You’ve likely seen Hailee Catalano preparing glistening skillets of pasta and heaping platters of roast chicken or tomatoes or pork chops for her millions of followers. She cooks with the seasons, which she says is an indirect—and inadvertent—nod toward the foods with which she was raised. “It’s only recently that I’ve realized that sentiment is fully rooted in and influenced by the Italian American culture I grew up with,” she says.
Her 2025 cookbook, By Heart: Recipes to Hold Near and Dear, chronicles Catalano’s family- oriented Midwestern roots, her time spent working in restaurant kitchens, and her unplanned journey toward over 2 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. But a quick flip through the book reveals that Catalano’s recipes are more than biographical—she’s breaking ground on a new type of personal cooking. One where mortadella sidles into an egg-and-cheese sandwich, and adobong mani—Filipino fried garlic peanuts, which Catalano first experienced on a visit to her partner’s family in the Philippines—are alchemized into porcini herb snacking peanuts. Her cooking pulls from her life, not just her heritage.
We caught up with Catalano to talk about her culinary roots, experiments in Italian American fusion, and her favorite pasta shapes.
For all of your close ties to Italian American food, you’re not shy about switching things up: using fennel instead of cauliflower in your giardiniera, for instance. What would you say to someone who belabors the point of authenticity?
Hailee Catalano: When I write a recipe, I try to make something reminiscent of the original but easy for everyone to recreate with commonly available ingredients. I try to keep the heart of the dish or the ingredient. That’s the evolution of quote, unquote authentic Italian American food. Things change over the years, and we have to adapt along with them. We’re not trying to erase something, just to make it work in current times for current tastes.
That said, how many times a week are you eating pasta?
HC: This week I think I’ve had it five days in a row. I can really eat pasta every single day. I always ask Chuck [Cruz], my partner, “Do you feel the same way about pasta?” He’s like, “No, not really.” My comfort food is just pasta with any sort of red sauce on it. Chuck’s is rice with tomatoes mixed with fish sauce. It’s essentially the same meal in a different format.
Do you guys ever experiment with mash-ups of Italian American and Filipino food?
HC: Recently we made this recipe—there’s this Filipino dish called arroz caldo, which is that rice-porridge-chicken vibe. We made a pastina version of it because it has a similar porridgy vibe. But we made it with all Filipino toppings and fish sauce and fried garlic—we put a little bit of Pecorino in there too.
A lot of people view Italian American cooking as a monolith, but really it can go in so many different directions.
HC: There are lots of regional differences in Italian American cooking too. In Chicago, when we had big family gatherings with catered food, there were always large trays of baked mostaccioli. I’ve never seen that on a menu on the East Coast. Or chicken Vesuvio—braised chicken and potatoes with white wine, garlic, and oregano. I thought that was something everyone grew up with, but I quickly learned it’s a very Chicago thing.
And finally, the people need to know: What is your favorite pasta shape?
HC: For short-cut pasta, rigatoni is my favorite, but honestly, I just like spaghetti. Is that crazy?
