‘Stand By Your Pan’ Author Hannah Dasher Shares Her Simple Secrets to Cooking With Love: ‘It’s a Ministry’ (Exclusive)
The country singer and TikTok star on how cooking connects us to faith, family and the comfort of home
Key Takeaways
- Hannah Dasher's vintage kitchen and retro style celebrate nostalgia and personal authenticity.
- For Hannah, cooking is ministry—she doubles recipes to freeze meals for neighbors in need.
- Hannah's Stand By Your Pan cookbook proves the best ingredient in any recipe is always love.
Long before country singer and social media sensation Hannah Dasher‘s debut cookbook, Stand By Your Pan, became a reality, she already knew what she’d call it.
The cookbook (just named one of best books of the year in the cooking category by Amazon) is the latest chapter in a career that has taken some unexpected turns. Hannah was raised in Georgia, surrounded by the rich food traditions of the South. In 2010, she followed her dream of becoming a singer-songwriter, moved to Nashville and worked in retail to keep herself afloat. She always imagined her country music would introduce her to the world first. Instead, it was her warm, funny cooking videos filmed in her unmistakable kitchen she describes as “honkytonk Graceland” that won over millions of social media viewers during the pandemic.
“As a little girl, I always thought that country music would put me on the map first, but then the pandemic quarantine shut down the music business for two years,” she says. “I thought, ‘You know what? Let’s make the kitchen my stage’ because restaurants are closed at the time.”
Everyone was cooking at home and searching for recipes and she knew her friends trusted her recipes so she started posting her cooking videos on TikTok where she now has 1.7 million followers. Here, Hannah shares her simple tips for making everyday footloose and fancy-free!
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Hannah Dasher’s home with a vintage soul
Social media followers fell in love with her, her style and her kitchen. “When my grandmother and my great aunts passed away, I inherited all the kitchen items—the avocado green and the harvest gold and the little things with mushrooms on it and stuff that people used to say were tacky,” she says.
Now, her Nashville home is almost as recognizable as she is. “Everyone thinks that it’s a movie set,” she says. “I haven’t found a good avocado green fridge yet, but my home was built in 1960…eventually I’ll find some good brown and orange linoleum for the floor.”
And don’t expect Hannah to trade it for today’s all-white interiors anytime soon. “I know the white and gray Chip and Joanna [Gaines] décor is popular. They’re darling. But that’s just not me,” she says.
That independent streak extends well beyond Hannah’s kitchen and into her wardrobe which is an homage to the King of Rock’n’Roll, Elvis Presley. “I’ve always loved his big gaudy rings and his big collars and sunglasses,” she says. “I’ve got a big personality. I like to dress for me and dress for whatever mood I’m in. And I just happened to fall into that 1974 to 1981 fashion range, if you will. And the clothes just fit me better.”
Hannah’s cooking and music inspo? Retro everything
Her love of all things vintage isn’t just reflected in what she wears. It’s also woven into her music, too. “I was one of the first females to bring back the pedal steel guitar and to tour with a pedal steel,” she says. “I’m classic country. The steel guitar for me is nostalgic and one of those things I want to keep around, just like cloth napkins and hosting dinner parties and having meals together without your phones at the table. All things that Stand By Your Pan really wants to encourage so that we don’t lose that sense of community. There’s some old school things that I hope we can really keep around.”
When it comes to navigating setbacks or hard times, Hannah suggests keeping the faith. “In 2010, I moved to Nashville after college and took a job at Bass Pro Shops while I figured out the songwriting world. A few months later, the Tennessee floods hit and I had to move back home—I couldn’t afford to stay. When I got back, I was eventually fired for writing songs on the job. But six months to the day later, I signed my first major publishing deal with BMG—and one of the songs I was working on when I got fired was later recorded by Brad Paisley.”
Cooking heals the soul
For Hannah, cooking is much more than putting dinner on the table. “Cooking is therapeutic and it’s also a ministry. Food is love,” she says. “You can get into the kitchen and you can create something, and in just a little bit of time, you can see the fruits of your labor… For me, the repayment is sitting down at the table with loved ones and watching them enjoy what you’ve poured your heart and soul in.”
She hopes cookbook readers will also discover how a little planning in the kitchen can become an unexpected way to care for others. “A lot of these recipes [are large enough to] make two big dishes that freeze well,” she says. “If someone passes away or someone has surgery, just pull it out of the freezer and put it in the oven in no time…It just leaves folks in a much better place than you found them. And I want to encourage us to love all our neighbors a little more like the old-school folks did.”
Connect over good food and conversation
Even when she’s entertaining, Hannah believes the smallest gestures often mean the most. “I think [cooking] is a way to be loving and get to know those around you,” she says. “Ask your guests questions before they come over, scope their Instagram just to see any recent accolades or anything that you can celebrate with them. It’s a way to really warm up the room and it makes the food taste even better.”
For Hannah, though, the most meaningful traditions happen after the food is on the table. Growing up, saying grace before a meal wasn’t optional, and it’s something she still practices today. “I think taking a moment before every meal and saying grace and reflecting on where your food came from and the hands that prepared it and the hands that planted it and harvested it… just taking a moment to reflect before we dive in, because we’re all guilty of eating on the run,” she says. “We’re all guilty of having our phones at the table. I just think it’s important to reconnect.”
Foster an attitude of gratitude
That sense of gratitude has only deepened with time. There was a period in Hannah’s life when money was tight enough that opening the refrigerator could be a reminder of what she didn’t have. Today, when she sees shelves stocked with food, she still pauses to appreciate it. “I’ll open that refrigerator and just say, ‘Thank you, Lord,'” she says. “Because there were years when I didn’t know what was going to be in there. I don’t ever want to lose sight of that.”
Celebrate special memories
It’s one reason the objects filling her home are much more than decorations. These are mementos and reminders of the people and stories that have shaped her life.
Hannah’s home is also filled with pieces that connect her to the country music legends she admires. Among her favorites is a silver bud vase that once belonged to Hank Williams Jr. She also treasures some of Loretta Lynn’s fish-scale Pyrex in the two-toned orange pattern. While she usually keeps it on display, she occasionally brings it out for a summertime potato salad. Whether she’s cooking in vintage cookware, setting the table with cloth napkins or pulling a casserole from the freezer for a neighbor in need, Hannah hopes Stand By Your Pan encourages readers to simply slow down and enjoy the people around them.
More than anything, she hopes they have fun. “I want you to laugh from the get-go,” she says. “I want you to be entertained. I want you to learn something. I want you to make something delicious. And at the end of the day, I just want to leave you in a good spot.”
Don’t miss Hannah’s cookbook!
Hannah’s philosophy of nostalgia fills every page of her debut cookbook. In Stand By Your Pan: 100 Easy & Affordable Comfort Food Recipes, there are generations-old family favorites, including her beloved chicken pie (“We don’t put the pot in it,” she laughs) to a fried catfish po’boy and proper grits (“These are not bland water grits. These have a lot of flavor.”) Other Southern dishes inspired by Georgia and the Lowcountry include: ‘Getchyo Man’ Roast and Elvis Éclair Cake. They’re the kinds of dishes Hannah hopes people will make, share and pass along.
Hannah is currently on tour. For places and dates check out www.hannahdasher.com.
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