Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen: release date, exclusive interview, recipes and everything we know

Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen is a joyful celebration of food inspired by her family, her Indian heritage and her northern roots, all filmed at her peaceful smallholding in the Wirral countryside.

Across five episodes on ITV1 the This Morning regular and former Great British Menu judge shares simple 20-minute, one-pot recipes from her homely outdoor kitchen like chicken dhansak and rakott kel, a Hungarian layered mince pork and cabbage dish. We also get to meet her family, plus her three dogs, four horses, goats, chickens and alpacas! 

"It’s warm bath TV," says Nisha. "It’s just watching an ordinary home cook with an average level of skill creating delicious dishes in a setting where there are birds singing, goats bleating and horses neighing. I want people to think, I could cook that!"

So here’s everything you need to know about Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen on ITV1…

Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen release date

Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen is a five-part series starting on ITV1 from Saturday February 8 at 11.40am and running weekly at the same time.

Episodes will also become available on ITVX.

The series is also available on STV and STV Player. Another five episodes of Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen are due for release later this year.

 Is there a trailer?

Not yet, but we’ll update here as soon as one lands.

What happens in Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen

Plenty of tasty food and lots of adorable animals! There are also appearances from Nisha’s daughters, friends, her husband Zoltan, as well as her Hungarian mother-in-law and her Aunty Geeta, who credits Jamie Oliver as her favourite TV chef!

Alongside recipes for dishes like chicken korma, egg curry and a green bean and mango dhal bunny chow, Nisha also gives clever tips on things like trying lemon zest if you don’t like coriander, and using frozen cubes of grated ginger or garlic bought in the supermarket to save time on chopping.

Exclusive interview: Nisha Katona talks us through her new series

How does it feel to have your own cookery show Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen?
Nisha says: "Oh, it's amazing. I can’t tell you how completely blindsided and grateful I am about it. But I’m constantly worried about how it's going to be received, as it’s so personal – you’re baring your soul and your life!"

What sets it apart?
"I'm very passionate about teaching people how the world cooks with a paucity of ingredients. It’s about frugality, about what you have in the back of the cupboard that needs using up and what's going off in the fridge, and being able to use all that to feed the people you love. That’s my passion and the most natural place to set that was in amongst the hubbub of my life on my smallholding. Nothing I cook takes more than about 20 minutes because I've got to go and feed the goats or take the alpacas out!"

How did you go about choosing the recipes for the series? 
"These are the recipes I make for my family. Honestly, when I got the series and they said, ‘right, you need this many recipes’, it took me 10 minutes on a whiteboard. The other thing is that I've got to cook within my comfort zone, otherwise it will come across terribly on screen. If I was making a mille-feuille or spun sugar, it would just be inauthentic, so I’m just cooking what’s achievable for me to make for my family." 

What dishes do you make in the first episode?
"So there’s a delicious chicken dhansak. Actually what makes a curry a dhansak is the lentils! It’s what we do in India to pad out a meal. If you think, oh my gosh, suddenly there are another six people here and I need to make this stretch, you lob in a load of lentils! Lentils are the unsung hero in the kitchen. They’re such a delicious and cheap addition. I also make rakott kel, which is a layered minced pork cabbage dish from Hungary, a bit like a lasagne but with cabbage instead of pasta. My husband is Hungarian and in the episode I cook this dish with my mother-in-law and she only speaks Hungarian. She lives in Germany but it's such a treat when she's here!"

How would you describe your outdoor kitchen?
"I cook there a lot, especially in the summer, although it’s lovely to sit out there and make a hot chocolate in the winter, too. It’s not flashy, though. Today, I was out there and the door had blown off my oven in the wind, and my builder said, let’s also sand down the worktop and make it a bit nicer. But I don’t necessarily want a nice worktop. That’s not me!"

You’ve got a big menagerie. Have you always loved animals?
"Animals have always been my passion and I know how they can be a reason for being sometimes. We go through tough times in life, and animals can really be a sense of purpose and contentment. I love having them in this series – it’s not about a flashy kitchen or a flashy lifestyle, but that contentment that comes from connecting with the most humble things around you."

What do you hope viewers will get from watching the series?
"That their blood pressure comes down! Also feeling they could actually cook the dishes. I mean, you don’t even need to be able to chop! You could just buy frozen cubes of grated ginger or garlic or even frozen chopped onions. I chop like I’ve got 10 thumbs so these shortcuts are life-changing!"

Finally, you've stepped down from Great British Menu. But is there anything else you want to do on TV?
"Stepping down from that show was one of the hardest things to do because I loved it. Ed (Gamble) and Tom (Kerridge) are like my brothers. But the reason I stepped down was that I’m building seven restaurants this year, and I've got to pick my battles. It just got to the point where I was never at home. I thought, I'm working so much and what's the point if I'm just going to eat on my own in a hotel at night? But the weird thing is this programme then came along and it forced me to be at home. So more of this kind of stuff in the future would be amazing!"

All about Nisha Katona

Nisha Katona was a barrister before she founded the Mowgli Street Food restaurant chain. She regularly appears as a guest chef on ITV's This Morning and until recently she was a member of the Great British Menu judging panel.