After being a "Real Housewife" for nearly 15 years, Melissa Gorga is well acquainted with what it means to be "On Display."
Italian-American culture, food and heritage is an enormous component of the New Jersey franchise (along with NJ lore, humor and hot spots), one of the longest-running Housewives shows still airing on Bravo. Gorga is no stranger to that, growing up in a Italian-American household, being exposed to the aroma of sauce cooking on the stove throughout the week, embracing the best that the cherished fare has to offer.
Gorga, who also runs a clothing boutique and is a mom, podcaster and published author, has many opinions on all things food, so I was able to chat with her about jarred sauces and Rao's Homemade, top summertime meal go-tos, trips to Italy, her favorite moments on the show and much more. She also shared her brand new chicken parm. recipe with us, so stay tuned for that. And be sure to watch Melissa on the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" season 14 finale, this Sunday on Bravo.
The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Hi Melissa! Just wanted to note really quickly: I'm a fellow New Jersey resident, I worked in Franklin Lakes for a decade, I’ve watched the show since the beginning, so thanks for taking the time to chat today.
Oh wow, that's so cool, okay, great!
To start off, I'd love to hear about the collaboration with Rao's: How it came to be, filming the custom content spot created by NBCUniversal’s Creative Partnerships team with [your husband] Joe, What that's all been like?
So, I feel like working with Rao's Homemade is obviously . . . growing up as an Italian. all we did was make homemade sauce our whole lives, I felt like I feel like we're like bred to do it, right? Like from the time we're little girls, we just see our mothers and our grandmothers making the homemade sauce in the kitchen. So I was never big on buying anything in the jar. And once I had tried the Rao’s Homemade, I honestly couldn't believe it — especially the marinara sauce, which is my favorite. I couldn't believe how similar it was and how homemade it really was. And it just saves so much time, especially on dishes where I want to add some, like, fresh sauce to it. I always go for the Rao’s Homemade when I'm doing that.
A lot of times, we'll make a big pot of sauce. And then I use it throughout the week on my chicken or on whatever it might be that I'm cooking. Sometimes I just put red sauce on potatoes. So I put it on everything, we just put it on everything. So it's awesome to have that and the fact that it's homemade and tastes good. Their pasta is amazing. So sometimes we'll just like — especially in the summer, I don't want to, like, turn the stove on, right? I want to barbecue. We’ll make pizzas outside and I'll use their sauce on the pizza as opposed to going, and like, slaving and making, like, a big — going over the stove and, like, making a big pot of sauce so it’s, like, much better just to use the jar, so that’ what we do and it’s great. So I'm happy to collaborate with them. And there is a fun spot coming out — the commercial spot that I have not seen yet that I cannot wait to see.
That’s great! Cool, that’s actually what my second question was going to be about, too. I'm half Italian and I know — especially, obviously in our area — sometimes using jarred or canned sauces can be blasphemous. I wanted to talk about that because I know that Rao’s has such a great reputation for their sauces, so I think it’s interesting to hear just how you use those.
Yeah! It’s really, really good. We make chicken cutlets a lot in this house to find something else to do with the chicken cutlery, put it in the pan sauce on top of a whole other meal for a whole other night and it feels completely different.
I also wanted to ask because I made the recipe and chicken parm. is my go-to — it's like my ultimate comfort food — so obviously I loved that. But what I thought was really neat was the prosciutto on top which I haven't seen anywhere and I'd like to think I've looked at and made a lot of chicken parms. So I wanted to ask how that came to be? Is that normally how you make your chicken parm and what led to that addition?
You know what, they love prosciutto in this house, everyone loves it. So I just thought about putting a little twist on it. That was my own little, like, take on like doing something different. I think I have one child that, like, pulls it off? But everyone pretty much loves it. It adds a little bit more flavor, a little bit like that salty feel. And it's just good! It makes it my own, right? It makes it like something different and my family got used to it, so they love that now.
Totally — I really like also how you had said in the recipe to serve it with spaghetti and also sauteed spinach, which I thought added a different level of nutrition and flavor and color, which is really smart as well.
I love sautéed broccoli rabe, I love sautéed spinach, these are all of my [favorites]: I love greens. I can eat greens all day long. I eat lettuce. I should have been a rabbit because I love greens. I can eat them all day.
