Famous Celeb Dishes With A Twist

Nowadays, famous chefs aren't just cooking for celebrities, they are celebrities. It's hard to find a well-known culinary personality who isn't constantly on television, whipping up meals on talk show cooking segments, let alone hosting their very own cooking show on the Food Network. Needless to say, trying your hand at a famous chef's recipe has never been easier or more popular.

In honor of that, we rounded up recipes from some of the most famous celeb chefs. Our intrepid recipe developers went to work creating these famous celebrity dishes. Along the way, they created a few twists to the recipes. These slight additions, subtractions, and alterations, we believe, take a great dish to another level. And in some cases, they make the dish even easier for amateur chefs to recreate. From Bobby Flay's shrimp and grits to a trio of Gordon Ramsey dishes, these are a few famous celeb dishes with a twist that you need to try.

Risotto is a delicious dish to eat but can be a difficult dish to make, so it's best to follow a professional. In this case, that's Gordon Ramsay and his recipe for a hearty risotto you can have as a full meal. If you're interested in a healthier version of this rice dish, you'll like our take on Ramsay's recipe, which uses half the butter and less cheese. The other alteration is swapping out white wine for red wine, which has an earthy flavor that complements the mushrooms in the dish.

While risotto can be tricky to get just right, it's certainly doable for at-home chefs. The rice, shallots, red wine, and broth get cooked together for 20-25 minutes while being continuously stirred. Remove the mixture from the heat, stir in cooked mushrooms, butter, Parmesan cheese, and chives, and you're ready to dig in!

Nothing says home cooking like meatloaf. So who better to borrow a meatloaf recipe from than Ina Garten, a chef who invites viewers into her home for a living? Our take on the Barefoot Contessa's meatloaf recipe is nearly identical but with the addition of one secret ingredient: pork rinds. This crunchy snack food adds another layer of savoriness and complexity to the dish.

With that addition in tow, the recipe follows Garten's to a T, including the ketchup coating. Once the loaf is prepared, it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to cook. Depending on how many mouths you have to fill, you likely won't have any leftovers. But if you should, good news. "It will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for five days," says recipe developer Stephanie Rapone. "[It] makes delicious leftovers on its own or as a sandwich. Just reheat [it] in the microwave in one-minute increments until hot."

Potatoes are as versatile a food as they come, but of all the countless ways to prepare tasty taters, it's hard to beat a plate of perfectly roasted potatoes. And famed chef Jamie Oliver does the dish justice — and then some — with his recipe. We'll tell you in advance that the dish takes some time to put together (you'll have to start the day before). But we promise the end result will be well worth it. Oliver's recipe is so near perfection that our twists were more enhancements than anything else. They included swapping in New potatoes for the Maris Pipers variety, sticking with goose fat rather than the butter option, adding more garlic, and using oregano instead of sage.

Once the potatoes have been boiled, pat dried, and arranged in a cooking tray with goose or duck fat and olive oil, they need to rest overnight in the refrigerator. The next day, you can roast them with garlic for one hour. Then, gently half-squash the potatoes, sprinkle on some oregano leaves, roast for another 20 minutes, and you're ready to serve!

Soft, creamy scrambled eggs are a rather delicate food, a dish that naturally makes you think of a chef with a soft, gentle demeanor. You know, like Gordon Ramsay. While the juxtaposition may be jarring, we ensure you Ramsay's scrambled eggs are the real deal. There are a few secrets to his recipe. First is the cooking method, which involves taking the eggs on and off the heat. This prevents them from overcooking and getting a rubbery texture. Next is the addition of crème fraîche, which gives the eggs the perfect fluffiness.

Our recipe follows all this. It's not until the end where we put a spicy twist with the addition of salt, paprika, onion powder, chili, and garlic powder. These spices elevate the flavor of the eggs to another level. When ready, serve your scrambled eggs on toasted sourdough bread (a Ramsay favorite) and eat up.

There may be no television chef that caters more to the home cook than Rachael Ray. So you know her carbonara recipe is both delicious and well within your culinary skill level. Our version of this pasta recipe stays true to Ray's with the exception of two extra ingredients: ground Italian sausage and kale. The former serves some additional heartiness and protein to the dish while the latter is an excellent way of incorporating more vitamins and nutrients.

This carbonara wouldn't be a Rachael Ray recipe if it took longer than 30 minutes. While the pasta is cooking, prepare the pancetta and Italian sausage. Then add the pasta and kale to the meat mixture and pour in some whisked egg yolks. The final step is throwing in a generous amount of Romano cheese and dinner is served!

Bobby Flay may be best known for the Southwestern cooking that put him on the culinary map, or more recently his fiery work on the grill, but the talented chef is more than capable of cooking up a true Southern comfort dish like shrimp and grits. We don't need to tell you how good the dish is. We do need to tell you that we made some subtle tweaks in our version of the recipe. Most notably, in order to reduce the dish's high-fat content, we cut out the bacon and swapped in half a cup of Parmesan for one cup of grated cheddar. 

If getting this classic dish right sounds like a tall task, know that the whole recipe can be completed from start to finish in 40 minutes. It contains just five steps and most of the ingredients are likely already in your pantry. When both components are done, pour the grits into a bowl, spoon some shrimp on top, and throw a bit of parsley in for a pop of color.

Placing a golden brown roast chicken at the center of the table is one way to surely impress your guests, which is what pushed us to try the roast chicken recipe of Ina Garten, a chef who entertains for a living. We dare not stray too far from the queen of home cooking's instructions. Instead, our twist involves simple alterations to texture and flavor. Instead of coating the chicken in butter, we used mayonnaise, which makes for a crispier chicken skin. We also swapped out lemons and thyme in place of oranges and rosemary to use in the bird cavity. Both pairings are great options but we found ours created a bolder flavor.

As for preparing the chicken, you can prep this meal in as little as 10 minutes. Surround the bird in an oven-safe dish with onion slices and roast for 90 minutes. When fully cooked, allow the chicken to rest for 15 minutes before you begin carving slices for your sure-to-be highly impressed dinner guests.

Hamburgers are quintessential Americana grub, so taking a burger recipe from a Brit could be seen as sacrilege. But we promise that Gordon Ramsey's burger can stand up to any on this side of the pond. "Ramsay's recipe focuses on flavor, flavor, and more flavor," says recipe developer Petar Marshall. "By seasoning and layering flavor all throughout, his recipe truly results in a delicious burger."

To make things easier for home cooks, our recipe swaps out Ramsay's recommended short rib, brisket, and chunk mixture for ground beef with an 80/20 fat ratio. One other liberty we took from the famed chef's recipe involves the cheese. Instead of topping the burger with Monterey jack cheese, we stuffed it into the center of the patty for a nice cheesy surprise when the eater takes a bite. The burgers take just a few minutes on the grill to cook. Then you can assemble with toasted brioche buns, lettuce, tomato, onion, and last but not least, a spoonful of mayo-mustard. 

A delicious savory meal of poultry, vegetables, and herbs, chicken cacciatore is one of the more iconic Italian dishes. So who better to borrow a recipe from than Italian-born Giada de Laurentiis? But as great as the Food Network star's recipe is — and trust us, it is great — it'll take you an hour to make. Not exactly ideal for a weeknight dinner. Our recipe's one simple twist, however, cuts cooking time nearly in half. The secret is in the chicken. Instead of using whole, bone-in pieces, we swapped in boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cubed them. This allows the chicken to cook much faster.

Once the poultry and vegetable mixture has cooked through, combine the two components, and top with parsley or basil. All in all, you can have this chicken cacciatore on your dinner table in just 30 minutes.