National Coffee Day

National Coffee Day is September 29 and it’s one day we are so excited to celebrate! If you’re like us, there is nothing we look forward to more than our morning cappuccino or afternoon espresso. 

National Coffee Day has us thinking about our favorite, different ways to enjoy coffee. A warm cup of coffee on a chilly morning, an iced coffee on a hot morning, and so much more! Here are some unique ways to enjoy coffee!

Angelo’s Favorite– an espressino 

An espressino is much like a mini cappuccino. It is equal parts espresso and milk with a little bit of foam on top. This drink is Angelo’ go-to. You will see him in our stores everyday sipping on an espressino (or three). This is great for a midday pick-me-up.

With cookies

Coffee and cookies is like a match made in heaven. Dunk your cookies in coffee or just have something a little sweet to munch on as you enjoy your coffee. Our La Bella Romana almond cookies or butter cookies are a great compliment to any cup of coffee. 

As an affogato 

What’s an affogato? It’s like heaven in a cup! An affogato is a coffee based dessert. It is a scoop of ice cream topped with a shot of espresso. The two mix together and create a delicious taste that you wish would never end. You can choose whichever flavor of ice cream you like, but our personal favorites are caffe or nocciola!

Coffee Rubbed Steak

Who says you can’t have coffee in your dinner too? A simple coffee rub draws out the beef’s natural flavors and adds a distinguishing complexity. It is simple to do and tastes delicious! Check out this easy recipe from The Recipe Rack here

We hope you’re as excited as we are for National Coffee Day! To celebrate, we’ve put together a little gift package for you to enjoy yourself or give to someone you know who loves coffee! The package includes a Caputo’s coffee mug, a bag of Caffe Angelo handcrafted, whole bean coffee, and two of our homemade biscotti! These will be available starting 9/29 and are only while supplies last. Plus, they are only $12.99! So stop by and get yours!

From Our Family To Yours

Fruitful Yield in Naperville

We have exciting news! We have teamed up with another local, family owned business.

We are thrilled to announce that Fruitful Yield has opened up within our Naperville store. This is the second “store within a store” concept for our families. The partnership came naturally as we are both family businesses looking to nourish our customers. We both have a passion for looking out for the well being of our customers by providing the healthiest and highest quality products. 

Here is a bit more info about what you can expect and the grand opening:

Two of Chicagoland’s favorite local retailers have joined forces once again! Health and supplement shop Fruitful Yield and grocer Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market have partnered together to create a second store-within-a-store.

An express version of Fruitful Yield can be found in Angelo Caputo’s wellness department at its Chicagoland Naperville location. Fruitful Yield in Angelo Caputo’s plans to focus specifically on natural health, beauty and supplements. The goal of the stores teaming together is to provide shoppers with a one-stop-shop for all of their health, wellness and grocery needs. 

Naperville is the second Angelo Caputo’s location with a Fruitful Yield so far–in addition to the one found in Carol Stream. The two companies are enthusiastic about the partnership.

According to Fruitful Yield President Joe Fulco, “Fruitful Yield is extremely excited to be expanding our partnership with Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market with the opening of our second Fruitful Yield Store within Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market in Naperville. Being two family-owned brands that care greatly about the health and wellbeing of their customers is what makes our partnership work. We are honored to be here. We look forward to working with our customers and helping them find healthy products for their unique needs.”

“We felt that the partnership was natural,” added Robertino Presta, CEO of Angelo Caputo’s. “Two local, family businesses that specialize in promoting healthy products and a healthy lifestyle. We couldn’t be any happier.” 

Fans of the two businesses can come to the grand opening the weekend of Sept. 18. The ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Friday 9:00 am. The health store plans to hand out healthy goodie bags and raffle gift baskets to lucky winners throughout the weekend. Popular health brands like NOW Foods and Emerald Labs will be on site with their own offerings. Masks and social distancing are a must for the event.

Be sure to also visit Fruitful Yield at Angelo Caputo’s of Carol Stream that same weekend for their one-year anniversary celebration! The Carol Stream location will have its own goodies and raffle. 

Angelo Caputo’s Fresh Market operates seven stores in the Chicagoland area. Bloomingdale, Ill.-based Fruitful Yield has 14 stores in the area.

From Our Family To Yours

Wine Making

September comes with a lot of symbolism. It might mean the start of fall, back to school, football season, and more! To us, September is synonymous with Wine Grapes!

Keeping traditions alive is an important passion of our family and homemade wine has been a tradition for ages. You may remember helping your Nonno crush grapes or putting the cork in the bottle. Making wine is a yearly event that requires patience and hard work. Every wine maker has their own process!

We bring in a wide variety of wine grapes and juice every year for this custom. 