But yeah, I always try to put a little vegetable on the side. That's important to me. Besides the fact that I love them, I just feel like it's good to just have it there. Sometimes in the place of a potato or something, I'll put the vegetable
Earlier, you had mentioned watching your mom cook and watching your nonna cook and growing up with that. I was curious about what your mom was serving you and your sisters growing up? And if you feel like it's similar to what you're serving the kids now?
Very similar, very similar: My mom was a big, like, we're going to eat steak with a side of a baked potato and a salad — or we were eating pasta. Like, we were big like Italian eaters. So chicken cutlets were huge growing up, and I think that's why it's huge for me now. We make them constantly in this house and my kids get annoyed if like a week goes by and we haven’t had chicken cutlets.
I feel the same way!
I pile it up. You have to see. They're like, the stack is this high and they're in plastic bags everywhere. I'm like "nobody bother me, there's a full refrigerator.” There's actually a going joke with, like, you know some of the people that work with me because of it. “What are you doing: Making chicken cutlets?” I'm like “yes, I am, actually”.
So, you know, it's just good to have them around, especially with Rao’s Homemade and do different things with it. I'll even make a salad and then cut up the chicken cutlets. And put them on top, especially in the summer.
That's a great idea. Aside from the recipe, the chicken parm, what are some of the other lighter Italian and Italian American dishes that you tend to make most in the summertime?
Definitely salad. We're big salad eaters. And we do put protein in the salad. What else do we do in the summer? You know . . . I do a lot of the outdoor pizza oven and we'll make pizza. So that's easy and great to believe it or not, it's 1-2-3. We also use the sauce for that as well, the marinara sauce. What else do we make in the summer all the time? I feel like we're big grillers. Like I'll throw a grilled chicken — I’ll marinate, you know what’s a great marinade? I'll throw grilled chicken, like chicken breast, in Italian dressing.
Yes! I was going to mention that. How funny
Yes! Like, just Italian dressing — marinade, put in on the grill, delicious! So easy
This is a side question I just thought of: Did you or your family ever do “meatball salad like,” meatballs and sauce on top of salad with Italian dressing? My father used to eat it all the time — and it is so delicious.
It's so good. That's my sister's thing! That's her thing. She loves that — it was her go-to. I used to always think she was weird when we were growing up because she would always spoon red sauce all over her salad. She would also take a meatball and pop it on her salad. So like, That's my sister — it was her go-to.
It’s so good! That's so funny. That's great. It's delicious. I know you also went on a trip recently — I think it was to Paris and Italy — and I was curious about, if you could pinpoint, what was the most memorable meal or dish you had there? It could be from the French side, too! But I figured it might be from the Italian side.
You know, I took my kids for the first time to Rome, the first time in Italy and we went to Paris for a couple nights, too, but to me, there's no place like Italy. I don't know if it's because they’re my people, I don't know what it is, but like, it's just the way they greet you, it’s the food, it's just, it's amazing, you know?
I'm actually taking them back to the Amalfi coast in a couple of weeks and I'm so excited for them to actually eat in southern Italy because the food is more how I cook, how there nonna cooks and what they're used to. So they loved the food in Rome, obviously, but I just can't wait for them to taste Nonna’s food when we go to the Amalfi coast because that's where they were from and they cook so similar. And it'll be their first time so I'm excited for them.
Listen, our favorite dish is so simple. It is garlic and oil. It's like an aglio oglio sauce. Yeah, with like, spaghetti with little red pepper flakes. When they make that in Italy, like it's just the best thing you've ever had. It's amazing.
That’s one of my dad’s favorite dishes, too! Too funny — for people unfamiliar with the differences in regional Italian cooking, how would you pinpoint the difference between what you might get in Rome versus what you might get in southern Italy or on the Amalfi Coast?
I feel like the food there — I was very surprised. There was a lot of fish in Rome, like on the menus full of fish, a lot of fish. And I was like, wow, I didn't think, because you would think the Amalfi Coast over there would have the fish — you’re on the water — but there was not a lot of fish on the menu. So that was that was very like, shocking to me. That's strange. Fish based city. I didn't ever knew that. And they said it is like that's a fact. And there's a reason for it. Something with the fishermen back in the day, like I don't know what it was. Yeah, I was shocked how much more fish our choices are in Rome. to Southern Italy.
That is very interesting. And your family is from Southern Italy, right?
