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.

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Comments

  • Track Leadr
    December 28, 2013

    Hello Natasha: Delighted to come across your website and know about your family and ventures.

    Good luck with everything. I am going to try a few of your recipes soon, starting with the Salmon with Citrus Glaze.

    Best wishes
    -Track

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      December 28, 2013

      I hope you absolutely love the salmon and all the other recipes you try. I hope you find a gazillion new favorites and find it difficult to stop cooking. 😉

      Reply

  • Rachel
    December 26, 2013

    I love Jesus! my hubby and I are youth leaders at our church and I home school my sweet Noah 6, and my precious Grace 4. I love to cook cook cook. I make everything from scratch and my hubby and I lost a truck load of weight when I started cooking 4 yrs ago. I am so excited to add new food to our diet and dinner table thank you for your blog. you have a beautiful family. We are very blessed.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      December 27, 2013

      That’s Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing your story with me 🙂 God bless your family!

      Reply

  • janet
    December 17, 2013

    I enjoy your blog. Thank you for all the wonderful recipes and beautiful photos that you share.

    I was wondering if you have a recipe for Krendel? I have a fruit krendel that I make a Christmas time. As I was making the bread this past weekend I was wondering what type krendel, if any, that you might make.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      December 17, 2013

      It sounds similar to keks which is a sweet Russian Christmas bread/loaf dusted with powdered sugar. We are currently in our test kitchen working on this recipe and I’m really hoping I’ll be able to get one posted by Christmas 😉

      Reply

  • Natasha
    December 14, 2013

    Hi!
    I love your blog!!! This is an awesome idea!!!
    Your family is lovley!!!
    By the way, my name is Natalia
    and I go by Natasha:-)
    Everyone here gets confused about my name:)

    Natasha from Sacramento, CA

    PS: Are there a lot of Russians on Idaho?

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      December 14, 2013

      There are a good # of Russian/Ukrainian people here, but not a huge population. We aren’t “known” around these parts 😉 Nice to meet you Natasha!

      Reply

  • Natalie
    December 9, 2013

    Hi Natasha!
    Thank you again for the blog. Many of your recipes became favorite in my family. Have you ever thought of writing a recipe book? I would like to have one and that would be a wonderful present for my American relatives and friends!
    And I am just curious, what part of Ukraine are you/your parents from? I was born in Eastern Ukraine.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      December 9, 2013

      We are from Krivoy Rog, Ukraine. I hope I spelled that right! 😉 Thanks so much for your sweet compliments. I’m dabbling in it, but haven’t had time to really start developing recipes exclusively for it. I have some ideas that I have for recipes on paper 🙂

      Reply

  • Marina
    December 4, 2013

    Hey Natasha,
    thank you so much for your recipes. I love to cook, but always had a difficulty with some of moms recipes and her translations (100 grams of this, a little of this and so on…) but when I discovered your site, I became a pro at baking cakes!! thank you. God bless you and your family

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      December 4, 2013

      Thank you so much for your sweet comment. I felt the same way when I was looking into mastering Russian and Ukrainian cooking. What’s a gram? lol God bless you and your family and all of your cooking adventures 🙂

      Reply

  • Julie
    November 26, 2013

    Hi Natasha, just wondering if i can use smoked hocks for the holodets recipe instead of raw? please email back.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 26, 2013

      Honestly I’ve never tried it with smoked pork feet. I consulted with my mom and another super cook at choir they said the gelatin is dried out and it won’t work as well. I wouldn’t risk it.

      Reply

  • Julz
    November 19, 2013

    Thanks Natasha! I always went on gotovimdoma.com for the much loved russian/ukrainian recipes and then my friend told me about your website and lets just say…I love your site so much more. You are super talented and I’m so happy that there is a website that has amazing pics and videos and is so easy to follow. Pix are so important to me; without them, the food doesn’t look good and it gives me an idea how and what I am making. Thanks again! Blagodaryu tebya i da blagoslavit tebya Gospod’!

