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Photo:Nathan Congleton/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
Nathan Congleton/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
Photo: NBC/Getty Images
We’re just going to say it-Ina Garten is one of our favorite celebrities. She’s taught us how to cook, entertain and dine like royalty from the comfort of our own homes and has certainly helped usstep up our homemade cocktail game! Plus, ourother favorite celebritiesallwant to be her best friend, so that makes her the ultimate star.
We decided to sift through The Barefoot Contessa’sInstagram accountto collect some of her most sage cooking advice-let it be known, this account is a gold mine! We selected our eight favorite tips, which you will find below:
1. Prep What You Can Ahead of Time
Garten consistently keeps us on our toes waiting for her next dinner menu on Instagram. From 4th of July recipes like watermelonmojitosandgrilled herbed shrimpwith mango salsa to spontaneousdinner partieswithwhiskey soursandfresh dessert, we’re sure she spent some serious time making sure everything was flavorful, vibrant and beautiful. However, she didn’t do this at the expense of losing time with her guests!
Garten’s advice when entertaining is to create a menu that allows you to prepare as much of it in advance as you can, so you don’t have to miss out on precious moments with your loved ones. Here, she prepped the cocktail, soup and cake beforehand, so all she had to do was roast the veggies and lamb just before mealtime.
2. Tasty, Healthy Weeknight Recipes Are a Must
We all know The Barefoot Contessa isn’t afraid of real butter, lots of cheese and enjoying life’s indulgences. However, she finds it extremely important to keep a healthy, crowd-pleasing,30-minute recipein your arsenal at all times for last-minute company and extra-long work days when you need dinner in a hurry. Her personal favorite is a gorgeousParmesan-crusted chickenand simple lemony salad. Yum!
3. Double the Recipe Whenever You Can
Ina is a huge fan ofbatch cooking, and we are too! Even anti-meal preppers will love this simple trick for saving time trying to eat healthy during the week. And Ina is not only unafraid to eat the same meal twice. She also can repurpose it into something else! Here, she turns this soup lunch into a pasta sauce for the next night’s dinner. Brilliant!
4. Don’t Be Afraid to Let Your Veggies Shine
Ina Garten’s 5 Tips for Roasting Veggies Are Life-Changing
5. Snack Dinner Is Nothing to Be Ashamed Of
If you’ve stalked Ina Garten’s Instagram before, you’ll notice awhole lotof pictures of tomatoes and cheese. This picture in particular is a great reminder that a simple dinner of good-quality ingredients—tomatoes, feta, olive oil, herbs and bread—is certainly a healthy and satisfying dinner option on those days when you just don’t feel like turning on the stove. Because sometimes you want a little bit of everything instead of a whole lot of one thing, and that’s OK!
18 Healthy Recipes Perfect for Girl Dinner
6. Simple Is Always Delicious (and Still Instagram-Worthy)
Ina gushes over some pretty basic dishes on her feed, and it’s a good reminder that you don’t have to pull out all the stops for a meal to be delicious. This woman loves Thanksgiving dinner, and she is hyped over these quick and easy takes on Brussels sprouts. (She says they’re better than her mom’s…)
7. Don’t Waste Your Money on Store-Bought Salad Dressing
“Store-bought is fine-” except when it comes to dressing your greens! We like to think that Ina Garten scoffs at the shelves of ultra-processed dressing bottles as she hunts down her favorite olive oil at the market. And when you use her recipe, it’s too easy not to make it yourself! All you need is lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and voila! You have a salad worthy of The Barefoot Contessa herself.
How to Make Perfect Homemade Vinaigrette Every Time
8. Dinner Is Best Served With a Bottle of Red and Good Company
There is actually some scientific research to back this one up.Several countrieslist communal dining as part of their healthy eating guidelines because of the mental health benefits it has to offer! Think about it—eating dinner with your best friend, significant other or office buddy is way better than eating alone. Plus, cooking will feel that much more rewarding when you see another person enjoying the fruits of your labor.
Now, let’s get to the wine. The Barefoot Contessa loves her some fancy French vino, butyour favorite grocery store bottlestill offers the same heart health benefits, too!Resveratrol, a compound found in red grapes, shows to protect our heart from chronic disease, possibly lowering our blood pressure and cholesterol as well. Cheers to that!
Up Next:Ina Garten Shared 3 Simple Tips to Elevate Any Table Setting
Dillon Evans
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