not a casserole. Or add 3-5 ice cubes instead, which will help speed up the chilling process.
Rest it in the fridge for 20 minutes, then taste.
It should be: 1) creamy (if not, add 2 TBS olive oil and blend in), 2) savoury (if not, add 1-2 pinches of salt, stir in well and leave for 10 mins in fridge and then taste, 3) have a bite (you should be able to just taste vinegar – add another tomato and blend in if too sharp).
It should be a pale orange/pink colour with flecks of red and green.
Serve on a very hot day, in the shade. It will cool you down instantly.
Serve with strips of Spanish Serrano Ham (or Italian Parma/French Bayonne Ham) and chopped hard-boiled eggs and good bread, preferably a baguette.
Or serve it as shots – very cooling!
Last year we went to visit Sardinia on holiday that is where I discovered San Bitter it was superb as a non alcoholic drink , now I'll have to try Crodino , Cheers
My type of starters/appetisers. Different cured meats, cheeses and salad. Perfect. I still can't get my head around olives though, maybe there not that good from a jar in a supermarket. Nice vid.
Hello, hello. That was an interesting look at some traditional Italian salads. I would have to respectfully decline either team because I don't eat meat. Ordinarily I'll scoff any fresh fruit going but melon is a rare example of fruit which doesn't particularly appeal to me. Although in a fruit salad it's fine.
My go-to salad is simple and green: spring onions, rocket or a similar leaf, cucumber. Typically I would have that in a baguette spread with houmous, always cracked pepper, and a few bursts of sweet cherry tomato.
How do I cope with an extremely hot climate? A few years ago I would maintain a super level of physical fitness (Marco being a former footballer will understand this) which made everything outside of training a walk in the park. It's important to top up with fluids (water is ideal), vitamins and minerals if you're going to do this.
Now – as you demonstrate, light meals. Iced drinks, obviously. Drinking yogurt and chilled lattes are good for cooling down. I have a two-pack of fresh mangos (88p) and a 500g pot of simple yogurt (55p) in the kitchen, peel and slice the mangos and that's ready to go.
In the past I have been in the habit of sleeping with a two-litre bottle of ice, no-one's to say you can't sleep with two or more two-litre bottles of ice if you're feeling adventurous, which is a practical way of making sleep more comfortable. You'll need to find room for the bottles in the freezer while you're not sleeping.
The biggest discomfort for me is that clothing is irritating in this kind of heat. A matter of dressing as light as possible without scaring the horses.
I used to live with some Italians, it was loud and chaotic but the food was good! They loved to cook but one day the "head chef" was a bit down and couldn't be bothered to cook, so I did, kinda. Since it was a decent summers day and we happened to have good bread and Jersey Royal potatoes I "cooked" a English Ploughmans lunch for us. We had a cheese one, ham is the usual alternative. With a pint or 2, (OK 3 or 4), of farmhouse scrumpy cider. Have you ever heard or tried a ploughmans lunch? Next heatwave maybe try one?
(Crudo = raw). Lovely to see you two again. Stay cool.
Great to see you enjoying your foods too…..the smiles tell a lot 😊
Really appreciate any tips you can give us with regards to food and drink in a more Mediterranean climate, where you've found authentic sources in the UK. etc. I love seeing your joy of learning and trying British things but we also love your input and insight and to learn from you also. As someone with an Italian heritage on my grandmothers side but very little experience of that heritage my heart is warmed by your videos and the joy of sharing cultures both ways. Keep it up
Picnic food. Scotch egg, sausage roll and pork pie. With a salad. In Yorkshire we add boiled eggs and greater chedder cheese. If you don't want to boil an egg you can pick up pre boiled eggs from the supermarket. Cut into quarters and place on top of the salad. Mix ice burge lettuce with a soft round lettuce like butter head, add pickled onion or spring onion or old school Yorkshire add thinly sliced white or red onion, I also use a peeler and peel a carrot down in to thin leaves, then add thinly slice radish. If you have them in the garden add freshly shelled peas. Finally add pickled beetroot on the side of your plate and add some thick sliced ham like York Ham to your plate. Enjoy!
Slightly off topic question considering you were eating healthy food in this vid but how popular are Fonzies in Italy? haha
I love that snack. We have something similar called Nik Naks but they're not as good.
Always look forward to content from Anna and Marco but being biased tend to prefer Kalamata olives.There is, bye the way, a suspicion here in Australia that both Italian and Spanish extra virgin olive oil may be adulterated. Australian olive oil is largely produced from the descendents of Italians and Greeks. Italians migrants have made a huge contribution to Australian cuisine, particularly with coffee and pasta.
Hi Anna & Marco, I was with you all the way till you mentioned the dreaded 'M' word Melon 🤢😊 but the rest of your food looks lovely, especially the Italian tomatoes which along with British tomatoes are the only ones I will buy.
Snowball melons, which are a Japanese variety, have become available in Sainsburys. It would be interesting try it with prosciutto.
Smoked salmon with a lemon, garlic and chilli sauce for me, with good bread
i live in the uk and this is my ideal meal x those olives are my favorite too
I love a salad at any time of year. In summer I have it with some cheese or ham or tuna. Not as quick and easy to prepare as your yummy dishes. Also honeydew melon with ginger. I also like figs with prosciutto and ricotta.