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 19, 2013

      Thank you so much Julz. That’s so sweet of you to say 🙂 God bless you too!

      Reply

  • Julie
    November 14, 2013

    Hi Natasha, I’m wondering how many layers the picture of chocolate spartak cake has? And do I have to increase the ingredients to get that much layers?

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 15, 2013

      I got 7 layers out of the recipe, plus extra one for scraps, just depends how thin you roll them out. I did not increase any ingredients.

      Reply

  • Anya
    November 12, 2013

    I was looking for adjika and found your blog. I personally enjoy reading your story, which is similar to mine. I’m from Lviv/Kyiv and I moved here in 2010, obviously a big fan of Ukrainian/Russian kitchen and involved with all my family in ministry just as you are. I’ve noticed you’ve got a lot of recipes that I make and I can’t wait to discover more and try those that I’ve never done before. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for sharing and putting so much efforts into it, I know it can be a time consuming 😉 but people love it so it’s worth it.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 13, 2013

      Welcome to the blog Anya, I hope that you’ll find many new favorites. If you have a great recipe that you would like me to try, send it my way :).

      Reply

      • Anya
        November 16, 2013

        Thank you! I do have few recipes adopted from my family that I tried many times and of course added some improvements 🙂 what is the best way to share it with you? Via email or through “Contact”?

        Reply

        • Natasha
          natashaskitchen
          November 16, 2013

          either way it goes to the same email address. I’d love to see what you’ve done! 🙂

          Reply

  • Anna
    November 12, 2013

    Hi Natasha, I Absolutely Love your Blog and Have found so many Great Recipes. Like you, I’m originally from Chernovci, Ukraine and immigrated with my parents in 1983 at the age of 15. I live in Tampa, Fl with my husband of 26 years and our 10 year old boy. I’m a Christian Jew (Jew by birth, Christian by Faith) who has a Passion for cooking, crafting, sewing, painting and too many other hobbies to list. Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes with all of us. I just recently started with my own Pinterest Board, found it to be easier than creating a blog. Hope you will like it as well. http://www.pinterest.com/annavil/my-cooking/

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 12, 2013

      I’m now following your board. Thanks so much for sharing that with me!! I’m looking forward to exploring your page more 🙂

      Reply

      • Anna
        November 12, 2013

        Thanks Natasha, Appreciate it! Glad I found your Blog!

        Reply

  • Yulia
    November 12, 2013

    Hi Natasha,
    I found your blog recently when I was looking for a pelmeni recipe. I was very delighted to find out that even though it was really tedious to make without the mold, it was easy and inexpensive. The result, delicious! I guess what I really want to say is, I really love your blog. It has now become a go to place for my meal planning. Your blog really got me excited about cooking again, so many delicious choices! Thank you for your blog and God bless.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      November 12, 2013

      Thank you Yulia! I hope you find some new favorites here. I’m so glad you enjoyed the pelmeni recipe. God bless you in all your cooking adventures 🙂

      Reply

  • Irene
    October 26, 2013

    Hi, Natalia who goes by Natasha. 🙂 I found your blog while searching for a trifle recipe, and it’s great to discover a sister in Christ who has such a helpful and upbeat cooking site. I’m sure I’ll visit again when I have a bit more time. Today I just needed to find a great dessert recipe so I can make it for our small group tomorrow night to celebrate my 14-year-cancer-free anniversary. God is good!
    Blessings to you,
    Irene

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 26, 2013

      Oh how awesome!! 14 years!! Praise God! He is sooo good 🙂 God bless you Irene!

      Reply

  • Km
    October 26, 2013

    Hi Natasha,

    I just discovered your blog. Wow, Ukranian/Russian cooking. Love it
    Glad I found your blog.

