18 grandma recipes

Excellent and easy easy barbeque sauce that was handed down from my Grandmother.

Grandma's cream of mushroom soup: fresh mushrooms slowly sauteed in butter, then simmered with chicken broth and finished with heavy cream. The from-scratch version that retires the can forever.

Kimmel soup, a traditional Jewish caraway seed soup with egg dumplings and a paprika roux base. Simple, warming, and deeply aromatic from toasted caraway.

Grandma's chicken noodle soup with bone-in thighs, turnips, carrots, celery, and egg noodles. Simmered from scratch in water with thyme and poultry seasoning. Honest, old-fashioned comfort.

Another favorite recipe, courtesy of Grandma. Serve over hot cooked rice and topped with chow mein noodles.

Grandma's cabbage casserole: steamed shredded cabbage in a simple egg-and-milk custard with melty cheese and paprika. Old-school church-potluck comfort, six ingredients start to finish.

A small batch, simple homemade hot Italian sausage from my Italian Grandmother. Perfect for whipping up a small batch of bulk sausage for use in other recipes.

This unusual side dish is tangy and full of beans! Perfect with hamburgers or barbecue.

Thick and hearty, great with a grilled cheese sandwich or on its own.

Not too watery, not too heavy, this recipe is just right! Once again, I often adjust measurements and go by feel!

Homemade venison sausage with a 50/50 venison-pork blend, garlic, salt, and black pepper. A simple family recipe for making bulk sausage from ground deer meat.

While growing up, my Polish-Russian grandmother, who lived with our family, made these little meat patties quite often and they were a family favorite. Here is my rendition, from what I remember when cooking with Grandma, as she never wrote the recipe down. The patties were always served with mashed potatoes, green beans, applesauce, and, of course, plenty of ketchup for the patties.

Nothing says comfort food like grandma's cookin'. I have simplified the process with canned beans but feel free to use a comparable amount of fresh. I also replaced the lard in Grandma's recipe with (marginally more healthy) butter.

Grandma's spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) layered between buttered phyllo sheets and filled with feta, cottage cheese, eggs, and spinach. The classic Greek meze cut into diamond squares.

Josephine's pineapple salad: retro molded gelatin salad with cream cheese, crushed pineapple, and whipped cream. A classic potluck centerpiece from grandma's recipe box.

Classic Southern chicken and dumplings simmered from a whole chicken with carrots, onions, parsnips, and fresh herbs. A slow-cooked, soul-warming one-pot supper like grandma made.