Our grapes come from a grower in California who we have been doing business with for over 30 years. The grower has a specific process when it comes to picking grapes– he chooses to leave the grapes on the vine to allow the sugar to continue to develop in the fruit. The sugar in the fruit is vital to the alcohol content that will be found in your homemade wine.

Some of the grape varieties include merlot, pinot noir, zinfandel, chardonnay, and more!

We offer juice from California or Italy, but juice has not arrived quite yet!

We have tons of supplies for your wine making process. From corks to bottles to pressers, we have the crucial tools you need to get your wine making process underway.  These supplies are available year round.

We sell wine grapes out of our warehouse located in Carol Stream and out of our Elmwood Park store.

First of the season wine grapes have been delivered. Juice is expected within the next two weeks! All grapes and juice are while supplies last!

You can check out our webpage for more info here

From Our Family To Yours

A look at our famous, homemade sausage

At Caputo’s, we take pride in producing the highest quality and best tasting products. In order to do this, we take a lot of steps to ensure that everything is being done properly and with the best ingredients. One example of this is how we make our sausage.

Our sausage is made in-house daily. The process starts with our old-world tradition of using hand-trimmed lean pork. We mix the pork with our private blend of spices and seasonings, developed specifically for our sausage. 

Our recipes and sausage making process have been tested, tweaked, and perfected throughout the years. We believe in transparency, so you can trust that what you’re eating is authentic!

We went behind the scenes with our boss and Angelo Caputo’s son-in-law, Robertino Presta, to show exactly how our sausage is made every single day.

From Our Family To Yours

Sandwich Making Skills

Did you know that August is National Panini and Sandwich Month? Stopping by Our deli is the perfect way to celebrate this.

We have a variety of imported and domestic cheeses, meats, olives, and more delicacies. This paired with any of our freshly baked breads makes the perfect sandwich… in our opinion!

There are so many different options for how you make your sandwich and we all have our favorites! Here are some ideas based on our family’s preferences:

  • Mortadella and provolone on Italian bread
  •  Prosciutto and bocconcini on focaccia or italian bread 
  • Turkey, havarti, lettuce, and mayo on ciabatta 
  • Honey ham and swiss cheese on ciabatta 

In our family, we have one guy who we go-to to make all our sandwiches. Giancarlo Presta, our deli buyer and Angelo’s grandson, holds the title as our “Family’s Best Sandwich Maker” so we asked him what his favorite was. Because it’s too hard for him to pick just one, here are two of his favorite sandwich combos:

  • San Daniele Prosciutto, sliced Provolone, and La Bella Romana Italian dressing on a La Bella Romana baguette
  • Boars Head Honey Maple Ham, Boars Head gold label Swiss, on a pretzel bun with Laughing Cow Asiago on the inside of bun

Celebrate the rest of National Sandwich Month with us! Stop in by our deli and grab everything you need for your perfect sandwich, then show us and you can win! Post a picture of your ingredients and final product, then tag us. One random entry will win a $25 Caputo’s gift card! You have until September 4th to enter

From Our Family To Yours

Did you know?

As a family owned and operated company, we know how important what you feed your family is. We take pride in having the freshest products possible. We go to great lengths to prepare high quality foods using the freshest and healthiest ingredients. 

Did you know that in our warehouse located in Carol Stream, we have a kitchen, bakery, and sausage production room where everyday we prepare the foods that you see in-store. We make everything from scratch, just like you would at home… just without all the mess!

Our prepared foods and bakery are under the name La Bella Romana. This is a tribute to my grandmother and our matriarch, Romana Caputo, and her passion for cooking. 

Our bakery features focaccia, breads, cakes, cookies, pastries, and more– all made fresh every morning. Many of the recipes come straight from my grandmother!

Our kitchen is preparing foods you see in our grab and go case and hot foods department. With state of the art technology, we are able to use all natural ingredients with no added preservatives, and have a great shelf life! 

Our warehouse also has our sausage production room. The process starts with our old-world tradition of using hand-trimmed lean pork. We mix the pork with our private blend of spices and seasonings, developed specifically for our sausage. Our recipes for our various sausages have been perfected throughout the years. Our different types have different spices or cheeses that make it different from any sausage you have ever tasted

Take a little look into our warehouse and production here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oABSJeS-Uv8

From Our Family To Yours

Gourmet Pizza Ideas

Sometimes cooking dinner can be repetitive. The same meals every night and the same foods to choose from. If you want to make dinner into an activity to get the whole family involved, have a pizza night!!

You can build your own pizza and let everyone do the same. You have the freedom to get as creative as you want and make whatever sounds good to you!

At Caputo’s, we have everything you need for a pizza night. Check out our prepared foods section where you will find the first step… the dough! We have pre-made dough and even a pre-made pizza crust to get you going. Our dough is made in house, so you’re still getting a homemade dough– just made by us! There you will also find all the basic ingredients you need– sausage, pepperoni, cheese, sauce, and more!

