We all have them. Maybe you hide yours from friends or family, but I'm guessing you've got a guilty pleasure when it comes to food. These guilty pleasures are defined by a craving or affinity that you may not be particularly proud of. You probably don't want to shout it from the rooftop at the next college reunion and you definitely don't want your next first date to find out about it. Well, professional chefs have these secret hidden food pleasures too.
We've admitted some of our guilty pleasures here on The Kitchn, from Pepper Jack Cheese to Instant Coffee Mix. So this is certainly not new news.
But when The New York Times wrote an article on high-end chefs and their guilty pleasures, it caught my attention. Writer Jeff Gordiner says, "to declare your independence as an American eater is to embrace the knowledge that the pursuit of happiness is sometimes going to involve mustard or peanut butter that might have been stirred by a robot."
Wylie Dufresne, chef at New York's WD-50, snacks on slices of American cheese while in the kitchen. Michael Chiarello, chef and vintner, loves good old-fashioned Jiffy peanut butter. And Portland chef, Jenn Louis of Lincoln and Sunshine Tavern, loves ice cream sandwiches from the trucks, not the artisan kind you might expect her reaching for. When I worked at a restaurant in the Bay Area, the chef who worked so hard to source local and organic ingredients for the menu would snack on chocolate-covered pretzels from Trader Joe's. In the winter, she'd make herself cups of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate.
So in this way, I suppose chefs are just like this. We all have our own guilty pleasures regardless of whether we surround ourselves with the preparation of higher-end food day in and day out. When it comes down to it, cooking for a living is a job just like any other. Chefs get tired. They crave food that reminds them of childhood and comfort just like everyone else.
Related: Do You Have a Secret Food?
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SpaghettiO's. I always sneak a few bites when I make some for my daughter. Then one day I caught my mom doing it too!
Movie theater nachos, or any fake processed cheese products! It's a disgusting habit... but so, so, so deliccciouussssss.
Frozen pizza. Specifically Freshcetta's Brick Oven Supreme, or the mushroom spinach if I can find it. Don't hate.
Boxed mac & cheese and top/nissin ramen. I'm a vegetarian and try to shop organic and local, but sometimes I need that comfort food.
I haven't had one in a very long time, but I constantly think about them: Pop Tarts. Theyr'e terrible, so I never get them, but gaze longingly at them in the snack machine at work... and often decide to attempt them for breakfast but end up with something quick instead.
Ramen. I love ramen. I buy it for myself and hide it on the top shelf of the pantry to make for lunch when my daughter is in school and I can get away from work.
French's French Fried Onion Rings. A whole can, just for me. Don't tell.
Boxed coffee cake, preferably thoroughly drizzled with icing and studded with pecans, marlbled with fatty ribbons of cinnamon. Yes, I can MAKE coffee cake, and do, and it's delicious. But it's not just laziness that has me occasionally choosing the Entemman's box at the supermarket.
I am a former chef and vegetarian. Let me tell you that all chefs have their guilty pleasures. You cook all day and when you are off, the last thing you want to do it cook.
Mine are bean burritos from taco bell. I could eat five of them.
American Cheese. Also, green beans from the can.
and OMG Zebra Cakes!
kraft deluxe mac and cheese. my mouth is watering just thinking about it.
is jiffy peanut butter supposed to be jif?
shin ramen!
God help me. Cool Whip.
I believe the peanut butter is called "Jiff" not "Jiffy."
Also, what's wrong with chocolate pretzels from Trader Joe's?
A chef at a swanky country club where I once worked would stop on his way in every day and get a cheeseburger from McDonalds!
Puffed cheetos. Oh so bad, but so, so delicious. I can't buy them or I'll eat the entire bag within two days ... Funny enough, my former roomate/future sister-in-law has the same addiction.
@chicagocook----I too, could founder on the delicate Puffed Cheeto. I am teaching myself better chopstick skills by using them to eat Cheetos, so that has slowed me down considerably!
