Olive Garden Tour of Italy Recipe

Olive Garden's Tour of Italy is three dishes on one plate: chicken Parmigiana, Lasagna Classico and fettuccine Alfredo. This copy makes four plates: a small lasagna baked in a loaf pan, four baked chicken cutlets under marinara and mozzarella, and eight ounces of fettuccine in a butter, cream and Parmesan sauce. Allow about two hours, most of it oven time.

What is in the Tour of Italy at Olive Garden

Olive Garden's menu page, as archived in December 2017, describes it as three of its classics on one plate: Chicken Parmigiana, Lasagna Classico and its Fettuccine Alfredo. A footnote adds that the meat sauce is made with pan-seared beef and Italian sausage, which is why the lasagna here uses both.

The same page lists the plate at 1,520 calories, 96 grams of fat and 3,250 milligrams of sodium. The recipe below is a reconstruction of the three dishes, not Olive Garden's own, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Olive Garden.

Recipe

Olive Garden Tour of Italy

A reconstruction of Olive Garden's Tour of Italy — chicken Parmigiana, a meat lasagna baked in a loaf pan and fettuccine Alfredo, timed to be ready together. Four plates.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

40 min

Cook

1 hr 15 min

Total

2 hr 10 min

Serves

4

Cuisine

Italian-American

Ingredients

• For the lasagna:
• 6 lasagna noodles
• 8 ounces ground beef
• 4 ounces Italian sausage
• 1 1/2 cups marinara sauce
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• For the chicken Parmigiana:
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts (2 breasts)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup Italian-style breadcrumbs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup marinara sauce
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• For the fettuccine Alfredo:
• 8 ounces fettuccine
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 375°F. Boil the lasagna noodles in salted water for 8 minutes, drain them and lay them flat on a towel. Take the sausage out of its casing. Brown the beef and the sausage in a skillet over medium-high heat for 6 to 8 minutes, breaking them up, then pour off the fat, stir in 1 1/2 cups of marinara and simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Mix the ricotta with 1 egg and 1/4 cup of Parmesan. In a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan, layer one third of the meat sauce, 2 noodles trimmed to fit, half of the ricotta and 1/2 cup of mozzarella. Repeat with sauce, noodles, the rest of the ricotta and 1/2 cup of mozzarella, then finish with 2 noodles, the last of the sauce and 1/2 cup of mozzarella.
3. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover and bake for 20 minutes more, until the edges bubble. Take the lasagna out, cover it loosely and raise the oven to 425°F.
4. Cut each chicken breast in half horizontally to make 4 cutlets and pound them to an even 1/2 inch. Mix the flour with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, beat the second egg, and coat each cutlet in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.
5. Lay the cutlets on an oiled baking sheet and drizzle them with the olive oil. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, turning once, until golden and 165°F inside. Spoon 2 tablespoons of marinara and 2 tablespoons of mozzarella over each and bake 3 to 4 minutes more, until the cheese melts.
6. While the chicken bakes, cook the fettuccine in salted boiling water as the package directs, and keep 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Melt the butter in a wide pan over medium heat, cook the garlic in it for 1 minute, add the cream and simmer for 3 minutes.
7. Take the pan off the heat and whisk in 1 cup of Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and the pepper until smooth. Add the drained fettuccine and toss, loosening the sauce with a splash of the cooking water.
8. Cut the lasagna into 4 pieces. Put one piece, one cutlet and a quarter of the fettuccine on each plate.

Nutrition

Calories:

1695

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

The order of work for a Tour of Italy at home

Three dishes and one oven only work with a plan. The lasagna bakes first and rests while the chicken bakes hotter; the pasta is cooked last.

Minute	What happens
0	Oven to 375°F; boil the noodles, brown the meat, make the sauce
25	Lasagna assembled and into the oven, covered
50	Foil off; bread the chicken
70	Lasagna out to rest; oven to 425°F
80	Chicken in; water on for the fettuccine
95	Chicken topped with sauce and cheese; Alfredo sauce made
100	Plates

The lasagna needs its 30 minutes of rest anyway. Cut straight from the oven, it slides apart.

Lasagna in a loaf pan

A 9 by 13-inch lasagna makes twelve portions; the plate needs four small ones. A loaf pan holds three layers of two noodles and cuts into four pieces, each about 2 by 4 inches.

• Trim the noodles with scissors after boiling; the offcuts fill the gaps at the ends.
• No-boil noodles work if 1/4 cup of water is stirred into the meat sauce, since they take their moisture from it.
• A day ahead is better than the same day: a chilled lasagna cuts cleanly and reheats, covered, in 25 minutes at 350°F.

A full-size version is the lasagna al forno on this site.

The Alfredo sauce

• Cheese off the heat. Parmesan added to a boiling sauce clumps into strings; the reasons are in does Parmesan cheese melt.
• Grate it yourself. Pre-grated Parmesan is coated to keep it from caking, and the coating keeps it from melting smoothly.
• Pasta water. The sauce tightens as it stands. A splash of the starchy cooking water loosens it and helps it cling to the pasta.

One dish at a time

Each third of the plate stands on its own. The chicken alone, with spaghetti and the rest of the jar of marinara, is a chicken Parmigiana dinner for four. For another Olive Garden chicken dish there is the grilled chicken Margherita, and the meat sauce doubles as the base of the spaghetti with meat sauce.

Leftovers

Lasagna and chicken keep three days in the refrigerator and reheat, covered, at 350°F. The Alfredo does not reheat well: the sauce separates. Warm it gently in a pan with a splash of milk, and do not let it boil.