Yes, well, my mother's Sicilian. So yes, I've never been to Sicily. But my dad was from Southern Italy — Naples
Great. That's so cool. I wanted to ask what you think or what you could pinpoint is the main cooking tips or cooking takeaways that you've instilled in Antonia before sending her off to school? I don't know if she's doing much too cooking at college, of course, but I was curious about that in general — and how you’re you're passing on the lessons from your family and all when it comes to cooking in that Italian American way
It's funny, my kids grew up eating great food and you can tell because they're picky and they know when something doesn't taste good, and it's actually very annoying, but it's also good because I like that, you know, they're going to know what they want with their husbands and with their wives, right?
So listen, she knows that the key to everything is onion, garlic and olive oil, and she knows that we start all good meals with that, right? So they're pretty good. I taught them to not burn things — the only things that really make themselves all the time are eggs, honestly. So I taught them to, like, keep the fire low. I'm, like, when you burn something right off the bat, it ‘s done. So I think I instilled that in their heads, like, start low, cook it low, stay low. Nothing bad can ever happen if you do that. So I feel like they've gotten that one point in their head so they should be good from there. And they know how to boil water! So there’s that.
Fantastic! Also, back to chicken cutlets, do you always do oven-bake? Do you saute? Do you deep fry? What is your usual approach?
I fry them. I fry my chicken cutlets. Yes, I fry them in the olive oil. And I like the Italian bread crumbs. The seasoned ones I think are the best, seasoned Italian bread crumbs. Yeah. But no, I do fry chicken cutlets.
Great. And you said normally you go for a thin slice or was that more so for grilled?
No, thin — I like them so thin and I love to bang them out, get them as thin as possible without breaking. I hate when there's like a big thick one. I don't like that. I end up cutting it in half. Yeah, I prefer thin.
You had mentioned that the marinara was your favorite Rao’s sauce. Were there any of the other variations or flavors in the Rao’s line that you're partial to? Or is the marinara your go to?
I love your arrabiata. I love spice, I love spicy. There's a vodka sauce that’s great, also. But those are definitely all of my go-tos.
I wanted to congratulate you on this success of Envy. Obviously, we just saw another great fashion show on the episode that just aired. And I went to the Montclair location years ago. I got something from my mom for her birthday. So I wanted to ask what you see for the future of Envy and what you'd like to see it become.
That’s so funny! Oh, thank you. You know, I'm always in shock over how big Envy has become. And I was just like a girl with three kids, you know, three small, little kids and it wasn't easy, like, I was a stay at home mom, really. And to think about how I created this business that’s just mine — that makes me happy. And it has done so well. I just opened a second location in Huntington, New York. So to have one on Long Island and to have one in New Jersey. I would love to open more locations possibly in South Jersey, I'm looking into Nashville, which I think would be awesome.
So the goal is to just keep going with it and creating more and more and I am so surprised whenever I see that it just gets bigger and bigger every year. The numbers go up and customers are plentiful and people will buy an outfit and I have a lot of like customers that are not just fans. They love what I'm picking. I'm their go to when they want an outfit. And that makes me happy. That makes me smile. They don't come just once. They are like repeat Envy shoppers, which I love.
That's so cool. When did the original Montclair location open? What year was that?
So I opened in 2015. It’s been open since 2015. It’s a long time.
Yeah, it's going to be the 10-year anniversary.
Yeah, before you know it! Yes it is. I didn’t even think of that. I have to throw a huge fashion show for that.
No doubt! Lastly, I wanted to ask about Housewives — looking back on your tenure on the show, is there a standalone, standout, favorite moment ever on the show that is most impactful for you? Like you said, it’s been nearly 15 years of your life in general, so that might be a challenge question, but I was wondering.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many moments and so many fun times that I've had: so many of the girls trips that I went on that were amazing. For me, I'll never forget performing “On Display” at Beat Stock, which is like a huge radio performance to-do, kind of like a Z100’s Jingle Ball, at the time, like a summer concert.
And I'll never forget the rush that I had on that stage and watching my sisters cry in the front row. And just everyone be so proud that I did that performance. I'll always remember — that was like a great day that was and even when I watch it, I still giggle that like I did it. I still get all about it. But that was definitely a favorite for me.
That's so cool. And it is a top-tier song. So good!
Thank you!
So good meeting you, Melissa! Thank you again
Take care!
