Stanley Tucci Just Shared the Ingredients He Always Has on Hand for Easy Meals

When it comes to easy dinners, Stanley Tucci is the king of them. From a quick Bolognese perfect for weeknights to comforting skillet mains, the actor knows how to keep it simple in the kitchen—and that also applies to his drink of choice.

While he has partnered with San Pellegrino for a couple of years, Tucci told EatingWell that it’s the “perfect” match, as the bottle of mineral water is always on his dinner table. And with the brand relaunching their S.Pellegrino Stelline pasta, Tucci had to get involved by curating recipes utilizing the iconic pastina shape. 

In this exclusive interview, Tucci talked about his favorite ways to make pastina, plus his go-to holiday dishes and the staple ingredients he always has on hand.

EatingWell: What are your favorite ways to prepare pastina?

Tucci: I love it in a soup, and with butter and cheese. When you got sick when you were a kid in an Italian household, that’s what you had. It was chicken soup with pastina, or pastina with butter and cheese. Especially if you had a stomach issue. Italians are believers in when you have a stomach issue, you eat white food—and they’re right: everything that’s rather bland to settle your stomach. I remember my mother always saying when I’d have a stomach thing, she’d go, “Alright, I’ll make you pastina,” as the first thing she’d say.

EatingWell: Do you have any recommendations on the best way to include pastina on the table? Best drink to pair with it?

Tucci: San Pellegrino always, I always drink it, it’s always on the table and I’ll order it when I go to restaurants. It’s a great accompaniment because Italians don’t drink tap water like we drink tap water; they’ve been drinking mineral water for [hundreds] of years. It’s just part of the culture. With the pastina, to me it’s the kind of thing that you can serve on the side or as a first course. But also, pastina with just a little bit of tomato or marinara, or a really light tomato sauce is absolutely delicious.

EatingWell: Are there any other classic holidays dishes passed down by your family that you're looking forward to making this season?

Tucci: There are a lot of them. When it comes to Thanksgiving, turkey, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, fresh cranberry sauce, stuffing—my mother has a great recipe for stuffing—[Brodo di Gallina con Polpettine di Pollo] soup is something that I always like to have. And when it comes to Christmas, we would always have some kind of pasta before—well, we had pasta all the time. But pasta before our meat, and a lot of the time that pasta was a timpano, which is a recipe from my family. Or a lasagna Bolognese or something like that.

EatingWell: What are some pantry staples that you always have on hand for easy meals?

Tucci: Olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, onion, basil, carrots, celery, you can do a lot with that right there. Risotto rice, polenta, pasta and any kind of vegetable. You can do a million things with all of that.

EatingWell: Do you have a dream dinner guest?

Tucci: I would love to talk to Michelle Obama. She’s pretty cool.