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.

Natasha holding a lasagna casserole

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.

Natasha with family posing on steps next to a house
Natasha with her parents and 4 sisters (Natasha is the middle child)

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.

Natasha and Vadim slicing vegetables in the kitchen

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.

Natasha with family serving food

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 with mom and daughter making pierogi

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 family prepping food in the kitchen

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.

Leave a Comment

Comments

  • Tanya
    November 10, 2017

    Hi Natasha, can you please recommend the most convenient electric mixer. I noticed that you are using Kitchen Aid. There are some many different sizes, some glass bowls, some metal. Which one will be the best for everyday use.
    Thank you

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 10, 2017

      Hi Tanya! I currently use the KitchenAid 6 quart professional 600 series mixer. It works for everything and the bowl is big enough for most projects. I have the metal bowl. I have not tried the glass bowl so I’m not sure what the difference is, if any. I have a link to our mixer in the shop section at the top of our blog :-).

      Reply

  • Darcie
    November 10, 2017

    Natasha….I spent my Peace Corps service in the Ukraine and in addition to the beautiful people I met, I simply “fell in love” with the food!!

    No GMO’s over there and wow. what a difference in the quality, taste and health of the Country’s food production.

    So happy you’re sharing your “Ukrainian/Russian cooking magic” here in America!!

    We are indeed honored you’re here.

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      November 10, 2017

      Thank you so much Darcie for sharing your encouraging, thoughtful comments, they really mean a lot!

      Reply

  • Aneeza
    November 7, 2017

    Plz tell me your Camera Model ? 😊

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 7, 2017

      Hi Aneeza, we use 2 different cameras right now and the 80D is more for video. Here are our camera models.

      Reply

      • Aneeza
        November 8, 2017

        Got it😃
        Thanks Natasha☺️

        Reply

        • Natasha's Kitchen
          November 8, 2017

          You’re welcome Aneeza!

          Reply

  • Mary Frauenholz
    November 6, 2017

    Is there some reason I cannot print your recipes?

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 7, 2017

      Mary, I’m sorry you are having issues with printing the recipes. I would love to troubleshoot with you to figure the solution. I have yellow “print” button next to the recipe title as soon as you open the post. Plus there is yellow print button in the print friendly section towards the bottom of the post. Please give me more details so that I can help.

      Reply

  • Alexandra Mewse
    November 6, 2017

    Dear Natasha,
    I just wanted to thank you for such amazing recipes, your effort and your contagious energy! I love watching your videos and have made numerous dishes following your instructions. Thank you and I look forward to cooking with you every week!!

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      November 6, 2017

      It’s my pleasure Alexandra! I’m glad to hear how much you are enjoying my site and recipes! Thanks for following and sharing your encouraging comments!

      Reply

  • Stephanie
    November 5, 2017

    Sorry to interrupt do ypu have recipies for lactose free ppl pls

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 5, 2017

      Hi Stephanie, we don’t have that category as of yet. I recently started a paleo category but it is new and definitely not all-inclusive since I just barely started it. It’s a great idea though! thank you for the suggestion 🙂

      Reply

    • Stuart Borken
      November 5, 2017

      I too am severely lactose intolerant and have learned to work within that limitation. I am able to buy lactose free whole milk, 2%milk and 1% and zero % fat milk. I buy lactose free Half&Half and cottage cheese, sour cream and cream cheese. There is also lactose free ice cream and lactose free yogurt. Any aged cheese with a lable which states there is 0 carbohydrate in a serving means there is no lactose in the cheese. Your 2 year old Parmesano Regiano is lactose free. So are the Cracker Barrel aged cheeses.

      Reply

  • Hanja
    November 5, 2017

    Pryvit!!

    So glad that you’re doing this. I’m going to make the Chicken Pesto Roll-ups for dinner!!

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      November 6, 2017

      I hope you love them! Please let me know what you think!

      Reply

  • Tonino Quinci
    November 4, 2017

    Ich bin’s nochmal. Mein Text wurde leider so gekürzt, daß man nichts versteht. Ich wollte fragen. Wenn du schreibst 1 Tasse suercream z.b. wieviel bedeutet das in gramm? Es gibt verschiedene Tassengrößen und Ich möchte nichts falsch machen. Danke

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 5, 2017

      Hi Tonino, for sour cream, 1 cup = 8 oz or 227 grams.

      Reply

  • Tonino Quinci
    November 4, 2017

    Hallo Natasha
    Ich habe Dich jetzt erst entdeckt und bin völlig begeistert und hin und weg von dem was und wie du es tust. Ebenso von deinem Lebenslauf und deiner Geschichte. Es ist schön, daß es dich gibt und ich freue mich jetzt schon sehr, deine Gerichte auszuprobieren. Ich habe nur eine Frage zu den Maßeinheiten. Wenn du schreibst 1 Tasse, wie groß ist die Tasse bzw.wie groß ist der Inhalt in gramm? Ich möchte nichts falsch machen und brauche Bitte genauere Angaben. Danke und dir und deiner familie alles gute

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 5, 2017

      Hi Tonino, I had to use google translate to read your comment so hopefully I understood everything correctly. I’m so glad you enjoy our blog! 🙂 Most of our measurements are in US measurements and not in metric. In our recent baking recipes, we have been including gram measurements but it will take us some time to go through and re-weigh/measure everything in grams. Since different ingredients weigh differently, I think it may be a good idea for me to develop a chart one of these days 🙂

      Reply

  • Liz
    November 1, 2017

    Hi Natasha, I want to scale up your Roasted Pork Tenderloin recipe for Thanksgiving. Being a little obsessive, I noticed that in a picture of the raw pork, the bag seems to be labeled 4+ pounds, but the recipe says “about 1 1/2 lbs” for the pork. Could you please clarify?

