Ranking Every Appetizer on the Olive Garden Menu

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The popular family restaurant Olive Garden has leveled up its game in recent years. It now offers delivery, bottles salad dressing you can buy at the store, and even sells its soup by the gallon. It’s taking the idea of “Italian food but make it easy” to a whole new level. Hence, when my family and I decided to taste test every one of the chain’s appetizers, we expected exactly that.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I sit down at a restaurant table, the first thing that comes to my mind is “Where’s the fried food at?” That’s closely followed by, “Can we get a basket of bread for the table?” Then I’ll start sniffing out anything that contains cheese … all of which is to say that while this isn’t our regular family go-to, we’re totally here for some of the best Olive Garden dishes, the vast majority of which include carbs and/or cheese. It is Italian food, after all.

The appetizers, we’re happy to report, were exactly what we expected, and we enjoyed them with gusto. Given that most people won’t order every single one, however, we wanted to provide a general ranking to help you decide which ones to order when you visit one of the restaurant’s many locations. Our hardy band of gung-ho taste testers included one husband, one small girl, one small boy, one mother, one father, and one writer — yours truly. If you want to make the most of your app orders in future, we’ve got you covered.

First, know that while Olive Garden does offer a standardized menu that I imagine can feel a bit same-same if you go there all the time, the service was impeccable, and all the food was served piping hot … with a topping of fresh-grated parmesan cheese from that little whirly cheese-grater. (It’s the Zyliss Restaurant Cheese Grater, by the way. My mom had one for years, and I can confirm that it works as well as it appears to.) With only a few exceptions, we thought all the appetizers were lovely.

Toasted ravioli was, however, not the best one we tried. I actually ate it first, and when I was hungry, it really fit the bill. Everyone else ate it later in the taste test and found it to be a bit bland, but that was probably because the ravioli hardened up after a while. The seasoned beef insides were good, and the outside was nice and crunchy when hot, but as it hardened, all the beef collected against the walls of the noodle and solidified. This is half and half a testament to the importance of eating fried food hot, which we already knew, and the revelation that not everything is better fried. Still, if you like ravioli and beef and fried things, you probably won’t be crushed.

Some things just shouldn’t be turned into other things. Don’t believe me? Fried lasagna, or the much more genteel-sounding lasagna fritta, is all you need to know. This appetizer is the poster child of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The lasagna wasn’t broken, and the chain tried to fix it anyway, achieving what we would describe as middling results at best. Now, again, and I cannot overstate this: You really can’t go wrong with variations on fried cheese and carbs. If you’re hungry and someone offers this to you, you will not be disappointed. The point here is that if you want lasagna, you should order actual lasagna. It’s Olive Garden. The restaurant definitely serves it.

In general, this appetizer wasn’t our favorite because it wasn’t as flavorful as most of the other options. It was a bit bland, with too much alfredo sauce on the bottom and only a little bit of meat sauce on top. We didn’t see a need to bread and fry noodles, which are carby enough as it is, even for us true-blue Americans. The flavor was fine, and if you can’t get enough lasagna, you might enjoy this variation. Just note that, like the ravioli, if you’re going to order it, eat it hot.

For some reason, whenever I eat ziti, I have this strangely glamorous feeling like I’m dining on something the Rat Pack would have eaten in a fancy restaurant. This … was not so much that. The ziti was far from terrible (cheese and carbs, people), and the flavors were decent. The alfredo and marinara dipping sauces were tasty, and the food came straight out of the fryer, which is always a plus.

The problem was more that the noodles were unevenly stuffed. The menu bills the dish as “crispy fried ziti filled with five cheeses,” but it really should have said “crispy fried ziti filled with anywhere between zero and five cheeses,” because several of the noodles just didn’t have much cheese in them. Originally, the opinion among our group was split evenly down the middle: Some loved them, and some disliked them. Then we figured out that the divide boiled down to who got cheese and who didn’t. So let’s just say, when they’re actually stuffed, they’re quite yummy. Overall, the ziti lands more in the bland than offensive category, like its brethren above.

Everyone in my family loves spinach and artichoke dip, so we were predestined to enjoy this one. The dip was truly delicious, rich and creamy with no skimping on the veggies or the amount. We’re always impressed when a dish looks exactly like the carefully curated menu photo because it’s a rarity at any restaurant, but this one actually did. The dip was, in a word, impeccable.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t say the same thing about the flatbread crisps that came with it. Essentially, they were what they sound like: fried pieces of flatbread somewhere between potato chips and pita, and they were crunchier than they were worth. Plus, the frying made the flatbread kind of oily, which definitely didn’t feel necessary when combined with the oodles of cheese in the dip. If you’re going to order this, ask them to skip the crisps and just load you up on some more breadsticks instead. The breadsticks are cheap and limitless, and you won’t miss the weird pitas. I promise.

As a general rule, my family and I don’t really care for piles of meat — with the exception of the father, that is, whose meatloaf is famously referred to at home as “meat mountain.” It was surprising, therefore, that we liked the meatballs parmigiana as well as we did. These meatballs weren’t excellent, but they were soft and tasty, delicious with the parmesan cheese that our server generously grated over the top. They dried out a bit too quickly, though, so our only recommendation is either to eat them hot or to pour some extra marinara over them as soon as they arrive. (Hot tip: If you order the breadsticks, you also get limitless sauce, including marinara.)