    – Kim

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 26, 2013

      Welcome to the blog! 🙂 I’m so happy you discovered the blog too. Nice to meet ya! 🙂

      Reply

  • Jacqueline Walkow
    October 21, 2013

    Hello Natasha — I am thrilled to have found your blog! I am of both Mexican and Chinese descent, and I cook dishes from both cultures. My husband is of Russian and Ukrainian descent — his great-grandparents on both sides come from Russia and Ukraine — but he doesn’t know how to cook anything. His family doesn’t have traditional dishes they cook at home. I want our future children to grow up eating foods from all of their heritage, and your blog is so accessible! I feel like this is a huge breakthrough for me. Thank you so much for doing this!

    -Jacqueline

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 21, 2013

      That’s awesome!! I’m so happy to hear culinary testimonies like yours 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing your story!

      Reply

  • Laura (Larisa, Lara)
    October 4, 2013

    Hello Natasha, I just came across your website and am SO VERY EXCITED!! I have cooked with my mom all my life, but not many recipes are “written” down. It’s always been like this: add a little of this, a cup of that, if it’s too thick add a little more of this. LOL. I am Russian, married to a Canadian, have three girls, and we all love babushka’s cooking and Russian food! Yes, at times certain foods do take time to make, but it’s all good because it allows us to spend time together when everyone pitches in to help make vareniki or pilmeni. Blessings to you and your family! I can’t wait to share your website and blog with my cousins and Russian friends!

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 4, 2013

      Welcome to my blog. I’m so happy you found it as well! I hope you find some new family favorites on the site. And thank you so much for sharing it with your friends and family! You’re awesome!! 🙂

      Reply

  • Deepti
    October 3, 2013

    Hi Natasha,
    Tried your perfect vanilla cupcake recipe for my husband’s birthday. Not only him but everyone else loved them too. They did turn out exactly the way they look in your pictures 🙂
    thankyou…will be coming back for more recipes!

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 3, 2013

      Yes!!! Wooooohoooo!!! Awesome!! I love good reports. I’m so happy you all loved them 🙂

      Reply

  • Mario Friel
    October 1, 2013

    Very fantastic web-site thanks so much in your time in writing the posts for all of us to learn about.

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      October 1, 2013

      You are welcome Mario :D.

      Reply

  • kristen compton
    September 30, 2013

    Thank you for the great recipes, and great descriptions! We had your salmon tonight and it came out perfectly! From another nurse, I just wanted to add that I admire your accomplishment. Nursing school is a bit like boot camp, and to maintain anything else, including parenting-is no easy task! So thanks! And great job!

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      September 30, 2013

      Someone described it as standing in front of a fire hydrant with your mouth wide open. I agree. I look back and that whirlwind and wonder how I survived it. It’s only by the grace of God! 🙂 Thank you. I love hearing from other nurses!!

      Reply

  • Ben Stroich
    September 28, 2013

    Hello Natalia,
    I think your name preference is very similar to my wife. Her name is Lilia but everyone calls her Lily. I think Natasha was good choice.
    I must say that over the years I spent perusing recipes and collecting my favorite’s is trying them out. I can’t say I get much chance to try everything but my collection has grown into volumes.
    When ever I get a chance I check out the latest creations on the internet and post them on my Facebook site. My biggest accomplishment recently was making Ukrainian Pyrizhky with cabbage. I’m not a baker but these came out O.K.

    We also have a kindred Spirit in that I was raised in a Ukrainian Evangelical Church here in Detroit, MI. When my parents immigrated to the US my father was in change of worship as my mother played the piano. Those early memories growing up in a Ukrainian Christian Church, conferences gives me the drive to keep up with tradition and Ukrainian Traditional recipes.
    I love your website and drool over the beautiful pictures. I hope you don’t mind when I share some of them with my friends.
    All the best, God Bless!
    Ben in Michigan

    Reply

    • Natasha
      natashaskitchen
      September 28, 2013

      Hi Ben, thanks for sharing your story with me. Our stories are very similar! Do you do anything musical now yourself? I was just perusing your FB page and I think it’s great! I appreciate your sharing my recipes! 🙂

      Reply

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