When working the dough, you have two options. The first is that you can make a thin crust by using a rolling pin. This will help flatten the pizza and get you that thin crust. The second option is to use your hands! Work the dough as flat as you want with your hands. This will make the pizza a little lighter and fluffier. To really form the crust, go in a circle around the pizza and pinch where you want the crust to form.

If you want some gourmet pizza ideas that are still easy to make and that make your tastebuds dance with joy, we have some suggestions for you!

Sausage, Giardiniera, and Veggies

This pizza has a little kick to it. The first thing we did here was cover the crust with olive oil to get it a little crispier. We didn’t cover the whole pizza in olive oil just yet because we are going to do that after it cooks for taste. Then we added the sausage. We like to use our homemade bulk sausage on pizza because it is easy to form however you like and place wherever you want! Then we added the broccolini, onion, and giardiniera. We let it cook and garnished with ricotta and fresh basil.

Ingredients:

  • Mozzarella
  • Bulk Hot Italian Sausage
  • Broccolini 
  • Shaved Red Onion
  • Giardiniera
  • Ricotta
  • Basil

Potato and Squash Pizza

This pizza is great for a summer night! The vegetables and potatoes give it a great and light taste. For this pizza we sliced the zucchini and potatoes very thin so it is easier to bite and cooks quicker. We once again drizzled olive oil making sure to cover the crust. After that,  we added the goat cheese mozzarella. We chose goat cheese mozzarella to add some extra flavor. The three vegetables can be bland, so by adding a cheese with a little bit of oomph, it takes the pizza to the next level and brings out the best of the veggies! Then we topped with the rest of the ingredients. After cooking it, we garnished with ricotta and rosemary.

Ingredients:

  • Zucchini
  • Yellow zucchini
  • Yukon Potatoes
  • Goat cheese mozzarella
  • Ricotta
  • Chopped rosemary

Prosciutto Pizza

Deli meat isn’t just good for sandwiches! This pizza is a classic and one we could eat every day. We started with a pesto sauce base and adding live oil to the crust. Then, we added the mozzarella! For this pizza, we also suggest a soft cheese like buratta. After that, we added the sliced prosciutto and put it in the oven. After cooking, we garnished with lemon zest, black pepper, and an olive oil drizzle.

Ingredients:

  • Pesto
  • Mozzarella or Buratta
  • Prosciutto
  • Lemon Zest
  • Black Pepper
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Octopus Pizza

While it sounds strange, we promise you will not be disappointed! This pizza embodies a refreshing salad and a pizza all in one! For this, we covered the whole dough in olive oil and cooked it plain like that. We then tossed together arugula, radicchio, and shaved parmesan in a bowl with olive oil. We put that on the cooked crust and added pieces of fresh octopus. For the octopus, you can use our homemade octopus salad and pick out the octopus or use our marinated octopus! Both options give you delicious results. We then garnished with a Balsamic reduction and some more shaved parmesan because we all know you can never have too much cheese!

Ingredients:

  • Grilled octopus or octopus salad
  • Radicchio
  • Arugula
  • Shaved Parmesan
  • Balsamic reduction

Nutella Dessert Pizza

Every pizza night needs dessert right? Dessert pizza is the perfect sweet ending. We recommend cooking the dough and then topping! You can then spread as much Nutella as you want on your cooked dough. You can even add toppings like strawberries, bananas, oreo crumbs, whipped cream, candy… whatever sounds good to you! Another option for dessert pizza is to use your favorite pie filling. Top your cooked dough with your apple pie filling for a deconstructed type of dessert!

For all the pizzas, we recommend heating your oven to 500° or the highest your oven will go. Then cook for about 12-14 minutes depending on your oven and the desired crispiness!

Make your next pizza night a gourmet one and let us know what you make!

From Our Family To Yours

End of Summer Charcuterie Board

The weather has started to turn which is a bit of a wakeup call that summer is winding down.  With the seasons changing, we will also see food changing. Produce is especially dependent on the season. We want to celebrate summer and enjoying our favorite summer fruits is a great way to do so. How do you take this to the next level? Make a charcuterie board!   

If you want to make one, but not sure where to start, we’ve got you covered!

This charcuterie board focuses on cheeses, summer fruits, and crackers. When it comes to making a charcuterie board, it is important to remember balance. You want to balance the flavors and textures that are on your board. You want a diverse assortment of items with different flavor profiles so that all the items on your board can stand on their own and show off the flavors! You also want a variety of shapes. Especially with the cheeses, cut them in different ways to create some dimension on the board.

