One of our favorite questions to ask any home cook—or even celebrity cook—is, “What’s one food you could eat every day and never get sick of?” Normally, it’s something pretty simple, like Emma Stone’s apple and peanut butter or Nick Saban’s two Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies, or even something from a drive-thru, such as Savannah Guthrie’s go-to sandwich.
Whether or not these celebs actually eat those things 365 days a year is pretty up in the air. But, we like to think they stick to a routine.
There’s one person, however, who has stood firm in the fact that her menu doesn’t often change: Ina Garten. The Hamptons-dwelling, home-cooking queen has mentioned many times throughout the years that she always eats the same breakfast.
Ina Garten's Daily 2-Ingredient Breakfast
In 2017, the order was oatmeal (specifically McCann’s quick-cooking Irish oatmeal) and a cup of coffee.
"I've had the same thing for breakfast every single day for 10 years,” she told Bon Appétit.
Now, likely after spending much time in Paris, France, Garten has simplified even her breakfast routine even further.
“I pretty much have toast and coffee for breakfast,” Garten told Julia Louis Dreyfus on an episode of “Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus” when asked what her typical “eating day” looks like. “And the toast has to have good French butter on it with shaved sea salt.”
Maybe those four minutes waiting for oatmeal were taking too long. But, hey, we’ll never judge anyone for opting for buttered toast. That’s one of our favorite delicacies, too.
We know what you’re probably thinking, though: I thought Ina Garten liked Cabot butter. You’d be correct, Garten has said she opts for Cabot’s award-winning butter when cooking and baking. However, when it comes to enjoying on bread, she’s looking for a more decadent, flavorful butter.
“It's called Beurre de Baratte, with flaked sea salt. And it's just so delicious,” Garten said.
What Makes Beurre de Baratte Butter So Good?
Beurre de Baratte is a French butter that’s made using a traditional method with a wooden butter churn and molded by hand. The salted butter is known for being incredibly high-quality and has a “vibrant, fresh, nutty, and tangy” flavor.
While the butter is easy to come by in France, it’s a bit harder to find in the U.S., unless you happen upon a specialty store or order it online. However, seeing as she’s the Ina Garten, she probably has some kind of butter supplier.
Or maybe she loads her checked bag with butter directly from Paris—because it may come as a surprise, but butter is sometimes TSA-approved. In its normal state, butter can be considered a liquid when flying—so if it’s over 3.4 ounces, it’s not approved to fly—but frozen butter is A-OK, as long as it remains partially frozen during screening.
Once you get your hands on the European Beurre de Baratte butter, pair it with a piece of good-quality bread, and you’ll understand why many people call it the best butter in the world.
Ina Garten's Full-Day Menu
If you want to finish your day of eating the same way Garten does, she follows her toast breakfast up with a cup of tea at 10:30 a.m.
“And then at exactly 10:30, I have to have a cup of tea with a little honey in it. And it's not 10:29 and it's not 10:31. At 10:30, my brain goes, bing, I have to have some tea,” Garten said.
Then, her lunch and dinner are typically the same: some kind of soup for lunch, followed by a trip to a local restaurant or friend’s house for dinner.
“Jeffrey and I always have soup, which is so easy because I can make a lot of soup and leave it in the freezer,” she said. “And I don't like to have for dinner what I tested during the day. I don't want to eat something and go, I wish it had more rosemary in it. It's just not fun. [But] the last thing I want to do is make dinner, [so] we either go out to dinner with friends or we order dinner from a restaurant.”
If you didn’t already believe it, this confirms Ina Garten truly has the ideal life. A little French butter in the morning and end the night with a delicious dinner where you don’t have to cook or clean? That’s luxury.
