ALICE studies the properties of the strongly interacting matter at the extreme energy densities reached in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. In this context, the measurements in proton-proton and proton-nucleon collisions are mandatory: the former sets the reference, while the latter pro- vides further insight into the effects due to cold nuclear matter, which is crucial in the understand- ing of heavy-ion collisions. In this paper, a selection of the recent results in p–Pb collisions at the LHC will be presented.