‘Just a Taste’ Chef Kelly Senyei Dishes on Thanksgiving Secrets and the Joyful Ritual She Shares With Her Mom (EXCLUSIVE)
Plus, see why the cookbook author and 'Woman's World' cover star calls turkey 'the most overrated Thanksgiving food'
As one of the internet’s most beloved chefs, Kelly Senyei, cookbook author and founder of the long-running food blog Just a Taste, knows a thing or two about making holiday meals as delicious as possible. “Thanksgiving is my Super Bowl,” the mom of four tells Woman’s World with a laugh. “It’s an absolute production in the best way”—one that sees Kelly and her mom, Noni, prepping for weeks in advance.
While Kelly loves honoring Thanksgiving traditions, she’s also not afraid to share her hot takes about the holiday. “Even as a professional chef, I will not make stuffing from scratch. It has to be boxed Stove Top stuffing. I just top it with a little extra sage like my mom always did,” she says. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
“I think the most overrated Thanksgiving food is actually the turkey,” Kelly continues. “I consider it to be a placeholder on the plate, and it’s better as a leftover—there are a million tasty things you can do with turkey after Thanksgiving.” Some of her favorites include turkey sliders and turkey soup.
Read on to see what Kelly, the cover girl of this week’s Woman’s World (get your copy here!), has to say about her best hacks for celebrating in style, the joys and challenges of finding balance during the busiest time of year and more.
Woman’s World: What’s your favorite way to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey and make it feel a bit less like a ‘placeholder’?
Kelly Senyei: I’ve made turkey in every way, shape and form. I’ve tried and tested all the techniques, and without a doubt, I go with the butter-soaked cheesecloth method. You get a cheesecloth, you soak it in melted unsalted butter, because you want to be able to control the saltiness of the turkey itself, and then you drape it on top of the raw bird and stick it in the oven. This technique encapsulates all of the juices, and the butter bakes into the skin so it gets super crispy, and as you’re basting, the cheesecloth gets rehydrated. It adds all the moisture in the world, and it’s perfection. It has never failed me.
WW: Are there any popular Thanksgiving dishes that you’re not a fan of?
KS: The one thing I just won’t go near is any sort of sweet potato with a marshmallow topping. To me, it’s cloyingly sweet, and it offsets the whole savory aspect I have going on my plate in a bad way. If there’s anything with a marshmallow topping, I’m running in the other direction!
WW: What are your best tips for making hosting easier and setting a festive mood?
KS: My number one hosting tip is so basic, but it makes a massive impact. Before you start cooking, lay out every single dish you’ll be using and put a sticky note on it labeled with what’s going to be served in it. This prevents the last-minute stress of not knowing where all your dishes are supposed to go and gives you a dinner roadmap.
Once the festivities start, instead of playing instrumental music, I like playing pop songs. We’re very into dancing and that music keeps things uplifting and lively. I’m a huge Swiftie, so we’ll have the new Taylor Swift album playing on Thanksgiving while serving some cold cosmopolitans.
WW: As a working mom, how do you carve out space for yourself and stay confident?
KS: It’s very difficult to be an A-plus mom and an A-plus career woman on the same day at the same time, and I think there’s a big misconception that we can do it all. I always have to juggle it, and compartmentalize in switching from mom mode to business mode. There are days when I’m absolutely crushing it as a business owner, but I have to call my mom and ask her to do school pickup because I can’t get there in time. I’m incredibly fortunate to have the luxury of my parents being so close and able to help, and I love that my kids get to see me be a working mom.
I went from no kids to four kids in the span of six years and as all the moms out there know, when it comes to your body, things don’t land back where they started. I would do it a million times over, but I think it’s important to recognize that most of us struggle with body image.
Something tangible that helps me find confidence is whenever I feel good and I like the way I look, I take a picture of myself, and I keep it in my phone and remember it. It helps to have that ‘proof of mom’ photo. I’m not 20 anymore, and that’s okay. I don’t want to be 20. I want to be exactly where I’m at now, and I have more perspective on how I look.
WW: You started ‘Just a Taste’ back in 2008. What has your professional journey been like, and what are some of the challenges you’ve overcome?
KS: Having done this for 17 years, I’ve seen every facet of this industry change. When I started Just a Taste, I was in grad school for journalism. I was writing my thesis in New York City, and I was intent on being a political reporter. Every night I would come back from reporting and start cooking as a way to decompress and separate myself from work.
Growing up, my mom was such an amazing home cook. She had food at the core of everything that we did as a family and it brought us all together. I realized more and more that I was getting so much joy out of cooking and sharing food, so I tried to find a way to make every story I wrote for my journalism program have some sort of food tie-in. It didn’t matter what language people spoke or where they lived or what their past experiences were—everybody could have an opinion on food and share that with people, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to work in food media.
I ended up going to culinary school because I really wanted to hone my craft, and once I did that, I realized I only wanted to report on food forever. I started Just a Taste as a side hustle. It was one of the first food blogs, which led me to write Food Blogging for Dummies in 2012, and now here we are. I never could’ve imagined getting to this point in my path.
As an entrepreneur, you must be prepared for the fact that you are going to fail time and time again, but I’ve been successful because of my failures. That’s how we learn. I always say it takes a massive amount of time to become an overnight success, but it’s a fulfilling journey.
WW: What are you most thankful for?
KS: I’m most thankful for the fact that my children get to experience the holidays with my parents. As you reach a certain age and realize your parents are getting older, you want to capture as many of those memories as you can, and it’s not something that I take for granted.
One of my favorite simple pleasures is having a glass of champagne with my mom. She lives two streets over from me, so I always call her up last minute. It gives us a chance to catch up in person, even though we already talk 20 times a day. My mom recently said, ‘You know I’m never going to say no to this,’ and I was like, ‘Exactly. This is our thing.’ She’s the best, and it’s a great way to slow down the chaos.
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