For twenty years, home cook and food writer Deb Perelman has invited millions of readers into her kitchen through her popular culinary website, Smitten Kitchen. What began two decades ago as a personal space to share recipes and talk enthusiastically about food has evolved into a cornerstone of the internet food community. To mark her twentieth anniversary, Perelman is reflecting on how her relationship with cooking has changed, all while continuing to do what she does best: solving the everyday dinner dilemmas of home cooks everywhere.
Perelman launched the website out of a fundamental desire to share recipes she felt genuinely excited about. Describing her compulsion to talk about the things she loves as practically coded into her DNA, she built the platform during a period when she was navigating her own transition into adulthood. Back then, despite knowing the basics of cooking, she found herself searching for definitive versions of everyday dishes. She wanted to know how to transform a basic can of tomatoes into a spectacular pasta sauce rather than just an adequate one, how to craft reliable meatballs, how to achieve an ethereally smooth hummus, and how to bake a New York crumb cake worth making for the rest of one’s life.
Looking back, an observer might assume that after two decades and more than 1,400 published recipes, the author might consider closing this chapter of her career. The natural question arises: what could there possibly be left to know after twenty years? Haven’t home cooks kale-salad-ed, tomato-soup-ed, and apple-pie-ed their way to culinary fulfillment by now?
According to Perelman, the answer is a definitive no. In fact, on most days, she feels as though she is only just getting started.
That persistent curiosity is what drives her ongoing recipe development, leading directly to her latest creation born out of a very relatable weeknight scenario. Recently, Perelman realized she urgently needed a reliable recipe, or at least a practical technique, for making chicken tacos on a busy weeknight. Ideally, the dish would come together quickly in a single skillet without requiring complicated marinades, store-bought salsas dumped into a slow cooker, or the bizarre internet trend of pulling out a stand mixer just to shred chicken. Above all, she wanted something that would avoid the dry, overcooked texture that had convinced her for years that she didn’t even like chicken.
Through a classic combination of culinary laziness, poor planning, and the realization at six o’clock in the evening that nobody had started dinner yet, she landed on a simple skillet method that has since become a household staple.
Reaching this twenty-year milestone has brought distinct professional rewards. Aside from connecting with her audience and discussing cooking week after week—a job she describes as so blissful she sometimes has to pinch herself—her decades of experience have taught her how to distill complex cravings into their simplest and most practical parts. Today, her ideal midweek meal relies on straightforward components: properly cooked chicken, an avocado on its last legs found lingering in the back of the fridge, some freshly shaved cabbage, quick-pickled red onions made using a new shortcut method, and a favorite hot sauce. It is the kind of reliable, satisfying meal that she never tires of preparing, and she hopes it will serve her readers just as well.
To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Smitten Kitchen, Perelman has also shared a retrospective look back at her journey, engaging in interviews with publications such as Ravenous and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has launched a special newsletter inviting readers to share their all-time favorite recipes from the site and published a curated collection highlighting twenty of the most iconic recipes in Smitten Kitchen’s history.
For those eager to recreate her latest weeknight discovery at home, the process centers around a thoughtful assembly of simple ingredients and an efficient skillet technique.
The meal begins by preparing the fixings to ensure everything is ready before the chicken finishes cooking, preventing the meat from growing cold. Tortillas are warmed in a 350-degree oven either wrapped in foil or placed in a tortilla warmer. For the quick-pickled red onions, sliced onions are combined with red wine vinegar, a splash of water, kosher salt, and granulated sugar. Perelman’s preferred shortcut involves placing the bowl in the microwave for ten to fifteen seconds just until the liquid grows warm, then setting it aside to cool while the rest of the meal comes together, which dramatically speeds up the pickling process. For the cabbage, she utilizes a specialized peeler purchased a couple of years ago that easily transforms a head of cabbage into a light, fluffy pile of shreds.
The chicken itself is prepared by mixing salt, cumin, chili powder, paprika, and black pepper in a small bowl, then lightly seasoning chicken cutlets on both sides. A large skillet is heated over medium-high heat with a few tablespoons of olive oil. The chicken is cooked in a single layer until nicely browned underneath for about four to five minutes before being flipped to brown the second side, without needing to be fully cooked through at this stage. The cutlets are then transferred temporarily to a plate.
In the same empty skillet, minced garlic is cooked for about a minute until golden. Chicken broth is poured into the pan to deglaze it, using the liquid to scrape up any browned bits stuck to the bottom. Once the broth comes to a rapid simmer, the chicken and any accumulated juices are returned to the pan. The heat is reduced to medium, allowing the chicken to simmer in the reducing broth for three to four minutes until the liquid forms a thin puddle, at which point the heat is turned off. The chicken can then be shredded directly in the pan using two forks or cut into bite-sized pieces with the edge of a spatula, tossing the meat thoroughly in the remaining pan juices.
To finish, the warm tortillas are piled high with the shredded chicken, the flavorful pan drippings, the pickled red onions, shaved cabbage, avocado, and hot sauce. It is a straightforward, unfussy meal built on two decades of kitchen wisdom, designed to be repeated week after week.