About
Welcome to Natasha’s Kitchen! I’m Natasha Kravchuk, and together with my husband, Vadim, we’ve been passionately developing and sharing tried-and-true recipes since 2009. Over the years, we have created a trusted recipe resource beloved by millions.
In 2023, I published my debut cookbook – Natasha’s Kitchen Cookbook, which quickly became a New York Times Best-Seller for three consecutive weeks. The book is an extension of our blog with top-quality recipes you can trust.
I come from a family of fantastic cooks, and I’m here to share generations of recipes that are homey, fresh, healthy, family-friendly, authentic, and adventurous. Most importantly, our recipes are meticulously tested and guaranteed to be delicious and reliable.

My Family and Heritage
My culinary journey is deeply rooted in my family’s story. My family came to the U.S. as refugees from Ukraine when I was 4 years old. They brought 5 tiny girls and had nothing but a stack of suitcases. They didn’t know the language, but they worked hard and achieved the American dream. Watch the TV News Segment about our incredible story. My parents’ resilience and passion for food inspire every recipe I create.

Growing up, I was so shy that I thought no one would marry me until my husband came along and swept me off my feet (true story). Over 20 years ago, I married my wonderful husband, Vadim (who is also Ukrainian). We are blessed with two children. Every recipe that I develop is thoroughly tested and approved by each of us and is often critiqued by relatives and friends. We only post the recipes we love and make over and over.
We live in Idaho (famous for its potatoes), and we love the quieter pace of our beautiful state. We strive to walk in love and live our lives by the word of God and the life of Jesus.



Professional Background
We’re so thankful to be full-time foodies and recipe developers. We’re living our dream because of you and I can’t thank you enough! My heritage and diverse professional background, including years in business and nursing, have uniquely equipped me to be the recipe developer, video creator, photographer, writer, and business owner that I am today. We set the bar high so you can expect great recipes and videos here.
The Resume
- 2003-2007: I worked for 7 years as a business intern, which I consider my most valuable education. My boss and mentor taught me the importance of excellence in business and meticulous attention to detail, which has served me well.
- 2007 Earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Business with a double major in human resource management
- 2007-2012 – Worked as a Realtor for 4 years. Fun fact: it was during my realtor days that I learned about blogging (although blogging about real estate was undeniably more boring than food)
- 2012 Earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and worked as a Registered Nurse in Telemetry. The courses I took in nutrition, as well as being in a caring profession, made for a natural transition into serving my audience with recipes and connections that nurture body and soul.
- Blogging since 2009 – What started as a way to share my family’s recipes and culinary journey, has turned into a vibrant community of millions of home cooks.
To summarize all of the many hats I wear – I am a wife, mom, food blogger, cookbook author, recipe developer, video creator, photographer, writer, influencer, social media boss, and entrepreneur, and I love to sing in my church choir. If I were a sandwich, I’d be a Chicken Bacon Avocado on Focaccia.

How I Got Started Cooking
To be completely honest, I wasn’t always excited about cooking. When I got married in 2003, it became a necessity – “must eat to live” and Mom wasn’t doing the cooking anymore. We had a lot of frozen meals and ate-out too much in the first year of our marriage. I had a free summer (and decided I would improve my cooking skills so we could live and eat healthier.
I dove into cookbook after cookbook and plundered my mom’s recipe books. I was at the library all the time bringing home piles of cookbooks; I was hooked! I even read my mother’s cooking textbook from her college days (Mom completed her culinary program when we moved to the US). I had discovered the joy of cooking. Within a few months, my husband and I each lost weight just from cooking more at home. Now I can’t stop cooking and thinking about cooking and dreaming about cooking… I was born for this!
My recipe collection continues to grow. I love to try new recipes and will share my favorites with you (like our internet-famous Meatloaf and beloved Banana Bread Recipe). I hope you enjoy this blog and find recipes that will become your family favorites as well.



