13 Of Oprah's Favorite Foods

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Oprah Winfrey may have started out as a talk show host, which is a feat in itself, but since then, she has gone above and beyond being a mere television presence to permeate practically every aspect of our culture. She is an unrivaled tastemaker in our society, maybe even a kingmaker, to the point where people look to her for advice on anything from literature to food. This last element is what interests us here.

In particular, Oprah's openness about her lifelong relationship with food, body image, and wellness has resonated deeply with millions. This authenticity has helped destigmatize conversations about eating habits and healthy living, which she has promoted tirelessly through her platform. For instance, her partnership with WeightWatchers has greatly boosted the company's visibility, while her line of food products, O, That's Good!, which focuses on comfort foods made with nutritious ingredients, has had broad appeal. Every year she also releases a list of Oprah's favorite things, including foods like truffle oil and specialty chocolates, while anyone scrolling through Goldbelly will have noticed that she has endorsed a number of cakes, pies, and other items, and that she has impeccable taste in the matter. These factors make Oprah an ideal source of inspiration when it comes to recipes, which is why we've put together a list of some of her favorite foods.

Who doesn't like pasta? The combination of flour and water and sometimes eggs makes the perfect backdrop for a tasty sauce. It can be made in almost any shape or size imaginable, and it goes with practically anything, from rich tomato sauces to creamy béchamels and everything in between.

It's no surprise, then, that Oprah also loves this dish, to the point where she might even request it as her last meal. In an interview with People in 2019, she did not mince words, clearly stating that her last meal would be pasta. Not only that, but she said, "If [I were] going to choose my last week, they would all be pastas." In particular, she likes to throw pasta and a few other ingredients together in a skillet, explaining that "tuna casserole was one of my favorite things in the world because you get all the stuff mixed together." 

This passion seems to have inspired Oprah's O, That's Good! line launched in partnership with Kraft, and which includes pre-made pasta dishes like vegetable tortellini and sausage with rigatoni.

Oprah knows how to treat herself well, it seems, because when it's her birthday, she likes to indulge in her favorite meal, at least according to her Instagram profile. Indeed, on her 64th birthday, which she celebrated in 2018, she posted that she was enjoying her favorite meal: black-eyed pea stew with cornbread (not one slice, but two, because it's her birthday) and a fine glass of rosé, courtesy of John Travolta.

While it's not clear which stew recipe she used on that occasion, it's easy to see why stewed black-eyed peas are a great dish that pairs well with cornbread. Our version of the recipe is made in a smoky meat broth and topped with a confit egg yolk. It only takes about ten minutes of active preparation. If that doesn't sound sophisticated enough for your birthday meal, you can always pair it with a glass of rosé, as Oprah did.

In Oprah's cookbook, "Food, Health, and Happiness," we learn many things about her eating habits, including the fact that she loves naan, a versatile Indian flatbread. If you've ever been to an Indian restaurant, you'll have no doubt experienced the joys of scooping up a spicy curry with a piece of this flatbread.

As with any good bread, there is an art to making naan properly. For instance, make sure you flip over your naan once bubbles start appearing on the surface. If you've decided to make it at home, be sure to prepare a big batch, as this bread can be used for more than just scooping up curries. In fact, extra naan can also be repurposed for a makeshift pizza crust, bread replacement sandwiches, or base for nachos. While we don't know a lot about how Oprah likes her naan bread, we do know that she loves it so much she has to make a conscious effort to stop eating it, so we can only assume she would approve of all of the above options.

Oprah's 2017 cookbook "Food, Health, and Happiness," reveals a lot about her culinary preferences, including that she loves potatoes above all other vegetables. In the headnotes for a recipe in her book, she writes, "I love potatoes so much that I once attempted to make a potato cocktail." Although this idea didn't turn out so well, as Oprah goes on to concede that "the only way to drink a potato is when it's distilled into vodka." If we know someone that could make it work, it would be Oprah.

Given this penchant for experimenting with potatoes, we can only assume Oprah loves them in all forms. What we know for sure is that she loves them in potato chips. She includes a recipe in her cookbook for ones made with truffle salt. Although this recipe is a lot more trouble than just buying a good bag of chips from the grocery store, it's ideal for anyone who is trying to stay away from processed foods or who doesn't want to overdo it on oils and salts, as these quantities can be controlled in homemade chips.

Someone who loves indulging in good food, as Oprah so clearly does, is bound to love good chocolate. And while Oprah hasn't stated as much in writing, we can surmise that she loves chocolate by the sheer number of chocolate items that make it on to her list of favorite things. For instance, in 2024, she named French Broad Chocolate, a chocolate company in Asheville, North Carolina, as one of her favorite things.

In 2023, she also listed a number of chocolate products, including delightful and very attractive Vesta bonbons. Even way back in 2015, Oprah was enjoying her chocolate when she picked Phillips Candy House, Boston's oldest chocolate maker, and its giant chocolate turtle basked to appear on her list.

If you know anything about Oprah and her favorite foods, you'll likely know that she loves bread. She captures the spirit of this passion in a WeightWatchers commercial when she says, "I love bread! I love bread ... I don't deny myself bread. I have bread every day. I have bread every day ... I lost 26 pounds and I have eaten bread every single day." This is great news for anyone who is conscious about losing weight yet can't seem to stay away from bread. While it's not clear just how much bread Oprah eats per day — also because that's her business — it seems like some bread, at least in moderation, shouldn't set you back.