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 1, 2017

      Hi Liz, they come 2 to a bag in these packages from Costco 🙂

      Reply

  • Debbie
    October 31, 2017

    Hi Natasha. I just found your site while searching for a recipe for homemade vanilla extract. It’s strange how the internet works. Both of my grandmothers were of Slavic descent, which is probably how I acquired a taste for the food. I think I am going to have fun here, rediscovering dishes I had forgotten and exploring new ones, all in time for the holidays. I hardly know where to begin.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 31, 2017

      Welcome to the site Debbie 😬. I hope you’ll find many new favorites here!

      Reply

  • Pam Messina
    October 31, 2017

    I’m so excited to try some of your recipes Natasha! Although social media can sometimes try my patience, I found you on Facebook and am so glad.

    Your avocado videos got me! Thanks so much!

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 31, 2017

      I’m glad you found my site too Pam! Thanks for following and please let me know what you think of the recipes!

      Reply

  • Alex Gonzalez
    October 30, 2017

    Hi,
    I just started using some of your recipes. My wife and I love them, I love cooking for her. Keep em coming.
    Thanks
    Alex

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 30, 2017

      Hello Alex! I’m glad to hear you’re both enjoying the recipes! Thanks for following! 🙂

      Reply

  • Jill
    October 28, 2017

    Thank you for this wonderful blog! I am of Slavic decent on my father’s side. His grandmother was Ruthenian and his father was Slovac. They lived in a village on the border of Slovakia/Ukraine in the Carpathian mountains so I would like to learn a bit more about Ukranian/Slavic cooking.

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 29, 2017

      I’m so glad you found my site Jill! Thanks for following and please let me know what you think of the recipes!!

      Reply

  • Alyssa
    October 27, 2017

    Hi Natasha! Congrats for your super great blog! I made your Blueberry Lemon Cake and it was simply an enormous success !! I’ll try to make more recipes and keep you posted!
    Tks for sharing those delicious …

    Keep going!

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 28, 2017

      Hello Alysss! I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying the recipes! Thanks for following and sharing your encouraging comments!

      Reply

  • Alena Stang
    October 27, 2017

    Hi Natasha. I recently discovered you on the internet and I love what you do. I am originally Slovak but married to a Canadian, that I met in a Bible School in Austria, and we live in Calgary, Canada with our 3 boys. I will attempt to make your strawberry layered cake for my 40th birthday this weekend, because my husband can’t and I don’t want a store bought cake. 😂 Anyway, blessings to you guys for shining your light bright! 💜

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 27, 2017

      Hello Alena! I’m glad you found my site! Happy early Birthday! Please let me know what you think of the recipe!

      Reply

  • Julia Manchik
    October 26, 2017

    You have one of the most entertaining About Me pages. Also, can’t get over your career background… so unexpected!

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 26, 2017

      Ha ha! Thanks Julia. I like to think of myself as “well-rounded” when I try to rationalize all the years I invested into my previous 2 degrees and that makes me feel better. lol.

      Reply

  • Subash
    October 24, 2017

    You are such a great cooker… I always enjoy watching your Videos. I have learned so much from you and ..I’m thankful to God that you’re believer…we belong to same family…

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 24, 2017

      Thanks for following and sharing your encouraging, thoughtful comments! God Bless 🙂

      Reply

  • Kathleen Seredensky Rucki
    October 24, 2017

    Hi Natasha : I Love your recipes, am making your Chicken and Mushroom Casserole right now.

    I also tried to sign up for for your e-mails
    very disappointed, could you help me with that? I would be very grateful. Thank you and God Bless you and your family.
    Sincerely,
    Kathleen

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 24, 2017

      Hi Kathleen, I’m so glad you love our recipes :). I am looking at my email service and it looks like you signed up on 10/22 and should be all set. We send our newsletters on Saturdays so you should get your first one then 🙂

      Reply

  • Febielyn Guy Yoche
    October 24, 2017

    Hi Miss Natasha, I’m so in love with your recipes as well as your life background (and of course your present now). I’m a Christian too. I’m always waiting on your new recipes and try to do it at home. I already tried to make your Avocado Chicken Salad. ‘Twas a great privilege to know you more and cook more of your recipes. God bless you and your family abundantly!

    Reply

    • Natasha's Kitchen
      October 24, 2017

      Hello! I’m glad you found my site! I’m happy to hear how much you are enjoying site! Thanks for following and sharing your encouraging, thoughtful comments! God Bless 🙂

      Reply

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