Sunny Anderson's Favorite Comfort Foods Stem From Being A Self-Proclaimed 'Military Brat'

When you're looking for a solid comfort food — oftentimes warm and cheesy and nice and filling — you can trust Food Network star Sunny Anderson. Anderson has built a career on simple, easy-to-make comfort foods, so we know we can trust her on the subject. In an exclusive interview with Mashed, Sunny Anderson said her favorite comfort food is tied to her "military brat" upbringing. Although born in Oklahoma, Anderson moved around a lot as a child — to wherever the Army would station her dad. She said her parents would research the local food wherever they lived, so her mom learned how to make traditional homemade kimchi, for instance. And while she's always had a fondness for American-style macaroni and cheese, her other favorites are German-based.

"My ultimate comfort food? I think it would have to be something that I don't cook because that's comforting when you've got the night off," Anderson said to Mashed. "I think it would be spaetzle and Jaegerschnitzel at a German restaurant. ... That would be so comforting. ... It warms you up. It makes you feel so cozy." Anderson also acknowledged the role of nostalgia in her love of these German comfort foods. Eating them takes her back to the days of her youth, and there's a lot of comfort in that, as well.

Jaegerschnitzel (or Jägerschnitzel) is a German dish, usually a pork or veal cutlet, pounded until thin and topped with a thick mushroom sauce — generally breaded but not always. It's one of the many mouth-watering German pork dishes you need to try, and it means "hunter's schnitzel" or "hunter's cutlet" in German, because it was originally made with wild game, like wild boar or venison. It's a favorite comfort food in German-influenced countries throughout Europe, loved for its hearty ingredients and warm, umami-rich, gratifying flavor.

Spaetzle (or spätzle) are pasta-like egg noodles or small dumplings made with eggs, flour, and milk. While it resembles pasta, much like gnocchi, it doesn't really count as pasta. In the case of spaetzle, it's mainly due to how it's cooked — sort of part pasta, part dumpling. The wet, pourable spaetzle dough is dropped in boiling water to cook it into its chewy, sort of rope-like, ribbony form, like tiny dumplings. Although it's not technically a pasta, the end result is sort of like the tiny macaronis that Sunny Anderson also enjoys in her mac and cheese. While it can certainly be delicious covered in a cheese sauce, spaetzle is typically served covered with gravy alongside braised or roasted meats. Although quite the rich meal, the perfect comfort plate might just be Jaegerschnitzel served with a side of spaetzle and mac and cheese.

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