Rabbit in Italian is coniglio, just in case you wanted to know. If you do want to know, you are not alone, around 400 people every month want to know according to my Google intelligence.
How do you pronounce rabbit in Italian? Like this, more or less: co-ni-lio – that’s “co”, as in co-worker. “Ni”, as in nil, and then “lio” which is “lee-oh”. The ‘g’ is more or less silent. ‘gli‘ is pronounced a little like the ‘ill’ in ‘million’. Put it all together and you have rabbit in Italian – co-ni-glio.
Now you can recognize and ask for rabbit based dishes when you are looking at menus when in restaurants in Italy.
If you are in Italy’s northern Liguria region, in the right season – early spring, autumn and winter – you may come across coniglio alle ligure on a menu. If you like rabbit, olives, garlic, onions, and pine nuts, you’ll probably enjoy a plate of coniglio alle ligure.
Rabbit is popular in Italy and you’ll often find rabbit in Italy’s supermarkets, as well as its more traditional butchers.
Lots of Rabbit Dishes
There are at least 30 rabbit based recipes in Italian cooking. You can find everything from oven cooked rabbit – coniglio al forno, to rabbit cooked with apples – Coniglio all’agro di mele, and you may even come across rabbit cooking in fizzy spumante wine, or even spicy rabbit – Coniglio piccante!
Italy has lots of dishes for rabbit lovers! One could rabbit on about Italy’s rabbit recipes for quite a while, or even write an Italian cookery book dedicated to rabbit recipes.
Hare Dishes Too
By the way, “hare” in Italian is “lepre”. Hare is not as common as rabbit in Italian cookery, but you will find some hare based dishes in Italy and even hare salami. Try hare in wine – Lepre al vino, or roast levert – young hare – which is Leprotto arrosto in Italian.
There, now you know how to say rabbit in Italian and hare too. Go hunt for them on a menu!
Nicole says
So if conigli are so commonly on the menu, does that mean it’s less likely people keep them as pets in Italy?
Alex Roe says
Not that I know of, Nicole. Rabbit is also eaten in the UK and they are kept as pets. Also, in Italy, horse is on menus too but that doesn’t stop Italians riding them but I don’t know if horse lovers eat horse meat. I do know one who won’t. Probably the same for rabbit owners.
Best,
Alex
judith works says
I can’t eat Peter Rabbit
Rebecca says
Nice post although I dont like rabbits in my dishes!!!
Alex Roe says
Thanks, Rebecca. If I know rabbits, they wouldn’t stay in your dishes too long – they hop off in a flash 😉
Best,
Alex