Here is a perfect charcuterie board for the transitions between seasons that highlights some of our favorite summer fruits. 

The Cheeses

Because it is a summer to fall transition board, we selected a variety of cheeses with different flavor profiles to highlight the contrasts of the two seasons. This board will have some creamy and smooth cheeses as well as some sharp and mild cheeses. 

3 month aged Manchego

This is a sheep’s milk cheese that comes from Spain. It has a mild and buttery flavor profile. It is very versatile which is why it is great for this charcuterie board. We cut it in even wedges, leaving the rind on in order to make it easier to hold while you eat. You can eat the rind, but you’ll notice a different texture. When it comes to putting it on the board, we put a few rows of this cheese and layered it with the points facing towards the center of the board. It helps the board look good and full, without taking up a lot of room.

Sartori Old World White Cheddar

This Wisconsin cheese is full of flavor, yet simple at the same time. It is aged and creamy, with some sweet, buttery notes. To get a different shape, we cubed this cheese.

Brie Couronne

This Brie is from France. It is a double cream which makes it sweet and buttery. It is a mild cheese that is semi-firm, yet still creamy at the same time.

Roth Buttermilk Blue Cheese

This blue cheese is buttery, but has a little tang. Despite the tang, you still get the rich and creamy texture. Because it is a soft cheese, you don’t need to cut it! Just put the whole wedge on the board accompanied with a butter knife so that people can spread the cheese on crackers. 

The Fruit 

We used this board as a way to highlight the best produce of the summer! It also adds some great pops of color to the board.

Cherries

One of our favorite summer fruits is cherries, so we couldn’t leave those out! We put some whole cherries on the board

Strawberries

You can slice strawberries, but in order to get a bigger bite we halved the smaller strawberries and quartered the larger ones. The important thing to remember about using strawberries on a board is that they stain, so put them in a spot that you can put them on their own.

Blueberries

Blueberries are great during the summer. They are great to fill in the board and add a different color and texture!

Peaches or Nectarines

We can’t forget about the stone fruit! Adding slices of nectarines or peaches to your board pairs well with the cheeses and adds color at the same time.

The Crackers

You’ll need some palate cleansers that can enhance the flavors and textures already present on your board. 

La Panzanella toasted sesame crackers

This is a crisp with ground and twisted sesame seeds. This cracker has a toasty undertone which ties all the items on your board together. 

Phyllo Apricot Honey Crisps

This cracker is sweet and soft with a little bit of crunch. It is a phyllo pastry sheet topped with apricots, oats, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Olinas Cashew Rosemary Crackers

This cracker is both sweet and savory. It is loaded with nuts, herbs, and seeds.

Valencia Herbed Almonds

These are Spanish almonds mixed with fine herbs and oil from the mediterranean.

Make this one or make your own! Have fun with the items you choose to put on and how you arrange them. 

From Our Family To Yours

Food Truck

We’ve got some exciting news— we are bringing our kitchen to you! We know in these trying times that the decision of whether to go in somewhere can be tricky.  We don’t want you to have to stress, so we’re bringing our kitchen outside with our Mobile Cucina!

Throughout the next few months, our food truck will be going from store to store on the weekends. We will be at one store each weekend with tons of delicious foods at a great price! 

Our menu is continuously being updated, but we have all your favorites! Tacos, sausage, beef, fries, and more. Having a meal from our food truck is a great way to stay safe and get out of the house while enjoying some great food.

Did you know that you can have our Mobile Cucina at your next party?? Take your party to the next level by catering with our food truck. It’s our same delicious food served in a unique way!

For more a complete calendar on where our Mobile Cucina will be next and info on how to reserve the food truck, click here

From Our Family To Yours

National Burger Day

We all know that the summer months are meant for grilling and what’s a barbecue without some good burgers? I think it’s safe to say that burgers are a summer staple. So what better time to celebrate National Burger Day! National Burger Day is right around the corner– it is on July 28th– and we are here to make sure you are well prepared! 

Our meat department is full of high quality meats, poultry, sausage, and more! This includes our burgers. Burgers are great because they can be customized to however a person likes them. There are many options for toppings, sauces, cheeses, and more! You can put the classics like bacon, onions, and tomatoes or go crazy and add avocado, onion rings, or chili! There are so many options and you can have fun trying them all out. 

One of our favorites that can really take your burger to the next level is to add some of our homemade guacamole! It adds a delicious burst of flavor.  

If you want to try something different this weekend, head to our meat department and try one of our stuffed burgers! We have a variety of burgers that are filled with a mixture of ingredients and will make your tastebuds happy! 

Here are our signature burgers:  

Cheddar Jalapeno

Blue Cheese

Cheddar Bacon

Cheddar

Black Pepper

Let us know what you’re grilling this weekend!

From Our Family To Yours