Taste of Home - Taste of Home All Time Best Recipes

Family cooks sharing their all-time best recipesthats long been the hallmark of Taste of Home. And while we couldnt do what we do without these gracious home cooks, its our Test Kitchen team that makes sure each recipe we share will turn out perfect. Heres a peek into some of what goes on behind the scenes.

What kind of education or professional credentials do the Taste of Home Test Kitchen staffers have?

Our Test Kitchen professionals are trained and trusted experts. We have earned degrees in varied fields that relate to food or publishing: food science, culinary arts, nutrition and wellness, art and design, and dietetics. We have more than 200 years of combined professional culinary experience.

What do you look for in new recipes submissions?

We embrace recipes that have a little something extra to offera classic recipe with a new flavor spin, for example, or something slightly different from what is already in our extensive collection. The recipe must also have easy-to-follow instructions.

What three ingredients does the kitchen use most?

We have 229,000 recipes in our database from all kinds of cooking styles and cuisines. Our top-rated recipes are consistently down-home comfort dishes that warm the soul. Its no surprise that cheese, with a total of 13,000 ounces, takes the lead as the most-used ingredient in the past year. Flour weighs in at 7,200 pounds. Butter is right up there with 382 pounds. We also use mass quantities of milk, eggs, olive oil and everyones favorite ingredientbacon!

What about all the groceries?

Over the course of a year, we process more than 400 grocery orders and prep 24,000 ingredients. Our grocery inventory, ordering and shopping process is significant and requires hours of dedicated work each week from Test Kitchen team members. We rely on our recipe management database to help. This remarkable tool keeps multiple grocery lists organized, collating every ingredient for every recipe scheduled for testing, photography or video, by grocery departments like fresh produce, meats, staples, canned and packaged, dairy, deli, frozen, etc.

From there, our prep kitchen team produces shoppable lists and schedules them on different shopping days. (We dont want to buy perishable produce on Monday if its not needed until Friday.) Some orders are placed online through a local grocery store that makes weekly deliveries. Others are picked up at stores throughout the week by our prep kitchen staff. We even have a shopping van with our Taste of Home logo on it!

Who washes all the dishes?

In the blink of an eye, towering stacks of dirty dishes pile up in the Test Kitchen, prep kitchens and even our photo studio. We are so thankful to have a team of two fabulous full-time employees responsible for keeping our pots, pans, measuring cups and all sorts of cooking tools and equipment cleaned and organized. The dishwashers loop around the kitchens and studios throughout the day, loading up their carts with bins of dirty dishes for cleaning at the wash station. We couldnt keep up the pace without them!

ALL-TIME BEST