A decent ploughman’s works well on days like this
Looks great, although I confess to being less keen on the flavour of whole olives, for some reason. 🙂
LOVE the cheese/basil/garlic/oil combination on bruschetta.
Banana sandwich something easy does me.
Thank you for sharing your summer italian snack suggestions they all look refreshing being a lover of italian cuisine i will try them out.
Scarpetta -thanks for the Italian lesson! That all looked delicious! Always a pleasure :)) ciao x
These seem like very relevant videos for summer dishes as northern europe slowly gets hotter and the climate becomes more like the mediterranean!
My Mum and Dad swore I was an English man through and through but my love for these type of meals still makes me wonder. Your Pomodoroe e mozzarella is one of my go too's but I must confess I didn't know it's origins I often substitute the Mozzarella for Brie (forgive me for the sinn) and I love the Italian cured meats and Olives my favourite is Black but I have started to appreciate good quality green as well.❤
You should get an allotment and grow on there, I have one and everything tastes so much better grown on there.
I just went and bought as many of the ingredients as i could from sainsburys. The only thing is i don’t like Parmesan . But i seen the Grana padano dop and wow! I made the grana and Prosciutto di crudo, using vine ripe tomatoes, and a ready packaged Italian salad (comes in a bag) i even found the olive bread. But just let me say! Wow what a cheese, every-time i have pasta im always left having to use cheddar on it and always feel im left out because i don’t like parmesan. Not any more this is my new pasta cheese from now on its so so nice!
Edit they didn’t have the melon in stock, but il try that tomorrow.
My go to in heat like this is picky bits, so boiled eggs a small rocket and Parmesan salad with ham and a bit of Coleslaw with cheeses. Pickles and olives, nice bit of piccalilli
I stay indoors with all the shutters closed but the doors open for the breeze. I love your salad,, I sometimes add sliced avocado and have some Parma ham and/or salami and maybe some ciabatta. When I spent some time in Italy in the 80s the Italian family I stayed with made a kind of salad with spaghetti, tomatoes, cucumber, tuna in oil and grilled hot dog sausages cut up. No idea if this is an actual dish or the family just made it up but I still make it most summers. I do love a prosciutto crudo and sun dried tomato sandwich made with ciabatta, or salami and sun-dried tomato, mind you I eat that at any time 😊 My mouth is watering at the melon and prosciutto mmm . I love to see your typical Italian dishes and your recommendations.
Marco reminds of and old iverpool goal keeper Pepe Reina 🤣🤣
I often enjoy Caprese salad in this very hot spell , I also love Burata salad when I was down in Puglia , they are wonderful dishes in this weather, this morning I had succo d' arancia fresca in a local bar , it was a perfect refreshing drink to have. Thanks Anna and Marco.
@4:38 in and across the Commonwealth and in antipodean countries -South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It is known as tricolor salad – tri colour of the Italian flag and the 3 colours of the Italian flag.
@8:55 what was that – beef or ham? I am waiting on melon with ham and one of other favourite things….
Antipodean summer salad is with strawberries, baby spinach, rochette and moderna vinegar, fresh cracked black pepper and seeds. Also, as a favourite non alcohol drink is Stealworks – made with ginger ale, granadilla aka passion fruit cordial and soda water with lashings of ice. Some grown ups add vodka. Melon and ham needs pepper all the way – I love it. My favourite of yours in this video, was the middle one…. Carpaccio was the one for me although in the heat fridge cold Melon and ham is divine.
The UK heat is worse than Italian heat. I remember visiting my now ex boyfriend in Calabria and it was 40 degrees but there was a cool breeze so we could cook pasta. But it's only 35 here and I can't even think of putting the microwave on! I really like caprese salad (even better with burrata and a drizzle of fresh pesto). I've only had the bresaola salad once in a cute Italian place in London — it was divine!
Where do you guys buy your mozzarella? You probably know that Galbani is a big brand in the UK that mass produces "mozzarella"…I'm offended that they can call it that as it tastes like water. Aldi is the only company in the UK that produces mozzarella with flavour and that isn't a patch on the real shit
I love all of these dishes, specially caprese salad, and not just in the very warmest weather. One other type of cold meat I love (it’s like “catnip” for me 😋) is mortadella specially with wafer thin slices or shavings of pecorino romano and some black olives, with extra virgin olive oil sprinkled on it, with some olive bread for dipping or mopping up excess oil.
Eaten all of these more in UK than Italy and ❤ Crodino.
Its definitely salad weather! I love the mozzarella tomato combination with any salad, now im hungry again… I will never say that British food is the best but I do think we have the best range of food available, we are lucky we can get pretty much any world cuisine here!
Prosciutto and melon is delightful, I also love watermelon and halloumi, is panzanella popular in your region?
The trend in the uk is to produce smaller and sweeter melons of lots of varieties
Thanks for another great video, I'll definitely be trying the bresaola and rocket dish. When I make my version of the mozzarella, tomato and basil salad I also add some sliced spring onions and some balsamic vinegar.