Inside Food Network star Katie Lee Biegel's fridge
- The Food Network star Katie Lee Biegel lives with her husband and 3-year-old daughter in New York.
- You'll find leftover lasagna made with lots of cheese inside her fridge, along with pickles.
Have you ever wondered what's inside the refrigerators of the chefs you're watching on TV? We have.
We asked Katie Lee Biegel, a cookbook author and a host of Food Network's morning show "The Kitchen," to take us inside the fridge of her New York City home, where she resides with her husband, Ryan, and their 3-year-old daughter.
The cookbook author's fridge is a mix of farmers-market finds and grocery-store staples — and she's an especially huge fan of condiments and leftovers.
Ketchup
Biegel is a self-described "ketchup addict," as is her 3-year-old daughter.
She keeps a big squeeze bottle of Heinz organic ketchup in the fridge door, which her family goes through really quickly.
Milo's sweet tea
Biegel's Southern roots still run deep, and she has two large bottles of sweet tea in the fridge to prove it.
The tea is the star of a chicken recipe she's "obsessed" with, one she developed when she worked with Milo's Tea on a campaign for Feeding America.The West Virginia native said she's now been making the sweet tea-brined oven-fried chicken on repeat."This chicken recipe is like the chicken recipe to end all chicken recipes — not to toot my own horn," she told Business Insider.Fortunately, it's simple to make.She marinates the chicken overnight in a simple brine of sweet tea, soy sauce, onions, and garlic."The tannins in the tea really tenderize the chicken," she told BI. "I use soy sauce instead of salt in the brine because I didn't want to have to heat the tea up to let the salt dissolve."Biegel then dips the marinated chicken in a flour mixture and fries it in the oven using a method she learned from her grandma."You just put butter in a sheet pan, melt it in the oven, and put the chicken skin side down," she said.She keeps Milo's in the fridge because her husband requests this chicken often and thinks it's the best chicken she's ever made.Next time, she said, she'll try swapping the chicken for ribs or pork chops.
Rao's marinara sauce
You might think a Food Network star would be simmering her own tomato sauce, but Biegel is also the mom of a toddler and is realistic about where to spend her time.
"The jarred Rao's comes in real handy with my 3-year-old. She likes it on lentil pasta," said Biegel. "I think it's such a good product. I use that all the time."
Plenty of pickles
Biegel's fridge is a dream for those who like pickled food.
Her fridge has at least three good-sized jars of mixed pickles from the Union Square Farmers Market, plus olives and jarred antipasto from the Italian specialty brand Agnoni.Biegel serves pickles on sandwiches, alongside ribs, or straight from the jar and is an especially huge fan of the bread-and-butter variety.She said she'd also recently purchased pickled onions to "size up" what others taste like, though her husband usually makes them from scratch.The cookbook author also has chow chow, a sweet and vinegary Southern pickled condiment made with cabbage, tomatoes, and bell peppers."Chow chow is really popular where I'm from in West Virginia," Biegel told BI. "I eat it straight out of the jar."
Pomegranate arils
Biegel may have two containers of pomegranate seeds in the fridge, but she isn't all about shortcuts.
Leftover birthday cake from Milk Bar
The top shelf of Biegel's fridge holds a plastic-wrapped half of a cake that can't be mistaken for anything other than a Funfetti Milk Bar birthday cake.
The iconic confection from the New York-based bakery chain features layers of vanilla cake, fluffy white frosting, and naked sides.The Biegel household had recently bought it to celebrate the 8th birthday of a family friend's kid.
Leftover lasagna
Biegel welcomes leftovers and said she just had a piece of a lasagna she recently made for lunch.
"I mean, is there anything better than leftover lasagna?" Biegel said. "Even cold straight out of the fridge?"She said she treats the lasagna "like a pan of brownies that you're cutting little bites off of" and keeps eating small pieces of it.Her recipe is "very heavy on the cheese" and is similar to the lasagna she grew up on. It features a meat sauce layered with ricotta, provolone, and mozzarella.
Kind of Wild wine
Bottles of Biegel's own Kind of Wild Wines sit on the top shelf of her fridge. She launched the organic wine label in April 2021.
She said she'd recently had some of the rosé with friends and used the sparkling version of it to top off her pomegranate-cocktail recipe.
Bitchin' Sauce
Biegel is "obsessed with Bitchin' Sauce," which she uses as a dip and a condiment.
Her fridge contains a tub of the Hatch chile flavor, which is made from a base of almonds and pumpkin seeds and flavored with roasted Hatch chiles, jalapeños, and nutritional yeast.
White miso paste
Miso paste is one of Biegel's fridge staples, but it's not for noodle dishes or soups like you might expect.
It's a key ingredient in the miso chocolate-chip cookies she's known for and makes regularly.
Coconut aminos
Biegel's crowded condiment shelves also have a bottle of Coconut Secret coconut aminos, a salty, gluten-free alternative to soy sauce made from the sap of a coconut tree.
Her husband puts the aminos on Brussels sprouts and broccoli before roasting them in the oven to give them a great salty flavor.