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Discover the Best Italian Cooking Classes Online
It’s hard to imagine a more enticing aroma than the smell of freshly chopped basil, simmering marinara, or a pizza baking in the oven. With its simple aromatic ingredients and unique traditional cooking methods, Italian cuisine is as nourishing to the body as it is nurturing of the soul with its connection to the heritage of nearly 16 million Americans who claim Italian ancestry.
While Italian-American food was a modest family staple through the latter half of the 20th century, today many U.S. foodies appreciate the diverse menu in high-end Italian restaurants and desire to make similar dishes at home. Learning Italian cooking at a high level includes the mastery of traditional recipes as well as techniques ranging from making pasta and mozzarella to balancing flavors and using Italy’s iconic ingredients to create new takes on favorite dishes.
Why You Should Learn Italian Cooking Online
Cooking Italian cuisine is a rewarding hobby by nature, as its sensory pleasures hold delights for nearly everyone. Few things can rival the feel of dough soft as baby skin, the aroma of basil and garlic melding together, and of course, the flavors of your Italian dishes shared with loved ones around the dinner table.
Learning Italian cooking online is a great way to make new long distance friends who share your special interest, especially when you can’t find a local community that shares your passion for the cuisine. You can make friends in virtual Italian cooking classes, join the community of Italian food Instagrammers, or join Italian food fan groups online to swap recipes and share photos of your creations.
If you’re on a culinary career path, mastering Italian cuisine can be a major step toward securing your dream job as a professional chef. You’ll find many online courses that will help you with specific skills and recipes to help you reach your true potential in the kitchen.
Virtual Italian Cooking Classes
Live classes, whether online or in-person, offer helpful interaction with a knowledgeable instructor and the mutual support of a community of like-minded classmates. All these features can add accountability, fun, and a social element to your Italian cooking journey and increase your speed of learning considerably. While in-person classes have the additional benefits of providing the kitchen space, equipment, and ingredients for the course, there are many reasons you may prefer to learn in your own kitchen using your own supplies. Plus, who wouldn't love to invite a professional chef into their home kitchen?
CourseHorse’s catalog of online Italian cooking classes will keep your schedule full of culinary adventures. The Good Food Project’s Ravioli and Filled Pasta Workshop is a great place to start, as it offers a strong foundation in pasta-making basics and instruction in next-level filled pastas, including ravioli, mezzaluna, and tortellini. Plan to provide your own tools and ingredients for this course that welcomes ages 16 and up.
Home Cooking New York’s Northern Italian Dinner may be your next step to mastering Italian cooking. The class features a mouth-watering menu of pan-roasted lemon-rosemary chicken, creamy polenta Parmigiano, and garlicky roasted broccoli rabe. Your professional chef instructor provides a grocery list for four servings of this Northern Italian dinner.
The Chopping Block Lincoln Square frequently offers Italian cooking classes focused on a single recipe like Virtual Chicken Parmesan. You are welcome to either cook along with your chef instructor or take notes while you watch the demonstration. You’ll receive a complete recipe packet and be guided step by step through pounding, breading, and pan-frying the chicken, balancing flavors with fresh herbs, and cooking the accompanying vegetables to perfection.
Another great Chopping Block Lincoln Square Italian cooking class is Virtual Potato Gnocchi, where you will learn how to make light and fluffy potato dumplings from scratch along with a bacon, pea, and white wine cream sauce and spring green salad with fresh herbs and lemon dressing. Your recipe packet will include a detailed equipment list to help you be as prepared as possible to walk through the steps of creating gnocchi and flavorful accompaniments with the guidance of a professional chef.
If you want to add Italian Wedding Soup to your recipe book, Teaching Table has the class for you. Whether you plan to serve it as a course at your next dinner party or add it to your repertoire of quick but nourishing weeknight meals, Italian wedding soup is a traditional recipe packed with balanced nutrition thanks to its signature meatballs, vegetables, and pasta. Plan to pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy cooking with your instructor as you learn all about this classic soup recipe.
Private Online Group Italian Cooking Classes
Do you want to host a private Italian cooking class for your organization? A virtual pizza-making or Italian wine-pairing course could be the perfect team-building activity for your business. Whatever your goals in looking for Italian cooking classes for private groups online, CourseHorse is your one-stop shop for booking your big event.
If you would like to schedule a Virtual Mozzarella Making class to build your Italian cooking skills, check out CourseHorse's convenient option. For a small additional fee, they will even ship the rennet and citric acid your team will need to turn their milk into the iconic Italian cheese. Your team will learn to coagulate milk into curds and then turn those curds into balls of mozzarella ready to be used in numerous Italian dishes or enjoyed as a delicious snack with some bread and tomatoes.
Your team can learn another impressive Italian cooking skill in the Virtual Gnocchi Making class available on CourseHorse. Scratch-made gnocchi is so light and fluffy, you may never be able to enjoy store-bought Italian potato dumplings again. CourseHorse will arrange the shipment of most of the ingredients directly to each participant. All you’ll need to worry about is providing a few supplies available in most kitchens.
If you can’t find a suitable online Italian cooking class for your group, have no fear. CourseHorse can coordinate the exact workshop you hope to offer your team. Starting the conversation is simple: just use CourseHorse’s convenient contact form to tell them what you want in an online Italian cooking class. Alternatively, you can schedule a 15-minute phone call with the CourseHorse team, and they can take the class coordination process over from there without ever charging you a booking fee. Look for a confirmation from CourseHorse within 24 hours of your booking.
Don’t worry if you don’t know how many will attend the class yet. CourseHorse is happy to go ahead and book your course, and you can change the class size up to a week before the event. And for a fee of $150, CourseHorse can design your curriculum to include custom recipes, ingredients, games, and other class components. CourseHorse recommends Zoom for your private virtual Italian cooking class, but they can accommodate Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx.
Online vs. In-Person Italian Cooking Classes
Italian cooking classes—whether online or in-person—offer unparalleled opportunities for interactive, hands-on learning guided by an expert who can answer questions and help you solve problems in real-time. Live instructors provide physical demonstrations and multi-sensory guidance in developing skills requiring enormous precision.
One benefit to in-person classes is they typically provide the kitchen space, tools, and ingredients you need to prepare your recipes, while you will usually have to provide these yourself in an online class. However, this is often not a huge deterrent as most of the needed materials are standard kitchen tools. And as your class projects will also often be your dinner, your ingredients can easily be factored into your grocery budget. Online classes offer other benefits over in-person classes, such as no commute times, more class options, and the ability to cook alongside a professional in your own kitchen.
When choosing an Italian cooking class, you’ll want to factor in what skills or recipes interest you, your financial and time budgets for classes, and reviews and reputations of the schools and instructors offering the courses. If you value a fully immersive sensory experience and live in a larger city, in-person classes will likely be your best bet—if you have time for the commute. Meanwhile, online classes open a wide range of opportunities to those who cannot find a local Italian cooking class that fits their schedule, budget, or unique interests.
Can I Learn Italian Cooking for Free Online?
Numerous free online resources can help you get started when learning Italian cooking. You can find instructional videos on YouTube and helpful short-form content on social media platforms like Instagram. Food blogs and larger platforms like Food Network and Delish also hold a wealth of helpful content. However, most people learn faster with formal training by an expert instructor, whether in in-person or virtual classrooms. And with so many essential Italian cooking skills requiring exceptional precision in timing and technique, anyone serious about becoming an expert in Italian cuisine will supplement their cookbooks and internet research with cooking classes led by professional chefs.
