The 51 Best Ina Garten Recipes of All Time (2024)

FAQs

Was Ina Garten a White House chef? ›

For over 20 years, Ina Garten has shared her comforting and foolproof recipes with the world through her beloved cookbooks and "Barefoot Contessa" show. But before becoming a Food Network star, Garten wrote budgets at the White House and ran a Hamptons grocery store.

Ina Garten's quote, "Food should be celebrated, not feared," encapsulates the essence of her philosophy towards cooking and consumption.

In addition to quick oatmeal, Ina Garten has also been known, on occasion, to use her microwave for simplifying what are usually more complicated cooking techniques. For example, she uses her microwave to not only melt butter but make clarified butter, in which the milk solids have been removed.

Garten ran the Barefoot Contessa store for 18 years — eventually moving it from Westhampton Beach to a bigger location in East Hampton — before she sold it to two of her employees in 1996. Three years later, Garten published her first cookbook with recipes from her store. Then, Food Network came calling.

Garten, who married husband Jeffrey nearly 55 years ago when she was 20 years old, said that her own childhood is the main reason why she didn't want to expand her family. “I'm actually writing a memoir right now and it's kind of looking back at my childhood. It was nothing I wanted to recreate,” she shared.

Garten is Jewish by birth and heritage, as is her husband, but rarely refers to her religion and ethnicity, though they are showcased through the inclusion of classic Jewish cooking in her television show and cookbooks, when she makes such dishes as rugelach, challah, and brisket.

He is the Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management

Jeffrey Garten. Currently, Jeffrey serves as the Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management and teaches courses on the global economy.

Born Ina Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, Garten was one of two children born to Charles H. Rosenberg, a surgeon specializing in otolaryngology, and his wife, Florence (née Rich), a dietitian.

"I've had the same thing for breakfast every single day for ten years: coffee and McCann's quick-cooking Irish oatmeal," Garten told Bon Appétit in a 2017 article. And her love of the stuff is well-documented.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Ina Garten's net worth in 2024 is estimated at $60 million. When combined with that of her husband Jeffrey, that amount is estimated at a whopping $120 million.

How did Ina Garten learn to cook? ›

I really learned how to cook by working my way through every recipe in both volumes of Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking. You worked at the White House in the 1970s.

We've looked up to her for years as one of our most trusted culinary icons. The Barefoot Contessa originally gained popularity for making simple, everyday recipes with great ingredients, and over the years, she's maintained her for-the-people attitude. If Ina Garten can roast a chicken, you can, too.

But we'd guess that not many of us spend as much time in our kitchens as Ina Garten, the Food Network personality and cookbook author who goes to work in her kitchen all year long.

1978: Shortly after her 30th birthday, Garten quit her government position and bought the small Barefoot Contessa shop in East Hampton, New York. "When I told [Jeffrey] I wanted to move to New York and open a food store, he said, 'Let's move to New York!'

I worked in the White House from 1974 to 1978 during the Ford and Carter administrations. I worked in the Office of Management and Budget on nuclear energy issues. It was very exciting for the first few years because your work was going directly to the President.

Ina Garten

In 1978, I was working in the White House Office of Management and Budget and thinking, I've got to do something more creative and fun than writing nuclear energy budgets! I came across an ad in the New York Times for a specialty food store for sale in the Hamptons and I decided to investigate.

Before becoming a celebrity chef, Garten worked for the government. In the late 1970s, Garten lived in Washington, DC, and worked for the White House Office of Management and Budget. According to Insider, Garten worked under both Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, helping to write the nuclear energy budget.

Eventually she was assigned the position of budget analyst, which entailed writing the nuclear energy budget and policy papers on nuclear centrifuge plants for presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.