POWER PLANTS

LAUREN TAYLOR speaks to the chef and content creator Natalia Rudin about going viral, savoury breakfasts and making plant-based food fast

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IT was an antipasti-style butter bean dish that turned personal chef Natalia Rudin into an internet sensation.

Her post went viral in 2024, with a million views. "It had all the things that come in jars, like artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, olives, and some cavolo nero, in a tomato-based sauce," says Natalia, who posts recipes on her Instagram account Nats Nourishments.

Her food, mostly plant-based, focusses on ease and comfort, with plenty of nutrition packed in. Travelling to India at the age of 23, she says: "I had a bit of a transformation, how I cared for myself, my body and the food I was eating. I became so much more aware of how ingredients, exercise and being outside had this huge effect on my mental health." She became a private chef in 2018.

But it isn’t always easy to prioritise eating lots of plants in busy lives. "It’s kind of being savvy. That's where I've used my experience as a personal chef. A lot of the time, I'd work with clients who don’t really have any concept of time, they might suddenly be like, 'Can we have a three course meal in an hour?' And you just scrap in the kitchen."

Her debut cookbook, Cooking Fast and Slow, utilises this expertise of cooking under different time frames, "to aid people who think that they don’t have the time to cook, to eat well, to feel well, to show them that they can".

Here's her advice for packing in the plants if you’re in a rush.

Have some fast recipes in your repertoire