Sugar cereal! Especially Cocoa Pebbles (not Cocoa Krispies, ick). But I don't want my daughter to eat them (she's 2.5), so I don't buy it and have only had it once in the past couple years, and I ate the whole box in 2 days, haha.
Tater tots with Heinz & Sriracha. So horrible. So good. So something I do not keep on hand.
This professional baker and cookbook writer still loves ramen noodles and keeps a can of prepared chocolate frosting in the pantry just in case of a mental crisis. I'm sure there is a spoon there too.
A friend and I were just speaking about this yesterday. Mine is Oreos, my friend's guilty pleasure if Smirnoff Ice. Ha.
also, hot cheetos!
I could eat an entire bag of Doritos in one sitting if I didn't stop myself. This is why we don't even buy them.
Also, Peanut M&M's. Yum!
Cake batter ! I actually sometimes mix an egg + some flour, sugar and melted butter and just eat it like that. Nobody knows... So don't tell !
Flamin Hot Cheetos, Funyons, Pop Tarts (toasted and buttered-as if it wasn't bad enough for you), Hostess powdered sugar donuts and top ramen. Sigh...and to think that when I DID eat this stuff regularly I was much thinner then.
Crackers. Peanut butter. Cream cheese.
I take a plate, open the package of crackers and set them on the plate. Then put it on a tray alongside the jar of peanut butter and the container of cheese. Two knives.
Then I proceed to alternatively spread either PB or cheese on each cracker at a time. Eat. Spread another cracker. Eat. Until they're all gone.
Sometimes I add a third spread to the mix: Smucker's sugar-free orange marmalade. But only that one.
Roll a big spoonful of peanut butter over a dish of bittersweet chocolate chips (or raisins). Proceed to eat it lick by lick.
I know, I'm weird.
Tess09...rolling a spoon of peanut butter in chocolate chips is not weird. I do that too.
whoopie pies. any and all. even fakey ones from the grocery store.
Nutella by the spoonful, candy- and cookie-filled ice creams (like a Dairy Queen blizzard), french fries of any kind (especially with chocolate malts), pinto beans pureed and refried in bacon fat, with garlic powder and cheese, Wheat thins with cream cheese (especially cream cheese with green onions and Carl Budding beef chopped up in it), and the occasional fast food double cheeseburger (the kind with the skinny patties).
I can't eat processed cheese unless it's melted, but that's another guilty pleasure. Have you ever had Cheez Whiz on a hotdog? Try it sometime. Just don't have more than one, or you might have a heart attack.
Hey now, don't go dissing those chocolate covered pretzels from TJ's, those things are downright gourmet compared to real guilty pleasures. I love Doritos, the original nacho cheese kind, but hey, wouldn't pass up the Cool Ranch either. No shame in Cool Whip, Emberz, me too. And Stove Top stuffing as a snack!
Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes
McD's pineapple mango smoothies
M&Ms
Fritos
B&J's blueberry vanilla graham frozen yogurt
Each is a separate phase. But oooh, the guilt and satisfaction!!
When I make cinnamon shortbread, I take some of the butter/sugar/cinnamon/vanilla mixture, put a little dollop on my tongue and let it melt against the roof of my mouth. I can tell how much I've eaten (i.e., cheated from the recipe) based on how smooth or crumbly my finished shortbread is after baking.
Mine are:
Skippy crunchy peanut butter (I've tried the natural stuff, I really have! Just can't do it.)
Bugles (only purchased on road trips but then I can eat a whole bag in 2 seconds)
Hellman's mayo
McDonald's hash browns
Smart Food popcorn and giant green olives...by the jar.
I also work with a ton of fine dining chefs, and yes, they eat some pretty hilarious stuff (a burger with Canadian bacon and grilled cheese sandwiches for buns for example...)
McDonald's chicken nuggets. Even if I know they're sooooo gross.
McDonald's french fries dipped or drizzled with honey and pepper. I've tried other fries with honey but it's just not as good, has to be the golden arches.