While some diners work hard to compound their Olive Garden options and get the best bang for their buck (see the never-ending pasta strategy), we didn’t find that necessary here. The restaurant serves extremely generous portions of all of its appetizers, and each of them was big enough for all six of us to get a good amount. Given the portions, I’d recommend no more than two to three apps for a party our size, assuming you don’t have any hungry lumberjacks in your crew.

The members of my family are sharply divided on the subject of bread. The father, husband, and small girl are all deeply devoted to it. The mother, son, and I can take it or leave it. But with Olive Garden’s breadsticks, that’s not the case: They were realllllll good. Soft, crusty, buttery on top, with a bit of salt for crunch and flavor. Even those of us who don’t normally seek out bread were impressed by its soft, steamy texture and how delicious it was dipped into the sauces.

Speaking of which, Olive Garden’s breadsticks come with four different sauces — five-cheese, meat sauce, alfredo, and marinara — and they were all good. Everyone liked the marinara, meat, and five-cheese sauces. Only the Olive Garden alfredo sauce, which you can make at home, was a “why bother?” But it was creamy enough and probably would have been good on noodles. The other three, though, were chef’s kiss. You should definitely try them. Note that you can also order the breadsticks alone if you have sauce commitment issues. But like … why?

It will likely come as no surprise to anyone that the fried mozzarella was near the top of the list. This appetizer has a long history. The French, bless their hearts, were frying cheese back in the 1300s, no doubt trying to distract themselves from the horrors of the plague with nature’s greatest gift: dairy. But the good old U.S. of A. has the distinction of inventing the mozzarella stick, and it honestly makes me proud to be an American. We may have our problems, but at least we understand that fried cheese is important. Naturally, this appetizer disappeared first (at least half of it down the small girl’s gullet).

Why was it so good? I mean, why wasn’t it? You’ve got light, salty, herby, crispy breading with a perfect crunch. You’ve got stringy, melty, greasy cheese. You’ve got rich marinara sauce into which to dip your fried cheese, which by the way is double the size of a normal mozzarella stick. A mozzarella rectangle, if you will. In short, everyone loved it, except the small boy who proclaimed himself “not a mozzarella guy.” To which the father, taking the words right out of our mouths, replied, “More for us.”

Calamari is my actual favorite thing, and the rest of the family is not far behind. If you don’t know the history of calamari, you might be surprised to learn that it hasn’t always had a great reputation in the United States. Indeed, squid was once considered kind of a garbage fish, a nuisance species that ended up in nets. Then one day in the ’90s, some geniuses thought to themselves, “Hey, how about we replace ‘squid’ with a neat-sounding Italian word and see if people buy it???” People did, both literally and figuratively, and thank goodness, because we order it whenever we get the chance.

All of which is to say that our standards are high when it comes to this dish — and ever since I went to New Zealand and had the best squid of my life, they’re even higher. Guess what? Olive Garden’s calamari was even better. It was super tender, and the breading was amazing. It wasn’t weirdly chewy, like some calamari; rather, it was meltingly soft and served piping hot, like everything else that came our way. Add in some marinara and spicy ranch dipping sauces, and you’re golden.

The shrimp fritto misto appetizer was a delightful surprise. Although several of us at the table are allergic and couldn’t eat it, those who did eat it liked it quite a lot. Even the father, who doesn’t like seafood as a rule, enjoyed it. The vegetables, also fried, were good: red and green bell peppers tossed in a thick coating of the same dredge used on the shrimp. The result was light, fried, herby shrimp and veggies. “Phenomenal to the point where you can’t stop eating them even though you’re full,” as the mother put it. As an added bonus, Olive Garden removes the tails on the shrimp, so you can pop the entire thing right into your mouth. Served with marinara and spicy ranch, this dish had a dipping sauce to suit everyone’s taste.

You won’t be surprised to learn that we couldn’t finish everything we’d ordered, so we brought a lot of it home. To warm it back up, we put it in the air fryer, and it came out piping hot and of the same quality as when we ordered it. This is our family’s go-to reheating strategy, so if you’re in the market for this handy kitchen appliance, the Chefman TurboFry Touch Air Fryer is highly reviewed and a safe bet.

Ranking a bunch of fried foods is hardly a chore, but we still tried to take a thoughtful approach to this list. With six of us doing the tasting, there was a lot of discussion about factors such as flavor, crunchiness, texture, and quality of ingredients. Everyone weighed in with their opinion after trying each appetizer, then we worked by committee to rank them.

As for cost, we didn’t take that into account. The appetizers ranged from about $10 to $15 each, and I know for a fact that the prices are different depending on where you go. The rates at my restaurant in town were $1 or $2 higher than those listed on the delivery app, for example. Plus, if you want one of the seafood options, you’re just going to have to pay more, a reality that is far from Olive Garden-specific. Thus, we didn’t really feel that price played much of a role in our decision-making process.