The Foods Celebrity Chefs Say Are Worth Making From Scratch

Most professional chefs have made peace with shortcuts. Jarred sauce, store-bought stock, pre-made dough, nobody with a restaurant to run is precious about all of it.

But ask the same chefs what they refuse to buy, and a short, surprisingly consistent list comes up again and again. These are the items they insist on making themselves, no matter how long the day already was.

Ina Garten Won’t Go Back to Store-Bought Ricotta

Ina Garten has built a career on knowing exactly when a shortcut is fine and when it isn’t, and ricotta falls firmly on the homemade side of that line. Once she tried making her own, the packaged version stopped being an option.

The appeal wasn’t really about flavor alone.

She’s described discovering just how simple the process actually is, saying “I never went back to store-bought” once she realized how little effort homemade ricotta actually takes. For a dish that often gets treated as a specialty item, that’s a notable reversal from someone who is otherwise comfortable reaching for a shortcut.

Jacques Pépin Thinks Bottled Dressing Tastes Like Candy

Few chefs are as blunt about store-bought vinaigrette as Jacques Pépin, who doesn’t bother softening his opinion of it. His main objection isn’t convenience at all, it’s what’s actually inside the bottle.

Commercial dressings, in his view, lean so heavily on added sugar that the result barely resembles a savory condiment.

He’s gone as far as comparing the sweetness of bottled dressing to “dessert” rather than something meant to dress a salad. His own version relies on nothing more than oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and a bit of mustard, whisked together in well under a minute.

Giada De Laurentiis Says Fresh Pasta Is Worth the Time It Takes

Giada De Laurentiis doesn’t pretend homemade pasta is fast. She’s upfront that rolling out dough takes real time compared to grabbing a box off a shelf, and she makes it anyway.

For her, the time investment is actually part of the point rather than a drawback.

She’s said the effort matters because it’s delicious, but also because it’ll “make people feel special” in a way a boxed dinner simply doesn’t. Her own version blends all-purpose and cake flour specifically to keep the texture light rather than dense, which she considers essential to getting it right.

Jamie Oliver Insists Basic Bread Is Worth Learning

Jamie Oliver has spent years pushing people past the idea that bread requires a professional setup. His basic recipe strips the process down to as few ingredients and steps as possible, on purpose.

That simplicity is exactly what makes it worth doing at home in the first place.

He’s pointed out that it’s worth returning to “now more than ever, it’s quite nice to do this” kind of hands-on cooking, especially for people who’ve genuinely never attempted it before. The same basic dough, he notes, can turn into a loaf, a pizza base, or a focaccia with barely any adjustment.

None of these four chefs are arguing that everything belongs on a from-scratch list. What they’re pointing to instead is a short set of exceptions, the handful of things worth the extra ten minutes because the store-bought version simply isn’t close enough.

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