ComScore

8 Essential Ina Garten Cooking Tips That I Come Back to Again and Again

“How easy is that?”

ina garten cooking tips
Mike Smith/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Sure, I might fawn over her impeccable style (those chambray shirts!) and worship at the altar of her roast chicken, but it’s not just because I think Ina Garten is impossibly chic and delightful. (Even though she is.) It’s because with every utterance of “How easy is that?” Ina bestows on us all a cooking tip that’s so essential, I wonder how we ever lived without it. From how to salt your food (psst: season as you go) to the importance of keeping it simple, here are eight of my favorite lessons from the Barefoot Contessa.

The 51 Best Ina Garten Recipes of All Time


Ina Garten cooking tips: a person adding salt to a baking recipe
alvarez/Getty Images

1. Salt Everything

If you own even one Ina Garten cookbook, you know that the Contessa loves kosher salt almost as much as she loves her hubby, Jeffrey. She seasons sweet and savory dishes alike, because it enhances the flavor of whatever she’s making. But don’t just toss in a pinch at the end—season throughout the cooking process. “It enhances the flavor of whatever you’re cooking and makes food taste seasoned, not salty,” she told Redbook in 2010.

Ina Garten cooking tips: Ina Garten's baked pasta with tomatoes and eggplant
Quentin Bacon/Cook Like a Pro

2. Don’t Just Eat Your Leftovers—Repurpose Them

“I love a nice two-fer,” she once shared on Instagram. “I make a big batch of something and use the leftovers to make a second, completely different recipe the next day. No one will even know they’re eating leftovers!” Case in point: Ina’s baked pasta with tomatoes and eggplant recipe starts with a tomato and eggplant soup that’s made a day ahead of time. Ingenious.

Ina Garten cooking tips: a chocolate cake with a slice out of it
creacart/Getty Images

3. Chocolate Is Delicious. Chocolate Paired with Coffee Is Even Better

If Ina is making a chocolate cake, you can bet there’s a bit of espresso powder or brewed coffee in there. That’s because a small amount of coffee enhances the flavor of the chocolate without making it taste like a cup of joe. It’s like a magic trick that leads to delicious results and works on more than just cake. (See espresso chocolate chip cookies and flourless espresso brownies for proof.)

Ina Garten cooking tips: a woman cooking with good olive oil
FG Trade/Getty Images

4. Splurge On the Right Ingredients

No one can convince me to shell out the big bucks on fancy olive oil and vanilla extract quite like the Contessa. Thanks to years in the business, she knows exactly when quality equates to better taste, and while I might not live in the Hamptons or have a net worth of $50 million, I trust her expertise. Do I always buy the most expensive ingredients? Nope—groceries are expensive. I just try to keep her rule in mind as I shop and cook, and if an ingredient is the star of the show, I’ll spend a little more.

Ina Garten cooking tips: a woman eating takeout pizza
Oscar Wong/Getty Images

5. Don’t Sweat the Mistakes

I was lucky enough to be in attendance when Garten held a talk for the launch of Cooking for Jeffrey in Brooklyn in 2016. A crowd member asked her, “What do you do when you f**k up a recipe?” She jokingly responded, “I never f**k up.” Of course she was joking—her actual advice was to either add salt and see how it tastes, or if all else fails, order pizza. But the takeaway was valuable: You’re going to make mistakes, so when it happens, accept it and move on.

Ina Garten cooking tips: a bowl of lemons on the counter
olhakozachenko/EyeEm/Getty Images

6. If the Dish Isn’t Quite Right, It Might Need Acid

Have you ever followed a recipe to a T only to taste it and find it’s missing a certain je ne sais quoi? According to Ina, it probably just needs a hit of acid. “Sometimes you taste something delicious,” the Contessa told Epicurious in 2010, “but a little hit of lemon juice or lemon zest or vinegar will just sort of wake it up.” She’s even known to keep a bowl of citrus on her counter as a reminder. I can say from experience that this trick works—I always keep a lemon or lime in my fridge just in case a dish tastes slightly bland but doesn’t need more salt (or if I’ve accidentally added too much salt).

Ina Garten cooking tips: an overhead view of a roast chicken in a skillet
Katherine Gillen

7. The Best Cooks Keep Things Simple

“Pick five recipes that are really simple, then do variations on those five recipes,” Garten told Bon Appétit in 2014. In other words, don’t overcomplicate things. If you can roast a chicken, you can roast a turkey—it’s all about understanding the basic methods. (If anyone knows this, it’s Ina: She has more than 50 recipes for roast chicken alone.)

Ina Garten cooking tips: a person taking a pint of ice cream out of the freezer
Edwin Tan/Getty Images

8. At the End of the Day, Store-Bought Really Is Fine

She might be known to casually host the likes of Mel Brooks and Taylor Swift like it’s NBD, but really, Ina is just like us. (Kind of.) She’s not a professionally trained chef, just a home cook who loves to entertain (and who happens to have a TV show). She relies on store-bought freezer staples (like vanilla ice cream and bread) when she knows no one will be able to tell the difference, and she makes the important stuff from scratch. Seriously: How easy is that?


headshot

Senior Food Editor

  • Heads PureWow’s food vertical
  • Contributes original reporting, recipes and food styling
  • Studied English Literature at the University of Notre Dame and Culinary Arts at the Institute of Culinary Education