Darius Rucker Reveals What Dish His Family Eats Every Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve, and many around the world are gathering with their families and friends for Yuletide festivities. Darius Rucker is among them, and he recently dished about his favorite Christmas dish. During the holiday, Rucker likes to partake in one of his favorite foods: okra soup.

“We have it during the year too, but at Christmas, we always have okra soup in my family,” Rucker said during an Oct. 26 media roundtable at Nashville’s Electric Jane. “It was just something because it’s my favorite thing, and it was just something that the family, we always loved it. And you can make a whole bunch of it, and everybody can eat. So okra soup was always our big thing.”

However, the Hootie and the Blowfish frontman admittedly wasn’t holding out just to enjoy okra soup at the holidays. He noted, “It’s still my favorite meal. I had some the other day.”

As for what exactly goes into Rucker’s okra soup, he apparently spilled the recipe in Deborah Evans Price’s book Country Faith Christmas (per All Create). The ingredients include tomato sauce, whole kernel corn, green Lima beans and, of course, frozen cut okra. (You can buy that book via Amazon to learn country stars’ “Christmas memories, personal recipes, family traditions and favorite Christmas carols.”)

Aside from a soup-filled celebration, Rucker will undoubtedly enjoy downtime with his family. Elsewhere in the October media roundtable, the “Wagon Wheel” singer noted he’s learning to say “no” to work opportunities in order to cherish the moments he has with family.

“I didn’t always give myself time to enjoy it (life),” Rucker said. “It was always work, work, work, work, work. And (if) you’re not working, concentrating on family. But now I’ve learned to say ‘no,’ which was really big for me, learning to say ‘no.’ And I love it. I love writing songs, I love all of it, but I’m at a really cool place in my career where I’m not chasing it anymore. It’s either going to be there or it’s not, now, for me. So I love it. I still love doing it more than anything in the world, but I also love my time off a lot now, too.”

Rucker will release his next album, Carolyn’s Boy, at an undisclosed date in 2023. Rucker has released two singles ahead of the album, “Same Beer Different Problem” and the Chapel Hart collaboration “Ol’ Church Hymn.”