Olive Garden
Dinner Menu

The Olive Garden dinner menu features classic Italian-American entrées — pastas like Lasagna Classico and Fettuccine Alfredo, chicken, seafood, and steak dishes — priced roughly $13–$28, with most dine-in entrées including unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks. Dinner is served from 3 PM Monday through Friday and all day on weekends. Below is the full Olive Garden dinner menu with prices and calories for every entrée, plus dinner hours, the cheapest dinner options, lighter choices, family bundles, and answers to the questions guests ask most.

On This Page

• Olive Garden Dinner Menu at a Glance
• Olive Garden Dinner Hours: When Does Dinner Start?
• Olive Garden Classic Entrées: Prices & Calories
• Signature Bestsellers
• Pasta Entrées
• Chicken Entrées
• Create Your Own Pasta
• Steak & Seafood Entrées
• Lighter Choices: Lowest-Calorie Dinners
• Soups, Salad & Breadsticks
• Desserts
• Family Bundles & Group Dining
• Best Value Picks: Cheapest Dinners at Olive Garden
• Dinner vs. Lunch: Price Difference
• Frequently Asked Questions (12)
• Conclusion

Olive Garden Dinner Menu at a Glance

Olive Garden Dinner Hours: When Does Dinner Start?

Olive Garden switches to the dinner menu at 3:00 PM Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, Sundays, and most holidays, the full dinner menu is served all day. Hours vary slightly by location, so check your local restaurant’s listing before you go.

Why does the dinner menu matter more than the lunch one? Two reasons. First, dinner is the full menu — the lunch menu is a trimmed version with smaller portions and fewer dishes, so the steak and seafood entrées (salmon, shrimp scampi, sirloin) are effectively dinner-only for most guests. Second, dinner is when the dining room shifts to full table service for the evening rush, which means longer waits on Friday and Saturday nights — arriving before 5 PM or after 8 PM usually means a shorter wait for the same menu.

Arrive before 3 PM on a weekday and you’ll see the lunch menu — lunch-sized favorites and the weekday lunch soup-and-salad special. Arrive at 3 PM or later and the full dinner menu (everything on this page) is available. The 3 PM cutover is the same nationwide at most locations, but individual restaurants occasionally adjust for holidays or local demand.

Can you order dinner items at lunch? The lunch menu is served until 3 PM on weekdays, so most full-size dinner entrées aren’t orderable during lunch hours — but many of the same dishes appear in smaller, cheaper lunch portions. For the full side-by-side comparison, see our lunch vs. dinner guide.

Does Olive Garden serve dinner all day on weekends? Yes. Saturday and Sunday are dinner-all-day at most locations, which is why weekend crowds get the same menu whether they arrive at noon or 8 PM. The weekday lunch deals don’t run on weekends.

Holiday Dinner Hours

Olive Garden is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, most locations serve the full dinner menu all day with reduced hours — typically closing early in the evening. Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest periods for family bundles and catering pans, so order To Go bundles at least 24 hours ahead. Because holiday hours are set per restaurant, always confirm with your local Olive Garden before planning a holiday dinner.

Olive Garden Classic Entrées: Prices & Calories

Most Olive Garden dinner entrées cost $17–$23, with the full dinner range running $12.99–$24.49. Every dine-in entrée comes with a never-ending first course of soup or salad and warm breadsticks — so the entrée price is the full meal for most guests. Calorie figures below follow Olive Garden’s official nutrition information. Each dish name links to its full dish guide with ingredients, nutrition detail, and ordering tips.

Signature Bestsellers

The dishes guests order most — and the ones first-timers should start with. The Tour of Italy is Olive Garden’s signature dinner: Chicken Parmigiana, Lasagna Classico, and Fettuccine Alfredo on one plate (1,550 cal) for $24.49.

*Chicken Alfredo calorie figures vary by portion — full nutrition is on the Chicken Alfredo dish page.

Pasta Entrées

Olive Garden’s pasta lineup runs from the baked Five Cheese Ziti al Forno to the 1,980-calorie Chicken Tortelloni Alfredo. For the complete pasta breakdown — including Create Your Own Pasta combinations — see our pasta menu page.

Chicken Entrées

Grilled, breaded, and stuffed — Olive Garden’s chicken entrées span from the 650-calorie Grilled Chicken Margherita to the rich Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo. Note: the official name is Stuffed Chicken Marsala — chicken stuffed with Italian cheeses and sun-dried tomatoes in mushroom marsala sauce.

All prices vary by location. Entrée prices are checked against Olive Garden’s official menu information — confirm with your local restaurant before visiting.

Best Olive Garden Dinner Menu Items to Try

Can’t decide? These are the seven dinner dishes guests order — and reorder — most. If it’s your first Olive Garden dinner, start here.

1. Tour of Italy ($24.49) — the signature plate: Chicken Parmigiana, Lasagna Classico, and Fettuccine Alfredo together. Best value per variety on the menu; order it when you want the full Olive Garden experience in one dish.
2. Chicken Alfredo ($21.49) — the longtime bestseller. Grilled chicken over fettuccine in creamy Alfredo. Rich, filling, and the dish Olive Garden is most famous for.
3. Lasagna Classico ($20.29) — layers of pasta, four Italian cheeses, and homemade meat sauce at 940 calories. One of the lighter-tasting baked options despite the cheese.
4. Chicken Parmigiana ($21.49) — hand-breaded chicken with marinara and melted Italian cheeses over spaghetti. The classic red-sauce counterpart to Chicken Alfredo.
5. Shrimp Alfredo ($22.99) — the seafood answer to Chicken Alfredo: sautéed shrimp over fettuccine in the same creamy sauce.
6. Herb-Grilled Salmon ($21.79) — 610 calories of grilled salmon with garlic herb butter. The pick when you want dinner out without the food coma.
7. Five Cheese Ziti al Forno ($19.49) — baked ziti with five-cheese marinara and Alfredo under a crispy breadcrumb top. Comfort food at one of the friendlier dinner prices.