Natasha’s Kitchen Today
I started this food and family blog in 2009 as a way to share favorite recipes and events with family and friends. It has grown much larger than I could have imagined with about 1,300 recipes and about 19 million hungry visitors per month. In 2024, we passed 3,500,000 subscribers on YouTube and our channel is growing fast. We’ve been featured on:
- Forbes
- Good Morning America
- ABC News
- New York Times
- Associated Press
- USA Today
- And hundreds more (see Press page for more)
My goal with Natasha’s Kitchen is for you to really discover and fall in love with cooking and find many new favorite recipes your family will love. The ingredients we use are simple and easily accessible, not overly hoity-toity. My motto: if you can read (a well-written, tested, and trusted recipe), you can cook.
Most of the recipes I share come from my mom and mother-in-law, family, friends, and my own experience in the kitchen. I am so thankful to have such amazing people in my life who generously share their rich knowledge of cooking.
It Takes a Village! I’m so blessed to partner with an incredible group of specialists who share their talents to support Natasha’s Kitchen. Whether it’s social media, email marketing, content editing, or video editing, their expertise helps everything run smoothly so I can focus on creating delicious recipes and fun videos for you. I’m so grateful for their contributions and for YOU, our amazing readers, who make it all possible.

Natasha’s Kitchen Recipes
It’s very important to me to share trusted recipes that are reliable and work well in every kitchen and for every cooking skill level. This is why I develop and perfect all of my recipes through careful research and several rounds of testing in my own Kitchen in Idaho (elevation about 2,600 feet).
Every recipe is tested and approved by my family, and often friends, relatives, and even neighbors. All of the photography is done by myself, and I’m the one showing up in our videos. My husband edits the photos and videos (and he’s the videographer, single-handedly running 3 cameras at once).

