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.
I am so glad to have found your blog. We, too, are believers in Jesus. We adopted a precious thirteen-year-old girl from Ukraine six years ago and are always looking for authentic Ukrainian/Russian recipes. You might like to see how God’s plan unfolded for our daughter, who shares a bit of her story in the little movie (just six minutes) our family made to encourage others to consider adoption. (www.thelittleadoptionmovie.wordpress.com) I look forward to discovering all the treasures on your site! 🙂
That’s so awesome. Yes, I’ll definitely be checking out that video! God bless you and your family!
Dear Natasha!
A friend of mine sent me the link of your blog and I love it!
Congratulations for such a great site. I am Spanish but I have been studying Russian for a long time and now I am living in Saint Petersburg.
I am creating a web site that deals with cultural understanding between Russia and Spain, and I would like you to have a look (even if there is not much information yet). I am creating podcasts in Russian and Spanish, in which people are interviewed.
This is the site: www.hisparos.com
Please, contact me if you like it.
Thanks!
Lola
I’d love to check it out. Thanks Lola!
Wow, Natasha! What a wonderful way of sharing such an amazing recipe collection. I had a friend over for breakfast yesterday and she shared this amazing website with me. I am just amazed at all the great recipes…cannot wait to share them with my hubby and family ;-)) Thanks so much for your time and effort you put into this :-))
Welcome to the site!! I hope you find some new favorites!
Thanks for the lovely recipes!! I find your blog super helpful and fun to use. Keep it up!! 🙂
Thank you so much! 🙂 I’m glad you find the recipes helpful!
Love your blog, I am excited to try savory crepes! This is my first time on Pinterest. What a coincidence that we both live in Idaho. Really liked your fish story! Thank you
Thank you Joan! The savory crepes are a little work, but they taste great! Have you tried the cheese crepes? Those are considerably easier (and equally good!) – just a different kind of good ;). Anyway, isn’t pinterest addictive?? I probably spent way too much time there when I first discovered it, but I’ve found a balance now.
You have a beautiful family! So delighted to meet you online!
Thank you Anastasia. The feeling is mutual!!
Hi, I really like your website. Great recipes. But, is there a way to view all of the recipes? That would be so great! There are so many categories it’s kind of hard to look for things. I was trying to find golybtsu and couldn’t find them in the meat category, dinner, or lunch. I seen it here before though. Did you take the recipe off?
If you click on the recipes tab at the top and click dinner recipes, it will be the 11th one on the list. I like using the recipes tab at the top because the pictures show up with the recipes for each category. Hope this helps. I’ve had them on one page before but after about 150 recipes with pictures, it was loading really slow. I’m trying to figure out how to get pictures with the categories search in the right column. Also, here’s the link: https://natashaskitchen.com/2010/07/05/golubtsi-recipe-a-classic-russian-food/
I recently discovered your blog and am enjoying it, especially the step by step pictures/instructions. I’m looking forward to future posts.
Do you have a recipe for “chrusty” aka “verhuny” (angel wings in English)?
Olya D.
Hi Olya, I’m still on the lookout for a good recipe. I found one once but it failed and have been a little discouraged since then. If you find a good one before me, please share! 🙂
Hi Natasha, first of all THANKS FOR MAKING THIS WEBSITE!!
Then, I was looking for something exactly like this and when I came across this blog I knew this was my landing spot! Whenever I need to make something, something new, or something creative I ALWAYS come here first! Thanks a lot!
🙂 🙂
You’re so very welcome! I get excited when I read comments like yours. I’m glad you find the site helpful!
lately i’ve been living on this blog. i dont even wanna share it with my friends cuz i wanna keep all these goodies to myself lol 🙂 fine fine, i’ll share… patom…
thank you for such a lovely post! God bless you in your cooking and everything, when i saw your site, i automatically thought “hm, i wonder if she’s Christian,” much to my suspicion, you are! 🙂 its so nice to read blogs by godly people with good strong values, i like how in your story you bring it all back to God 🙂
keep them recipes coming! 🙂
Thank you Kristina. I guess I also attract Christian readers! 🙂 Thank you so much for your kind words; they are very encouraging!!
btw, i made the spinach strawberry salad and allas chicken and veggies marinade today for lunch with the family and they couldn’t stop talking about it! my brother goes “so who do we thank for this awesome food?” i told them “Natasha and her friend Alla” and so my mom dad, Boris, Vlady, Oksana, Serge and me all say THANK YOU 🙂 lunch was a success!
Ha, that’s awesome! Thanks Kristina. And you are most welcome!
Hi Natasha today I browsed the net about kievski cake and I see your page. I will go to Israel this month of May to visit my boyfriend. He is Ukranian and migrated in Israel.I love looking and reading your recipes, it think its so delicious. I would love to learn how to cook Russian and Ukranian food for my boyfriend’s family.
Cool! I’ve never been to Israel. Is it relatively safe to travel there now? P.s. welcome to the site 🙂
Hi Natasha,
So happy to have found your website. I love to cook but unfortunately not to many people from my family share my love for cooking. Looking through your website I felt like I found a cooking friend. Your dessert section is totally awesome, and sweets is my biggest weakness. My hubby is big fan of your ptiche moloko dessert… I’m definitely trying out some more of the recipes in the very near future. Greetings from CT 🙂
Natasha, love your blog!!
Great job 🙂
I love your blog! I’m not familiar with russian cooking at all so I can’t wait to read more posts! You have a beautiful family 🙂
Hi Linda and thank you! Welcome to the site. I’ll definitely be checking out your site as well 🙂
I’m so very happy to have stumbled across your site! I have married into the most amazing Russian family that I love so much! I do make Russian/Ukranian dishes often, but they are all from my Mama-in-laws recipes. And those are fantastically delicious! But I would like to learn my own to surprise them. Right now the only thing I can make on my own is selodka pod shubay (spelling). So … thank you for the wonderful information!! Looking forward to exploring the site!
I love shuba too! I make mine with smoked salmon though. I hope you and your Russian family enjoy the recipes! 🙂
Your website has been very helpful to me. My husband and I adopted 3 teenagers from the Ukraine this year. We were in the Ukraine for 6 weeks and although I really enjoyed the foods there I grew homesick for “familiar flavors”. So I understand how my children feel when they long for foods that are familiar to them. My children and I thank you for the time and effort you put into this blog.
You are very welcome! Thank you for sharing your story – that is a bold and wonderful thing to do!! God bless you and your family. Привiт to my fellow Ukrainians 🙂 I’m so glad you found the site too!
I found you on PW and am certainly thrilled by your sharing your wonderful recipes. Every one I have made turned out wonderful and evoke fond memories of my childhood’s family table eating mama or babushka’s delicious foods…I look forward to your postings and continuing preparing the fabulous foods of my heritage to share with my family.
Welcome to the site Zina! I’m so glad you enjoy the recipes 🙂
Thank u Natalia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello Natasha! I really love this site! And I enjoy making some new meals for our family. I am Russian too and my moms name is Natasha too. Even though I am familiar with most of this I still like new desserts and new food! Thank you and continue with your fabulous cooking!
Natashen’ka thank you so so much for opening up this blog and your dedication to cook. I really enjoy reading your site, it helped me tremendously to start love to cook again. Before I was cooking because of necessity, I have three kids an a husband to feed, but know i really enjoy it. You really made it an enjoyable experience for me. Thanks again. Your are a blessed woman and I know God will continue to bless you even more. Please don’t stop this website, keep it going for many many more years. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from my family to yours.
Thank you Galina. Your comment really means alot to me. I love that this site is blessing others :). God bless you too and have a wonderful Christmas!