Known for her personable demeanor and the ability to deliver top-notch dishes with an apparent complete lack of stress, Ina Garten is the master of delivering foolproof meal guides that make cooking seem easy to everyone from newbs to her fellow world-class chefs. With decades as one of the worlds favorite chefs under her belt, Garten is kitchen royalty. Part of that she owes to her hands-on experience, but the less celebrating side of being a chef is knowing when and how you can afford yourself the space to take it easy without losing out on taste.
Garten is a great resource for recipes of all kinds, but shes also happy to tell us when, in her own words, “store-bought is fine.” In her 2022 Thanksgiving special for NYT Cooking, Garten explains that making things from scratch is a wonderful way of having extra versatility and control in the kitchen. However, she adds, “If you can use good ingredients from the store that make it easier on yourself, then why not do it?” With the spirit of “making it easier on ourselves” at the forefront, these are some of the store-bought ingredients that Garten has been known to use in her own kitchen regularly. If its good enough for Ina, its good enough for us.
Homemade marinara sauce can be a next-level experience all its own, but it can be pretty time-consuming even if youre an expert. Fortunately, according to Ina Garten, you can skip the process entirely as long as you have access to some quality jarred marinara. Where can you find this perfect pasta sauce? Well, at your local grocery store, of course. Although you might have to shop around before you settle on a favorite, Gartens favorite store-bought marinara is Raos. This puts her in pretty good company considering that the results of a recent Tasting Table survey about the best store-bought pasta sauce indicated that the sauce is a crowd-pleaser due to being a bit smoother than other brands.
Garten actually has a delicious and distinctive recipe for marinara on the Food Networks website that leans into using a bit of red wine to up the robust flavor of the sauce. However, if youre cooking something thats already a little bit prep-intensive, such as Gartens eggplant parmesan, youre well within your rights to skip the whole process in order to streamline the meal a bit. Cooking can be seriously fun, but a major part of that is making sure that youre never biting off more than you can chew, both metaphorically and literally.
On her website, Garten has pages dedicated to the ingredients that she buys instead of makes. While she chooses to buy ingredients like Urbani white truffle butter and Libby’s pumpkin puree, it was the common, everyday condiments that stood out to me.
Chocolate syrup and caramel sauce
Chocolate and caramel sauce and syrup also appear on Ina Gartens Food Network list of things shell happily accept store-bought versions of rather than making them on her own. She uses these sauces in recipes like chocolate ganache cake, New York egg cream, and salted caramel brownies, all of which are already involved enough as recipes go that adding the complication of preparing syrups from scratch may seem a bit much. Fortunately, its also an easy step to skip simply by leaning into the magic of store-bought chocolate and caramel sauce.
These ingredients play a big role in her recipes, but arguably bigger roles in her philosophy. At the start of the Food Network piece, Garten explains, “When I say store-bought is just fine, Im not talking about going to the grocery store, buying really bad birthday cake, and claiming that you made it yourself. What I am saying is you can use ingredients from the store, like a pound cake or vanilla ice cream, that are just as good as homemade.” We couldnt have said it better ourselves. Sauces and syrups can be time-consuming to prepare with relatively little payoff, especially when excellent store-bought versions are right there.
Vanilla ice cream
Visiting your local grocery store to pick up some ice cream sounds like a simple task, but anyone who is aware of the dozens if not hundreds of different options available knows that its not quite as easy as one might think. For Ina Garten, keeping it simple is best, and she cites vanilla ice cream as her favorite. Although this may come as a surprise to anyone expecting a more complex response from this world-famous chef, Garten believes that vanilla ice cream appears as deceptively simple while actually involving a lot of effort to make. That may be why the flavor itself can seem a bit bland in comparison to more complicated mixed flavors, but it nevertheless retains a subtle complexity all its own.
As with many of the things she enjoys store-bought versions of, Garten actually has her own vanilla ice cream recipe. Still, when in the mood for something fast, she favors store-bought ice cream brands like Häagen-Dazs, Ben and Jerrys, and Ciao Bella. Gartens love for vanilla is well-known, and it even applies to the extract itself. Again, while she has a vanilla extract recipe all her own, she recommends the brand Nielsen-Massey in a pinch. Today, Gartens classic vanilla extract recipe is nearly four decades old, but that doesnt mean she cant enjoy a good store-bought extract every now and again.
Although the late, great Julia Child had her own recipe for homemade mayonnaise, she was known to show a strong preference for store-bought Hellmanns. Garten has regularly cited Child as a major culinary inspiration, explaining that she learned to cook in no small part due to the guidance offered by Childs cookbooks. It turns out, there is one very distinctive thing she and Child have in common, and thats their mutual favorite brand of mayonnaise. The brand? None other than Hellmanns own, of course.
In her own cookbooks and blogs, Garten has suggestions for taking Hellmanns up a notch by adding ingredients and enhancing the flavor a bit, but the root remains the same. In the cookbook “Cook Like a Pro,” the very first ingredient for her buttermilk herb mayo is a cup of “good mayo, like Hellmanns.” Her basil mayonnaise recipe might require making the whole thing from scratch, but just because you can make your own doesnt mean you have to every single time. For those moments when youre looking to make things a bit easier on yourself without cutting corners, youll be pleased to know that store-bought mayonnaise has been helping people do just that for decades.
The Food Network, aka the home network of Ina Gartens hit cooking show “Barefoot Contessa,” assembled a list of store-bought ingredients that Garten approves of, and pesto is on that list. An underrated ingredient that can amplify the taste profile of everything from soups to pizza, pasta, bread, and beyond, Garten agrees that the versatility factor of pesto is high. “I use it in so many ways, like Winter Minestrone, and its fabulous on open-faced mozzarella-and-tomato sandwiches,” Garten says in the article. While her homemade pesto recipe is certainly nothing to scoff at, we are nonetheless highly intrigued by the master chefs suggestion that we do less work.
While Garten uses pesto as an additive in seemingly countless recipes, including her pesto zucchini sticks and her five-star pasta, it tends to be more a supporting cast member than the star of most of these dishes. That allows for a quick trade-out for store-bought pesto, which could easily cut down time, hassle, and clean-up during the meal preparation. As with most of Gartens recommendations, she advises you to find a high-quality jarred pesto, but once youve figured out your brand of choice, youre free to use it at will during any pasta emergency.
Fettuccine with White Truffle Butter | Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like a Pro | Food Network
FAQ
What brand of white truffle butter does Ina Garten use?
Which is better white truffle butter or black truffle butter?
What is real truffle butter?
Is truffle butter worth it?
What kind of butter does Ina Garten use?
Unsalted butter. What butter does Ina Garten use? In the Ask Ina section of the Barefoot Contessa website, a fan asked what brand of butter is her go-to. Cabot unsalted butter was her top choice! Cabot Creamery has been operating in Cabot, Vermont since 1919, making cheese, yogurt, sour cream and, of course, plenty of butter.
Can truffle oil be used in dishes with strong flavors?
It will go well with rich, creamy sauces made with cheese and ham. Olive oil used in trifle oil can help lower LDL cholesterol, so it would also be a good combination from a health point of view when eating strong-flavored food.
What kind of butter do you use for Barefoot Contessa?
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve at once. Note: I use Urbani white truffle butter, which you can order online at Urbani.com. Copyright 2008, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics by Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter/Publishers, All Rights Reserved
Who makes Cabot unsalted butter?
Cabot unsalted butter was her top choice! Cabot Creamery has been operating in Cabot, Vermont since 1919, making cheese, yogurt, sour cream and, of course, plenty of butter. But it’s not just Ina’s top choice.