Oprah seems to talk about bread every chance she gets, and even took to Instagram in 2016 to share a photo of her "favorite birthday gift" — seven loaves of 7-grain bread she was sent by producer Daryl Roth. Oprah reportedly doesn't deny herself bread, even when dieting. And if that's also a concern for you, 7-grain bread might be the way to go. Multigrains tend to be a better choice than white bread if you're concerned about weight loss or weight management, as it can help you feel fuller for longer. While we don't know which specific 7-grain bread Oprah indulged in, we do know a thing or two about the key ingredients that make multigrain bread unique and how best to eat it. 

When you're on the prowl for a late-night meal after a party, or are in need for a hearty comfort food, you may immediately think of pizza — maybe just not spinach pizza. But that might change after you hear about Oprah's favorite pizza, courtesy of French chef Philippe Chevalier, which she says is "the best pizza that [she] ever [remembers] having." This one is made with a creamy white sauce blended with sauteed spinach, herbs, and garlic.

After that, it's topped with goat cheese, Gruyère cheese, fresh baby spinach, thinly sliced onions, lemon vinaigrette, pine nuts, and crushed red pepper. It may not be the simplest pizza to make, but it certainly seems worth the effort, and it's a great way to get in some extra veggies. In fact, after Chevalier made this pizza one night, Oprah liked it so much she asked him to make it again the very next day.

Fried chicken is loved by many. It's hard to make truly terrible fried chicken, and most restaurants can usually serve at least a passable version of the dish. However, there are some spots that seem to excel at making fried chicken, to the point where they gain a cult following. One such place is Ezell's Famous Fried Chicken in Seattle, which serves Oprah's favorite fried chicken of all (though, according to a signed picture of Oprah on its wall, she also likes its sweet potato pie).

In fact, according to the shop, Oprah likes this chicken so much that she even has it delivered to her home when she's not in Seattle. This is surprising, given that Seattle is not especially known for its fried chicken. That is normally the purview of the South, where the dish can be found on practically every block. But if Oprah says it's good fried chicken, we listen.

A good homemade popsicle recipe comes in handy during the summer months. In an Instagram post she made in 2020, Oprah shares that she had a popsicle every single day, and showed off her drawer of margarita, strawberry banana, and pineapple mint pops. "Labor Day means kind of the beginning of the end of summer, but I'll tell you when the summer's really over, is when the last popsicle's gone from the drawer," she said in the video. 

Unfortunately, she did not share her recipe for these popsicles, so if you want something really great, you might have to turn to the best store-bought popsicle brand you can buy. They might not have the same homey feel or interesting, unusual, tailor-made flavors, but they should certainly do the trick on a hot summer day.

Truffle-flavored foods are everywhere these days. You can find truffle oil on pasta or truffle salt on fries, and the grocery aisle is rife with various truffle-flavored potato chips. You can even find the real deal, actual shaved truffles, on pastas and eggs at fancy restaurants. All this may seem like too much for the average Joe, but not for Oprah, who loves truffles so much that she always has a supply of truffle zest in her purse. She even asks hotels to stock truffle salt in her room before she arrives. She's even been known to ask chefs at restaurants to shave truffles, which she brought herself, onto her food.

As if that weren't enough, her 2017 cookbook has not one, not two, but eight recipes involving truffles, including truffle tortelloni. It almost seems like Oprah would eat just about anything as long as it was seasoned with truffle salt or truffle oil. And who could fault her for that?

Oprah famously likes comfort foods, especially those that are nutritious. Chicken pot pie certainly fits the bill — which may be why she loves it so much. A nice, buttery crust and creamy interior, packed with fresh vegetables and aromatic herbs? Tasty and nutrient-dense meals don't get much better than that.

While it's not clear whether or not Oprah has a favorite recipe, we certainly have some suggestions. You can opt for a classic chicken pot pie, or try a chicken pot pie pasta, where the sauce of the pasta resembles the inside of a chicken pot pie. The latter, in particular, is a great way to get around the challenges of making a perfect crust. Instead of toiling away at a homemade crust, you can just cook up some pasta and use that as your base.

Soup, as a whole, is hard to dislike. Perhaps you like black bean soup and gazpacho, but dislike split pea soup and clam chowder. All of these are so different that they can hardly be compared to each other, yet they all fall under the category of soup. Yet Oprah seems to really like soup in all, or at least many, of its varieties. Her 2017 cookbook includes a whopping 19 soup recipes. Some are creamy, while others are brothy; you'll find recipes for everything from summer corn chowder and minestra verde to turkey chili.

Indeed, as she told Stephen Colbert while on his show one night, she developed a love for soup while watching "Lassie" as a child — more specifically, the commercials for Campbell's Soup that came on during the show.

The "love sandwich" was invented by Oprah, and the name says it all. She put it together for her longtime partner, Stedman Graham. It includes fresh tomato, avocado, melted cheese, sauteed scallions, and smoked turkey. While this is technically his favorite food, she's the one who made it — and she made it with love.

Interestingly enough, the sandwich was the result of happenstance. As she told HuffPost in an interview, the sandwich came to be because she happened to have some pepper Jack cheese and turkey in the fridge, and avocados on her table — the rest was history. As for the name of this recipe, she says, "It became the love sandwich because I first started making it just for Stedman." In other words, while good avocados and carefully sauteed scallions are essential, the main ingredient is actually love.