Dolly Parton has been weaving her Southern roots into her music for over 70 years. But it isn’t just apparent in her music — it also comes through in her cooking.
Amid Parton’s busy schedule as a world renowned country singer, businesswoman and cookbook author, she ensures her everyday diet includes this one food: potatoes.
“I have to have something with potatoes,” Parton tells TODAY.com. “I mean, I’m just one of those people that I have to either have a baked potato, some mashed potatoes, or some french fries, or something to do with potatoes.”
Parton says she enjoys both cooking and eating “good, hearty food,” which she adds she’s been known to prepare ahead of time to freeze and reheat later.
That’s what inspired Parton’s latest endeavor: single-serve frozen meals.
“I’ve done that for years. When I used to travel on my bus, I would start cooking a few days before so I would have good food that I was going to be craving when I’m out on the road, when you don’t always find what you want,” Parton recalls. “I would always have things like that in my freezer on my bus.”
The “9 to 5” singer is offering her Southern favorites — beef pot roast, chicken and dumplings and country fried steak — all for under $5.
The line of frozen meals also features a peach cobbler, which sits at a retail price of $9.99. Parton adds the dessert “serves lot of people — and even the single serves are big, big portions.”
This isn’t the first time Parton has partnered with Conagra to bring her go-to recipes to her fans. Since 2022, the singer has worked with Duncan Hines, which is owned by Conagra, to create custom cake mixes, frosting, brownies, biscuits, pancakes and muffins, among other Southern-style classics.
In September, Parton released a cookbook, “Good Lookin’ Cookin’,” with her sister, Rachel Parton George. The siblings shared “a year of meals” at the time.
“These are just rich and hearty, and just got all the seasoning in the world. We just wanted to have things that would be easy to freeze, easy to serve and really stay tasty.”
“I hate bland frozen foods. So this is not bland,” Parton continues, explaining that she was involved in the tasting process, instructing the kitchen to add “a little more butter or a little more salt or a little more pepper” where needed.
Unlike other frozen meal options that are “not something you want to eat every day,” her dishes are “the kind of stuff you crave.”
“Whatever you grew up with — if you had a family of love and you loved grandmas and you loved mama and your aunts that made all that good food, you’re going to want to eat that,” Parton says. “That was another thing that inspired the idea of having just good, tasty, hearty Southern food be frozen.”
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