Create Your Own Pasta

Create Your Own Pasta lets you build your dinner in three steps: pick a pasta, pick a sauce, and add a topping — starting from $13.99. It’s one of the best-value orders on the dinner menu because you control the portion, the sauce, and the protein.

Step 1: Choose Your Pasta

Fettuccine, Spaghetti, Angel Hair, or Rigatoni.

Step 2: Choose Your Sauce

Traditional Marinara, Alfredo, Five Cheese Marinara, Meat Sauce, or Creamy Mushroom.

Step 3: Add a Topping (Protein)

Base bowl from $13.99. Prices vary by location — confirm add-on pricing at your restaurant.

Steak & Seafood Entrées

Olive Garden’s dinner-only grill and seafood lineup — the section of the menu that changes most between lunch and dinner. Salmon, shrimp scampi, and sirloin are dinner signatures, and this section also holds the menu’s lightest options.

Calabrian Steak & Shrimp Bucatini naming may vary by market (some locations list it as a Calabrian shrimp and braised beef dish) — confirm availability at your restaurant. All prices vary by location.

Lighter Choices: Lowest-Calorie Dinners

The 6 oz. sirloin is the lightest entrée on the Olive Garden dinner menu at around 280 calories — a standout for anyone asking what’s the healthiest dinner at Olive Garden. The grilled seafood options come next:

Soups, Salad & Breadsticks

Every dine-in dinner entrée includes a never-ending first course of soup or salad plus warm garlic breadsticks — this is Olive Garden’s official policy, not a promotion. But you can also order the soup, salad & breadsticks combo on its own: $12.99 at dinner hours (after 3:00 PM weekdays and all day weekends), vs. $10.49 at weekday lunch.

The four homemade soups rotate daily:

• Zuppa Toscana — spicy Italian sausage, kale & potatoes in a creamy broth
• Chicken Gnocchi — roasted chicken, potato gnocchi & spinach
• Pasta e Fagioli — white and red beans, ground beef, tomatoes & pasta
• Minestrone (V) — fresh vegetables, beans & pasta in a light tomato broth

The Famous House Salad comes with the signature Italian dressing, and breadsticks are baked fresh throughout the day. Unlimited refills on soup, salad, and breadsticks are a dine-in feature — To Go orders don’t get refills. See the full breakdown on our soups, salad & breadsticks page.

Desserts

Olive Garden’s dessert lineup closes out the dinner menu. Tiramisu (470 cal) and the Black Tie Mousse Cake (750 cal) are the classics; seasonal items like the Warm Italian Donuts rotate through the year.

*Dessert prices and the full lineup vary by location and season — Tiramisu and Black Tie Mousse Cake pricing above is the most widely reported; confirm current dessert prices at your restaurant or olivegarden.com. Full nutrition for Chocolate Lasagna is on the dish page.

For the complete dessert lineup with seasonal items, see our desserts menu page.

Family Bundles & Group Dining

Feeding a group? Olive Garden’s family bundles and family-size pans are built for dinner parties, holiday gatherings, and office orders — and they beat per-person entrée math once you’re feeding four or more. The Family-Style Lasagna Bundle ($63.99) serves 4–6 with lasagna, Alfredo, salad, and breadsticks. These are especially popular November–December for Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings.

Family bundle and pan prices vary by location and season — confirm at your restaurant. Large-bundle pricing last widely reported at $94.99.

Family bundles are To Go and delivery friendly, which makes them the go-to for holiday catering. For the full catering breakdown — pans, platters, and group ordering — see our catering menu page and family-style meals page. Ordering for a crowd but dining in? The delivery and To Go guide covers how bundles work off-premise.

Best Value Picks: Cheapest Dinners at Olive Garden

The cheapest full dinner at Olive Garden is the Spaghetti with Homemade Sauce at $12.99 — and because every entrée includes unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks, it’s a genuinely complete meal. But “cheapest entrée” isn’t the only way to save at dinner. Here’s how the value math works:

For limited-time deals — the Never Ending Pasta Bowl, Buy One Take One, and the 2 for $25 — see our specials page (tracked daily) and the 2 for $25 page. Coupon hunters should check Olive Garden coupons before every visit.

Dinner vs. Lunch: Price Difference

Dinner entrées cost more than their lunch counterparts — the same dish in a lunch-sized portion typically runs $3–$6 less. The lunch menu (weekdays until 3 PM) offers smaller portions of favorites like Fettuccine Alfredo and Lasagna Classico, plus the $10.49 unlimited soup, salad & breadsticks lunch special. At dinner, portions are full-size and the soup/salad combo is $12.99.

Eating before 3 PM on a weekday is the single cheapest way to get an Olive Garden dinner-style meal. For the complete head-to-head, see our lunch vs. dinner comparison and the lunch menu.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Olive Garden dinner menu is built around a simple promise: full-size Italian-American entrées from $12.99 to $24.49, every one with unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks when you dine in. Start with the signature Tour of Italy ($24.49) if it’s your first visit, go Spaghetti with Homemade Sauce ($12.99) for the cheapest full dinner, or pick the Herb-Grilled Salmon (610 cal) for a lighter night. Dinner starts at 3 PM weekdays and runs all day on weekends — and prices vary by location, so confirm at your local Olive Garden before you go.

Last reviewed: October 2026. Related pages: lunch menu, pasta menu, appetizers, drinks, desserts, specials, nutrition, kids meal, takeout, delivery, catering.