From dishing about the essential Southern potluck recipes on our Biscuits & Jam podcast to filling us in about her three must-have kitchen tools to sharing her treasured potato chip-topped Funeral Potatoes casserole, we like to think we’re basically BFFs with Ree Drummond.
OK, that might be a stretch, but we’ve been lucky enough to interview and showcase enough of her delicious Pioneer Woman dishes, it can feel like we’ve studied and savored it all.
But thanks to the complete archives of her Food Network show now available on Discovery +, we were able to dive into the hidden details of episodes old and new. Now running for more than a decade and 34 seasons strong, Drummond continues to teach us old fans new tricks. Read on for five of her best cooking tips.
1. The best way to prepare cinnamon toast involves zero toasters.
Drummond has ~feelings~ about cinnamon toast. In her blog post from April 2010, she explains: “If you wanted to make the worst cinnamon toast on earth, you would put a piece of bread in the toaster and remove it when it’s…toasted. Then you would—gulp—spread softened butter on the warm toast…Then you’d sprinkle on the cinnamon/sugar. Terrible! No dimension at all! The butter hasn’t had a chance to soak into the bread. No caramelizing. Nothin’.”
Instead, Drummond swears by her sheet pan method. She’s such an advocate for this process, in fact, she’s not only walked us through it on her blog, but also on her TV show and via Instagram Stories.
Fans now call it, “My absolute favorite toast! Perfectly decadent and oh-so simple,” and admit, “I’ve been making cinnamon toast for years, you know, toast the bread, spread the butter, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. But THIS. This is on a whole new amazing wonderful level.”
Drummond says you should follow these three steps for the best cinnamon toast:
- Spread slices of untoasted bread with softened butter, cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla.
- Transfer the prepared bread to a sheet pan and bake at 350°F for 10 minutes, then broil until bubbly.
- Dust with more cinnamon sugar, if desired, then use a pizza cutter to smoothly slice each piece into diagonal halves.
2. An egg-in-a-hole is only the beginning.
In other breakfast news, we have adored Drummond’s classic five-minute Egg-in-a-Hole for years. Simple, single-skillet, and speedy, this has been a regular on family morning menus since she first posted the recipe on her blog in 2008.
Paired with a couple slices of bacon and a fruit salad, you thought breakfast couldn’t get much better. That is, until Drummond upped the ante in 2018 with her Egg-in-a-Hole Sandwich that one fan calls, “the best-ever sandwich.”
To recreate it, sizzle up two egg-in-a-holes, then stuff them with your favorite BLT (or other sandwich) fixings).
3. Your waffle maker is handy for so much more than waffles.
Here at Southern Living, we’ve played around with Cinnamon Roll Waffles and Rainbow Waffles, and of course have our favorite Cornmeal Waffles. You’ll notice a theme with those: They’re all sweet.
So we were surprised and delighted to see Drummond bust out her waffle iron to expand the repertory, pressing everything from Wafflemaker hash browns and Waffle-Maker Pizza to a Reuben Wafflewich and a Turkey Bacon Wafflewich.
4. Struggle to get your family to eat vegetables? Make salad out of their favorite foods.
When we’re sharing supper with picky eaters, our usual moves are to hide them in a vegetable casserole or douse them in a flavorful sauce. Thanks to Drummond, we have a new weapon in our sneakily-healthy arsenal: comfort food-inspired salads—or comfort foods topped with salad.
Her Herbed Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza features all of the elements of an entree-style chicken Caesar salad atop a pizza crust. Buffalo Chicken Salad is basically everything you’d find in a pub’s chicken wing basket (including blue cheese, celery and spicy, saucy chicken) over a bed of lettuce.
Quite possibly best of all, though, is Drummond’s next-level Cheeseburger Salad. It features romaine lettuce, ketchup- and mustard-coated ground beef, Cheddar cheese, pickles, and other fast-food sandwich fixings alongside adorable hamburger bun croutons.
5. Trim down on food waste with three recipe concepts ideal for odds-and-ends.
Throughout her 34 seasons, Drummond has focused a few episodes solely around the concept of meals made to clean out the fridge at the end of the week. This is a savvy strategy for many reasons:
- It’s a trek from Drummond’s Pawhuska, Oklahoma ranch home to the nearest grocery store.
- It cuts down on her family’s food waste.
- It’s a budget-friendly move to make the most of your stock.
It takes just 10 minutes to blend up a batch of Fridge Gazpacho (that uses strawberries, tomatoes, cucumber, and bell pepper. Produce Drawer Primavera can be tailored to the seasons; come spring, Drummond “shops from her produce drawer, adding bell peppers, squash and mushrooms along with asparagus and fresh oregano.” And in a Fridge Raid Shakshuka that’s ideal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, Drummond tosses in some extra kale, a bounty of bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and feta cheese.