Celebrity Chef Gaby Dalkin on Tillamook Collaboration, Summer Grilling, and Teaching Famous Friends to Cook (Exclusive)

Celebrity Chef and New York Times Bestselling Author Gaby Dalkin has teamed up with Tillamook to create two delicious summer sandwiches that are quick, easy, delicious, and filling. She admittedly gets approached by brands every week and is picky about who she collaborates with and what she promotes. Already a consumer of Tillamook, the busy mom jumped at the chance to be part of such a customizable partnership. 

Her popular website What’s Gaby Cooking? continues to attract millions, and she is the host of My Best Friend’s Kitchen where she visits with famous friends ranging from Hilary Duff and Kat McPhee Foster to Amanda Kloots, Meghan Trainor, and more to showcase to offer advice and some girl talk around the dinner table. But she has so much more in the works.

Dalkin is currently prepping her fifth cookbook, which is all about making grilling accessible. It’s just in time to work on, along with her new line of spices. PopCulture spoke with Dalkin about why she enjoys working with Tillamook. She also dished on recipes for the summer, grilling, and her varying projects.

PC: how did this collaboration with Tillamook come about?

GD: If I’m being really honest, I was at a wedding. One of my girlfriends was getting married, and I had an out-of-office message on my email, and I got an email from Tillamook who’s literally on my vision board of dream brands that I’m obsessed with. And I took my out-of-office off immediately and wrote them back. And they had said, “You can respond after vacation.” I was like, “Absolutely not. This is the highlight of my life.” Tillamook’s a brand that I’ve been purchasing for years. It’s something I feed my family. I feed it to my daughter. So when they wanted to do something featuring all the farm-style slices this summer, I was like, “What do you want, for how long? I’m in.” That’s how it came about.

PC: Now as far as the collab, you created two custom sandwiches, correct?

GD: Yes. One is called a Double Cheddar Bacon Burger, which is, in my opinion, the burger of summer. It’s basically two really thin burger patties stuffed with Tillamook cheddar slices and then topped with more slices. And then there’s a Grilled Chicken Sandwich that has white cheddar, thin slices on top – and that was my interpretation of a better Chicken Club. It’s got avocado, it’s got tomato, it’s got shredded lettuce, and it just feels a little bit more summery with the addition of the grilled chicken and the melted Tillamook.

PC: What about the sandwiches makes you feel as if they are perfect for the summer?

GD: Well, one is the meltability. I think melted cheese is just summer. It just screams summer because it’s warm, you want something that’s delicious, and you’re already on the grill, so might as well throw it on there and let the grill do the work for you. But both of these, I feel like, are just quintessential summer. They’re sandwiches for all year round, but summer is all about burgers, in my opinion. And everybody already grills chicken, so why don’t you turn it into sandwiches? Plus, I feel like the ratio of the cheese to the meat to all the veggie toppings is an art form. And I feel very confident that these ratios are dialed in.

PC: Now, outside of this collab, you also have a lot of stuff that’s going on. I love the concept of My Best Friend’s Kitchen, because I think it’s really intimate and it shows us that some of our favorites are genuinely us at home trying to make time for food and family. Was that the thought behind the entire project?

GD: My Best Friend’s Kitchen came about because I have all these incredible friends here in Los Angeles that are amazing people and crushing it in their lives, and they can’t cook to save their life. But they have really pretty kitchens, so it’s fun to go to their homes and see a peek into their world, teach them how to cook something. And it’s actually funny because we filmed eight episodes a couple of months ago, and every single girlfriend of mine whose house we went to has taken those recipes and used them in their days even now. It’s been six months since we filmed. So it was a really fun project.

PC: Who do you think were some of your favorite guests?

GD: Well, Hilary Duff was my favorite. That was actually the first episode that aired, and it was the first episode we filmed. She’s a dear friend of mine. Our kids are good friends, but I was so nervous going into shooting, because it was just the first time we had been working with our production crew and all that stuff. But Hilary’s just such a pro. It was the easiest day of all of them. That was, I think, is my forever favorite episode.

PC: I also love that your fifth cookbook that’s coming out is all about grilling, which is also right in time for summer, which I think also comes at a perfect time with this collaboration that you’re doing with Tillamook. What are some of your favorite grilling recipes?

GD: That would be a great question if I was done writing it. The book comes out next summer, but in general, I think I did this series last summer on my Instagram Live, and I just was grilling and having some friends over and teaching them how to grill, because honestly, so many people have no idea and are very intimidated. But I would say some of the basics like the Grilled Chicken Sandwich we’re doing for this Tillamook collab is a great choice. The chicken with the melted cheese on it is in and of itself is a perfect recipe. You could just cut that up, you could throw it on any number of other things, and it would be perfect. Obviously, a burger. I love any sort of grilled fish, that is incredible. I love a kebab, something that’s marinated, and then you can throw it on top of a salad with chunks of cheese.

I live in California, and the beauty of California food is you can really let the really good ingredients shine. You don’t need a lot of things to go into an incredible recipe. You just need great quality products, which is one of the reasons why I’m obsessed with Tillamook. And then you let those flavors really dictate the dish.

PC: Now, with busy schedules, and children and things, and then just being hotter during the summer months, what are some tips on how individuals and families can keep things active in the kitchen, coming from a celebrity chef standpoint?

GD: I think the key to summer cooking is a couple of things. One: having a stocked fridge. That doesn’t mean it needs to be top to bottom full. It just means you have to have the key things. You got to have some great proteins in there, you got to have a dairy drawer that’s full of all the Tillamook slices or shreds, and then you need to have a couple of sauces. And then you can do your prep work inside because everything’s already in your fridge, and head outside and fire up the grill. That way you’re not getting your kitchen hot, you’re not blasting your AC, and you’re still making really incredible simple meals, and including your family. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, so I make her help me put the cheese on top of things, or break up vegetables and throw them into a salad. I like to try and get her involved, especially when we’re doing easy summer recipes.

PC: And going back to your partnership with Tillamook. Why do you think it’s such a good marriage between you and the brand?

GD: It’s so funny. I was talking about this a little bit last night on my Insta Stories. I get pitched from countless brands every week, and Tillamook is the ultimate cheese brand, in my opinion. They make all sorts of other dairy products, but their cheese is divine. All of their products are incredible, but we buy their cheese at least every 48 hours. It is a dream brand, as I said at the beginning, everything about it. The way all the farmers come together, they care about the quality of the product. We’re not focusing on the shreds in this campaign, but I stopped buying shredded cheese with the exception of Tillamook because so much of them, all of them except Tillamook, is coated in cellulose and it doesn’t melt as well. So their quality is just unparalleled.