Get Featured: If you would like your recipe featured on this site, email it to me by clicking here.
Community Guidelines: I love how this food blog has grown into a supportive cooking community – your comments, questions, tips, and success stories make every recipe better. Review my Comment Policy, then join the conversation.
Disclaimer: Per my Nutrition Disclaimer, this blog includes only my own opinions and is not professional advice. It is not intended to be dietary advice or a diet plan. Please talk to your Doctor or nutritionist for medical or dietary advice. I am not liable if you eat too many Hamburgers.
Such an awesome site! I was trying to find a recipe for katleti and your recipe came up and was the first i read and tried. im not a fan of cooking but ur site with amazing pictures and easy recipes has me all fired up to try ur recipes and to cook. im russian ans so is my husband but growing up in this country most of our lives its easy to go out and east those frozen fast meals. thanks for your recipes and great blog! keep it up! hope to visit here daily 🙂 oh do you have any great easy slow cooker recipes? mine just sitting on the counter brand new over 3 yrs now, wanting to put it to use lol
I have had the opportunity to prepare a few variations of вареники (with cherries, potatoes and bacon, sour apples…). Stumbled across your site and happy that I did. Am really getting into the love of Russian cuisine…and I think that your site has definitely hit the spot. Looking forward to trying some of those amazing recipes that you have compiled. I thank you in advance for helping me along this amazing journey in foods!
Hi Jocelyn, welcome to the site! I hope you love the recipes!
Privet Natasha. I’m Ron from Los Angeles, California. I am very interested in trying some slavonic food recipes so I started looking at your site. I plan to visit Russia and the Ukraine in about a year. I want to explore different countries and learn about their cultures, and cooking food is such a good way to understand the soul of a people. I was glad to read that you went into nursing because I have just finished my LPN program at a private school here. What area of nursing do you like the best? Thanks and I hope to hear from you.
Thanks so much for posting all these awesome recipes. This is my fav cookin site!! I already made several things & I love how you include pics w/ your steps! God bless & thanks so much 🙂
Can you please please please post a recipe for karzinki? Or at least what to put in the filling part?
https://natashaskitchen.com/2010/11/10/meringue-and-raspberry-baskets-korzinki/ 🙂
I stumbled upon your blog because I was looking for a napoleon cake recipe. But it seems I’ve discovered much more. My fiance is actually Ukrainian- (I am not.) I am excited to cook for him some Ukrainian food. He would totally be impressed! Thank You! =)
Welcome to the site and I hope you enjoy the recipes 🙂
Natasha,
Love your blog!! Thank you for sharing such wonderful recipes…I look forward to trying so many of your dishes! I cook all the time because I have to, but your blog inspires me to truly enjoy it! Thanks! 🙂
Lena
Tacoma, Washington
yo i really enjoyed reading about ur life, but was sad that ur fav lil sister was never mentioned! anyway could u please post more of a detailed xplanation of ur personal life and events, events and activites aswell as a more indepth look into your spiritual walk! please and thank u!
Oh my. Thank you for such an interesting comment. If you weren’t my sister I’d be a little concerned about your request for a “detailed explanation” of my personal life and events and activities. You are my favorite youngest sister. How’s that? 🙂
Great blog you have especially since I live in Ukraine, it’s very useful and interesting! I’m only a 14 year old but already have my own baking blog 🙂
Check it out for a lot of different recipes – http://teenage-baking.blogspot.com/
Write back to me 😀
Hi Natasha,
I accidentally came across your blog and was so thrilled!! I am so excited about your fantastic recipes, you have no idea! Thank you SO much for such a beautiful blog and amazing recipe’s, I can’t wait until I get home from work 🙂 I’m so excited, I feel like I’m gonna cook all weekend long!! 😉 Anyways, thank you for sharing all this wealth with us and for all the hard work you put in! I know its not easy, esp with a child and being a student. God Bless you dear!
Thank you Lana – I appreciate the encouragement 🙂 Hope you enjoy the recipes and have fun cooking! 🙂
Natasha,
kak klassno 4to u vas est’ vot eta strani4ka! I am so happy to have found you. I moved to the US when I was 12 and now at 25 and a newly-wed, I am cooking more. Its great to continue my heritage and teach it to my American husband through your recipes. Keep up the good work!!
Udachi vam vo vsem!
Dasha
Atlanta GA
Thank you Dasha!! I appreciate your encouraging words 🙂
First off I want to say LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS!! biv been in states since 5 so anything kind of russian meal I want to make its always hard my mom gives me measurments in grams try figuring out how many cups or spoons that is. 🙂
or there all in russian which growing up here I don’t know how to read it. Im so glad there in english and pictures included!!! and recipes are awesome! i run out of ideas all the time. God bless you and your family! and please….. please keep going!! do you by chance have any moldavian recipes? my hubbys moldavian and loves to eat, and that a whole new world to me. thanks!! be blessed
Natasha love your blog, I’ve always love to cook i tryid today your recipe nalicniki and i loved I will definitely cook some of this amazing food, thanks for sharing, God Bless You
Hi Natasha!
You said your mom has good recepie for Spartak cake.
I search internet for this recipe with out luck :((
Will you please post recipe.
Thank you
First of all, I really like your site! Me and my wife were browsing through your pages and remembering all the delicious dishes our moms (and grandmas) would make!
What happened to the categories section? I thought there was an area where I can browse recipes by category like breakfast or dinner…
Btw great job on the iPad friendly theme, very handy to have it in the kitchen while I’m cooking 🙂
Hi Vitaliy – thank you! I’m glad you enjoy the site and the ipad friendliness 🙂 Look at the top – there is a recipes tab The same categories are still there but now all of our recipes have little photos next to them – we thought it would make searching for a recipe easier. I also put the categories section back on the right column – I didn’t realize it wasn’t there. 🙂
After looking at several different sites/blogs with recipes, russian and not, I HAVE TO comment 🙂 you have the nicest blog from all I have seen! keep up the good work! 😉 I absolutely love it. So easy, clear, and fun, nicely laid out with awesome pictures!!! Seriously, you do a wonderful job and knowing that you have a family plus church plus the nursing program that you’re in, it’s not easy and it all takes time and patience and you seem to manage it all nicely. Great job! God bless you in all you do!
Thank you Olga that is such a nice and thoughtful comment 🙂
Natasha
I totally love and enjoy your blogs… Look forward to your new recipes, keep them coming.
Thanks Alla – comments like yours are awesome motivation for me 🙂 Glad you enjoy the blog!
Oooh 🙂 sounds good! I am looking forward to checking our your site and some of your recipes too!
What a wonderful site Natasha!! I am glad my sister shared this site w/me. Even though I came to America when I was 6 & married when I was 16 w/out much knowledge in Russian cooking, I researched as many Russian sites to find recipes since I want to carry on the Russian food down to my kids. Gotta say, this is the BEST site I’ve seen!!! GREAT JOB!!! KEEP “EM COMING!! 🙂
Thank you. Music to my ears 🙂
Hi Natasha. I love that your Russian recipes are written in English! I am glad that I found your website! Thank You!