Kristen Kennedy, Recipe Tester

A list of all the recipes Kristen Kennedy has tested.

Kristen Kennedy

Kristen Kennedy is a rather accidental cook. While completing undergrad and graduate school, her studies [and life] brought her to different parts of the world. This travel opened her eyes and expanded her palette. She quickly began planning trips around the simple pleasure of eating. To this day, she loves nothing more than learning everything about a meal–from its source to preparation. Working with Leite’s Culinaria for the past 9 years has allowed her to continue exploring her love of all things food.

When she’s not “yammering on about anything edible,” she works as a defense contractor. She also owns and operates a small company that focuses on sustainable fashion. And, most importantly, she’s a mom to a 10-year-old boy, an English Lab, and two Maine Coons.

A ladle pouring cheddar cheese sauce over a chili topped burger.

Cheddar Cheese Sauce

So satiatingly superlative, this cheese sauce is going to whisper seductively to you to ladle it onto everything. And we do mean everything.

A platter of Azorean carne assada--chunks of roasted beef, carrots, and sausage on a white plate.

Portuguese Carne Assada

A traditional Azorean dish that boasts meltingly tender oven-braised beef, potatoes, chouriço, and onions. It’s a rustic, homey, Sunday supper sorta dish from David’s VERY Portuguese mom.

Homemade pasta dough in 4 colors, plain, squid ink, beet, and saffron on a white background.

Homemade Pasta Dough

Pasta made fresh according to Italian tradition is unspeakably more supple, satisfying, and gratifying than the dried-out store-bought stuff and will make your mouth water. Here’s how to make it at home.

Spicy Honey Lime Chicken

This easy-peasy marinated grilled chicken with sweet and spicy honey lime sauce is going to be on regular rotation at our dinner tables. We’re betting it will be at yours, too.

A individual huckleberry crisp in a white bowl topped with whipped cream and a spoon on the side.

Huckleberry Crisp

Sweetly tart and laced with spice, this huckleberry (or blueberry, if you’d rather) crisp recipe is gonna rock your world.

A stack of four ground turkey sliders plus one resting on its side with lemon wedges on a cutting board.

Ground Turkey Sliders

If ever there was an unabashedly, unapologetically girlie burger, this is it. Still, we’ve seen guys polish them off without complaint.

Two ground chicken meatballs on slider buns with a toothpick skewered through them.

Ground Chicken Meatballs

These subtly flavored, relatively healthful (shhhh!) sliders are the sleeper hit at The Meatball Shop. Not hard to understand why.

A metal tray filled with the fillings for sheet pan steak fajitas -- sliced steak, peppers, lime wedges, tortillas, and cilantro

Sheet Pan Steak Fajitas

Top these sheet pan steak, onion, and pepper fajitas with your favorite fixings for a quick and easy weeknight meal.

A blue plate with a serving of creamy French chicken stew served over rice and garnished with parsley.

Creamy French Chicken Stew

This simple chicken stew, which is chock-full of vegetables, chicken, and served in a light cream sauce, feels decadent but is surprisingly virtuous.

a white casserole dish of roasted fennel with rye crumble

Roasted Fennel with Rye Crumble

Getting your five servings of vegetables per day is easy when you can feast on tender caramelized fennel that’s smothered in toasted rye-Parmesan crumble.

Three Champagne cocktails with a Champagne cork an a plate of sugar cubes beside the drinks.

Champagne Cocktail

The quintessential something to sip at an elegant soirée, a large party, or just because it’s a random Tuesday night.

Seven strips of air fryer pecan praline candied bacon in a white plate

Air Fryer Pecan Praline Candied Bacon

People often say that bacon is all you need but we put it to you that embellished bacon is that much better. Especially when it’s spicy brown sugar and pecans coating that crispy strip.