Welcome to Cooking with Virginia!
Here you will find delicious and doable, seasonal, chef-driven recipes for home cooks along with tips, techniques, and stories. And, given Virginia’s health journey and 65# weight loss, the recipes are not only good — they are good for you, too!
Each post features mouth-watering food photography, easy-to-follow instructions, and helpful hints for well-tested recipes from Southern chef, Food Network Kitchen Instructor, and James Beard award-winning cookbook author Virginia Willis.
You’ll also find Virginia’s signature stories chronicling formational childhood experiences gained baking in her grandmother’s and mother’s kitchen, her extensive professional experience from working in patisserie in a Michelin-starred restaurant, to the hot lights of food television, and her culinary centric far-flung travels. The recipes build on this practical knowledge and are written so that the reader feels that Virginia is by their side in the kitchen, as she walks the reader through surefire recipes that work every time. The recipes are rigorously tested and are essential, foolproof dishes you actually want to make and eat!
Bon Appétit, Y’all!
Virginia Willis


Raspberry No-Bake Cheesecake
It’s hot. Need a dessert? “No-Bake” is the way to go! I hardly want to turn on my toaster, much less the oven. I’m sharing






Meal Plan Monday with Creole Buttermilk Chicken on Good Day Atlanta
One-Pan Wonder I love a sheet pan supper. One pan and you are good to go — it makes both cooking and cleaning so much






Fried & Griddled Green Tomatoes
Fried Green Tomatoes are as deeply rooted in Southern culture as a field of kudzu. I have a confession. I am not a huge fan






Summer Tomato Recipes
Fresh tomatoes are only ever good in summer. There is nothing as wonderful as the full, rich, winey, flavor of a vine ripe tomato –






How to Make Angel Food Cake
Look at those luscious Georgia peaches! During peach season I love eating them fresh as well as making jams and jellies. Each and every summer






Snickers Chocolate Pudding Cups
“You got peanuts in my chocolate!” “You got chocolate in my peanuts!” Well, who cares, right?! It’s all good. I’ve got a combination that






Quick and Easy Garlic Shrimp
Shrimp are perhaps the original fast food. A few years ago while visiting the Low Country I stopped at the pier in Mount Pleasant, SC






Make-Ahead Almond Crumble Peach Tart
It’s peach season! I grew up in Macon County, adjacent to Peach County, home to The Big Peach, a glorious seventy-five-foot tall peach mounted on






Plant Forward BBQ: Sweet Heat Pulled Butternut Squash
Wait, what? I can hear folks now. Vegetarian BBQ? Has she lost her mind? Yes! Well, it’s not a pit-cooked pig, that’s for sure, but






Easy Butter Cookies
This recipe is so simple and quick! And, best of all during these trying times, it’s flexible. I baked them three ways: immediately after assembling,