Dolly Parton's Favorite Food Is A Real Crowd-Pleaser

Beloved entertainer Dolly Parton's illustrious career has brought her to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry. Now, along with her sister Rachel Parton George, she brings her homespun wit to our kitchens. In their new cookbook, Good Lookin' Cookin', the siblings share recipes from their poverty-stricken, but nonetheless loving, childhood in rural Tennessee. That upbringing taught the sisters an appreciation for simple, affordable dishes, which is obvious given Dolly's favorite food: the versatile potato.

Parton is vocal about her affection for potatoes, as most famously captured in a TikTok for WIRED Magazine in 2022, where she claimed that she's never been able to keep to a diet because of her love for the humble starch. "I never met a spud I didn't like!" she declared.

Despite their Keto-crashing deliciousness, potatoes do provide health benefits when eaten in moderation. Yes, it's very starchy, but a potato also provides energy, fiber, B vitamins, and iron— all crucial when you don't have many resources for nutritious meals, like the Parton family when Dolly was growing up. It's probably a good guess that Dolly's go-to Taco Bell order will someday expand to include a Spicy Potato Soft Taco, since potatoes returned to the menu there in 2021.

The new Good Lookin' Cookin' cookbook has several different recipes for preparing Dolly's beloved potatoes, grouped with other homestyle dishes by month throughout the book. In August, the sisters recommend making potato wedges; in September, whipped potatoes. The cookbook also mentions Parton's shortcut to preparing a baked potato: forego the tinfoil wrap poked with holes and let the potato steam itself from the inside. If you eat the potato skin and all, this method will make the skin crispier.

Dolly fans who've visited her Sevier, TN theme park, Dollywood, know that perhaps her most famous potato-based recipe is on display at the park's restaurant. At Song & Hearth, patrons can order a hearty bowl of stone soup. Stone soup was a staple of Dolly Parton's childhood dining. Her mother would make a big pot of hearty vegetable soup and ask her 12 kids to each place a pebble into the mix, infusing the pot with an adorable dose of love.