Dolly Parton Can't Go Without This Staple Food

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When Dolly Parton wrote the smash hit song "I Will Always Love You," she probably wasn't singing about potatoes ... but the sentiment would have been correct. In an interview with AllRecipes, Parton confessed that, if it involved a potato, she would eat it with gusto, whether French fries, baked potatoes, or a bowl of mashed. In fact, Parton humorously blamed potatoes for woes in her eating regimen: "I always say, and it's always the truth, that every diet I ever fallen off [sic] was because of a potato of some kind. Because I can only go so many days without having a 'tater fix' as I call it."

We previously covered Parton's Taco Bell order, which is full of craveable favorites, but she hit a whole new level of relatable with her passion for potatoes. Who could forget her TikTok clip in which she drawled, "Potato, potato, potato! I never met a spud I didn't like." Honestly, same. Whether it's potato wedges cut with a common kitchen tool or a baked potato with an egg added for extra protein, we are forever down to clown when it comes to serving up potatoes in new and interesting ways. Potatoes au gratin, hash browns, and croquettes all tickle our fancy, whether we're ordering them in a restaurant or preparing them in our own kitchens. Speaking of food you cook yourself, Parton has a long history with delicious potatoes, and her cookbook lists several ways of dishing them up memorably.

In her 2024 cookbook, Good Lookin' Cookin': A Year of Meals – A Lifetime of Family, Friends, and Food, which Dolly Parton penned with her sister, Rachel Parton George, potatoes feature prominently. Dolly gravitates towards simple, down-home preparations with small tweaks to make the food extraordinary. Her mashed potatoes are beyond luxuriant, containing butter, whole milk, sour cream, and cream cheese — yes, that's four unique types of dairy, for those counting at home — and are beaten in a stand mixer. That's a pretty over-the-top choice for mashed potatoes, but some of her other potato recipes and swaps are much simpler.

The skin on her baked potatoes, for instance, is so crisp that it's been compared to a cracker. But there are no fancy tricks here! Dolly eschews butter, oil, or salt on her potato skins, and instead places washed potatoes straight on the rack in a screaming-hot oven for almost an hour. The resulting spud is crunchy on the outside, and velvety on the inside. This is to say nothing of her picnic-worthy potato salad, which features some key players in any bowl (mustard, vinegar, onions, celery), plus heavy cream for silky-smoothness that's hard to duplicate otherwise. 

When it comes to potato recipes, Dolly is a wealth of resources ... probably because she's passionate about potatoes, which is generally a quality that comes through in a cook's practice. Since we ourselves absolutely adore these humble tubers, we'll be paying keen attention to how Parton pulls off her side dishes and trying her recipes ourselves!