5 Menu Items You Should Start Ordering At Olive Garden

Olive Garden has a pretty big menu, which is why it can be hard to narrow down some of the best items. I don't visit because I'm hoping for authentic Italian food, I go for the overall Olive Garden experience. After multiple visits during my lifetime, I've come away with some favorite dishes which I think capture the best of what Olive Garden has to offer. Some of the dishes you might consider basic, but I simply call them essential eating when making a visit. I'll be real: I've never been a huge fan of its pasta dishes, mostly because they're ones you can make at home for a fraction of the menu cost (which is admittedly not cheap), but there is one pasta stand-out on the list that I know you should try.

That being said, we Takeout writers are an opinionated bunch, which is why we all have our own individual takes. (Food tastes are subjective, after all.) Here are my five favorites, and why I will die on that hill for each, from appetizers to my lone pasta choice.

We all know that Olive Garden's unlimited breadsticks are a huge draw (they keep a staggering amount of breadsticks on hand at any given time), but they can get monotonous after the first one. That's why I always get the dipping sauce add-on, which is an additional fee, but the fee is half the price of most appetizers on the menu. 

You can get multiple varieties of sauce delivered at once with refills en route whenever you like, and you have your choice between most of the sauces available on the pasta, like alfredo, five-cheese, marinara, and meat. I consider this sort of a menu hack mostly because it saves you a decent amount of money. It's also fun because of the variety of sauces you can request. But the best part is, once you try all the sauces, you won't feel like you missed out on ordering the fettuccine Alfredo when you ordered the Stuffed Chicken Marsala because you've been dipping your breadsticks into Alfredo this whole time.

The Zuppa Toscana came is the best soup for a soup and salad combo at Olive Garden, and it's one of my favorites in general. It's composed of Italian sausage, kale, and potatoes in a creamy broth. I understand creamy soups aren't for everybody since they can sometimes be overwhelmingly rich, but here it's surprisingly not as thick as you'd expect. Being a Chicago guy, I'm a fan of Italian sausage (it's a popular pizza topping here), and the kale and potatoes can let you pretend like you're getting some veggies in with your meal. 

In our ranking of all four Olive Garden soups, our independent taste-tester wrote, "What makes this soup so special among the lineup are the balanced flavors. The inclusion of the Italian sausage set it apart from the other options because it was by far the spiciest. If you're not a fan of the heat, don't worry. The creamy broth prevented the spice from being overpowering — just enough to wake up your taste buds." And you know what? I wholeheartedly agree.

Some of you are going to think of my take as basic, but if I had to choose between Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana and the house salad, it's the salad all the way for me, baby. The salad itself may not sound super interesting on paper, with an iceberg mix, tomatoes, black olives, red onions, and some slightly hot pickled pepperoncini plus croutons (not to mention the endless shower of Romano, if you want it), but my favorite part about it is the dressing.

Olive Garden's dressing is brightly acidic and salty, which means I have a difficult time leaving it alone when my hot food arrives. I oftentimes request the server just leave the whole bowl on the table during the meal so I can eat it as a side to any main dishes. It helps break up the monotony of the otherwise blander items. Based off my earlier picks of a breadstick appetizer, creamy soup, and now this salad, you wouldn't be surprised to know that the Endless Soup, Salad, and Breadstick meal is my go-to at Olive Garden. It's affordable, all-you-can-eat, and well-rounded.

In my mind, Olive Garden's Stuffed Ziti Fritta appetizer is about as fun and silly as it gets here because it reminds of how Taco Bell loosely interprets Mexican food. I mean, come on, these are pasta noodles stuffed with five different types of cheeses, deep fried, and served with Alfredo and marinara sauces. How's that not fun? I hate to say it, but these are way better than any toasted ravioli (which surprisingly have origins in St. Louis). Toasted ravioli always seems to have too much of a pasta to filling ratio, making them starchy and tough.

The Stuffed Ziti Fritta, however, are way easier to chew and feel like a fun bar snack. Your other appetizer options include things like spinach-artichoke dip, fried calamari, and meatballs; so it's easy to see how the Stuffed Ziti Fritta stands out as one of the more unique personalities of the bunch. If you've never tried these things, order them at least once and you'll see what I mean.

I hate to say it, but I think most of Olive Garden's pasta dishes just aren't very good, which is why I'm boring and just crush a bunch of Endless Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks instead. However, the last time I went, I caved and tried a new menu item, the Calabrian Steak and Shrimp Bucatini, which features chunks of medium-cooked steak, shrimp, and hollow bucatini pasta all tossed in a pink Calabrian sauce with some spinach and tomatoes for good measure.

After my first bite, I have to say, I was genuinely impressed. This pasta dish had a lot of elements going on, from the long, tube-shaped noodles (which added a lot of fun texture with a good bite) to the surf-and-turf element with the shrimp and beef. What made me particularly happy was that there was a kick to it. Calabrian chili has a medium-level spice that works perfectly with Italian dishes like pizza, so it's a pretty smart pairing. It's nothing that would blow your socks off, but this was the first and only time I'd ever experienced something with actual spice at Olive Garden. The rest of its pasta choices have zero life to them, so this is something that genuinely caught me off guard in a good way.