We prove existence of invariant measures for the Markovian semigroup generated by the solution to a parabolic semilinear stochastic PDE whose nonlinear drift term satisfies only a kind of symmetry condition on its behavior at infinity, but no restriction on its growth rate is imposed. Thanks to strong integrability properties of invariant measures $μ$, solvability of the associated Kolmogorov equation in $L^1(μ)$ is then established, and the infinitesimal generator of the transition semigroup is identified as the closure of the Kolmogorov operator. A key role is played by a generalized variational setting.