This creamy bolognese potato gratin bake is pure comfort in one pan. A rich pork bolognese simmered with passata and Italian herbs gets finished with thickened cream, then topped with cheesy four-cheese potato gratins and a shower of parmesan before baking until golden and bubbling. It's the kind of dinner that feeds the whole family, needs just one ovenproof pan, and will quickly become a regular in your rotation.
My version of ginger shallot chicken: drumsticks marinated in soy and Shaoxing wine, steamed with ginger and spring onion until meltingly tender, then shredded and tossed through a sizzling ginger shallot oil with the reserved chicken juices. Steaming the chicken in the soy marinade gives it that extra layer of flavour, and the juices that collect in the bowl become part of the sauce. Pile it over steamed rice for a comforting, fragrant Chinese dinner.
Homemade stracciatella is the creamy, stringy centre of burrata — and it turns out you can make it at home with just three ingredients. Fresh mozzarella from the brine gets pulled into tiny shreds, folded through thickened cream with a pinch of flaky salt, then left to set in the fridge overnight. Spoon it over tomatoes, pile it on sandwiches, or dollop it onto pasta and pizza. It's a fraction of the price of buying it at a restaurant or deli.
This 15 minute tuna pasta turns a humble can of tuna into something spectacular. Sun-dried tomatoes and kalamata olives get sautéed in their own flavourful oil with onion and garlic, then simmered with flaked tuna and passata into a rich, punchy sauce. It's full of flavour, needs no standing around at the stove, and feeds 5–6 people from mostly pantry staples — exactly what you want on a busy weeknight.
This is mapo tofu stripped back to what's already in most kitchens: no doubanjiang, no Sichuan peppercorns, no trip to the Asian grocer. Pork and beef mince gets caramelised with oyster sauce and soy, then simmered into a glossy, thickened gravy with cubes of silken tofu folded gently through at the end. It isn't the real thing and doesn't pretend to be — it's just a genuinely delicious 30-minute dinner to spoon over rice.
Twenty-four mini sausage rolls from $9.20 of ingredients — pork and beef mince bulked out with grated carrot and onion, wrapped in puff pastry, brushed with egg wash and baked until deeply golden. Grating the veg in keeps the filling juicy rather than dense, and the whole tray disappears in about ten minutes flat. Perfect for parties, lunchboxes, or a very good dinner with tomato sauce.
I'm the home cook behind Kat Cooks Daily (and the founder of Food Inbox).
I believe cooking is for everyone, and great food doesn't need complicated!
Every recipe I post is tried and tested by me here in Sydney, Australia. I hope you try some of them!
More about meA no-bake summer dessert that layers syrup-soaked Italian finger biscuits with fluffy mango cream and thin slices of fresh ripe mango. It's the easiest tiramisu I've ever made — just four ingredients, no eggs, no coffee — and it gets even better after a night in the fridge. Make it the day before and you've got an impressive entertaining dessert that practically assembles itself.
A tropical no-bake twist on the Italian classic
No spam, no fluff — just the recipes Kat is cooking, plus tips from a real home kitchen.