First & foremost....*Southern Caviar*. Yup....boiled peanuts. Buy em fresh by the bushel, boil & freeze them in quarts. Great for movie nights & impromptu gatherings. Otherwise...
Jif pb by the spoonful
Reese's pb cups
Peanut M&M's
(anyone see a pattern here?)
Dh just set a [rare] 14 oz can of salted peanuts in front of me. They'll be gone this time next wk. Oh, and fritos + plain m&m's are good in a pinch. Love the salty + sweet. Failing all that, I like my cheetos crunchy.
@CBREYNOLDS Good to know I'm not the only one!
Anchovy pizza with red pepper flakes. It's my new pizza obssession. It used to be either spinach and feta cheese (called "Popeye pizza" by some local Greek pizzerias) or "California" (salmon, cream cheese, capers, onions). Can eat a whole 8" pie by myself (don't tell).
Cheetos cheese curls -- the crunchy kind, but sometimes even the weird puffy ones will do... I don't like fake cheese as a rule, but Cheetos? Oh, man, they're insanely good.
Dark, bittersweet chocolate (German Ritter Sport square blocs are a favorite) paired with Cheddar cheese.
Grilled Cheddar cheese sandwiches with no butter but lots and lots and lots of Dijon mustard. In fact, I eat mustard with almost anything. People think I'm weird. I don't like ketchup, so I eat fries "the Dutch way" with mayo&mustard. I've even resorted to mixing plain brown rice with mustard.
Ramen noodle soup, but ONLY the "chicken" flavored kind, with the neon-colored "carrots and peas". Ahhhh, comfort food.
Cool Whip! Especially when its still frozen
slim jims. there. i've said it. good to get that off my chest.
Instant ramen. I know, I know, it's horrible and chock-full of artificial flavourings, but I indulge once in a while. Before I went vegan, I quite liked uncooked bacon... :|
Mountain Dew
There's that 13 year old inside me that won't be satisfied with organic unsweetened iced tea every day.
@TESS09 is smoked salmon and capers, or feta and spinach really a "guilty pleasure"??
I love instant spaghetti (http://www.mondenissin.com/main.php/products/lucky_me), but oddly enough, I find boxed mac & cheese terrible.
Smartfood popcorn. I've recently become vegan, but I'm still going to finish off that bag I had sent over from Canada(!)... it's probably a good thing it's NOT available here!
(...Does anyone know a good vegan alternative for the cheesey goodness flavour?)
RYTTU3K, I've heard nutritional yeast is a good vegan topper. I haven't tried it myself, but my vegan friends swear by it.
Guilty pleasures: spaghetti with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup sauce (with onion, garlic and broccoli to make it a smidge healthier), spicy ramen, pb&banana on toast.
Cheddar cheese grits with brown butter garlic sauce and a toast smeared with a lot of butter and some blueberry jam is my current guilty pleasure.
White chocolate Reese's and Kitkats are still weaknesses. Also drinking high fat milk such as half and half or whipping cream, which is why they are not in the house too much. I love fruity pebbles and captain cruch with berries (though I specifically like how it makes my mouth raw--I'm weird I know.)
Cup cakes, any kind home made or not. Sadly, it's usually the not cause I would inhale all of them if they were at the house. Dorito's Sweet Chili is pretty addictive as well.
Flamin' Hot Cheetos (my absolute fave), Kraft mac n' cheese, snowballs (yes, the pink marshmellowy snack cakes), and combos.
Classico's new Roasted Poblano Alfredo sauce. Super addictive! Tastes very much like Cafe Brazil's spicy cream sauce. I've had it on crepes, pasta, enchiladas, as a dip for sweet potatoe fries (mixed with ketchup), in quesadillas, but really I could just eat it straight out of the jar--delicious!
Peanut butter and cheese crackers! The bright orange ones that they sell at the gas station. I try to only eat them on road trips.
Honeymaid graham crackers and Reese peanut butter cups!