Oprah's Favorite Dish That She Says She'd Choose As Her Last Meal

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Oprah Winfrey is known for many things: her impact in the entertainment and publishing worlds, her expansive broadcasting career, and her love of food and its relationship to health and wellbeing. Having written a cookbook called "Food, Health, and Happiness: 115 On-Point Recipes for Great Meals and a Better Life," it's fair to say that Winfrey values a well-constructed and tasty spread. And when it comes to her final plate of food, Winfrey told People Magazine that her ideal last meal would be pasta. In fact, a single noodle dish wouldn't be enough of a send-off. Instead, she'd have an unapologetic ode to the stuff lasting an entire week: "If I were going to choose my last week, they would all be pastas," she said in the 2019 interview.

It's no surprise that Winfrey would crave an entourage of delicious dishes, as the media icon has always made her appreciation for comfort food known. In 2017, she teamed up with Kraft Heinz to offer a line of refrigerated foods with emphasis on incorporating vegetables withher "O, That's Good!" collaboration. The line eventually expanded to skillet dishes, including Southwest Style Chicken & Penne and Chicken Alfredo, meant to be enjoyed with pasta.

Pasta also happens to be a popular last dish on the minds of other folks in the spotlight. Jamie Oliver also confessed to craving a comforting pasta dish as his last meal, and Al Capone's final bite was allegedly a classic Italian spaghetti meal.

Oprah Winfrey's love of pasta is not something she's ever kept secret. Whether featuring a well-cooked dish on social media or sharing tips for delicious meals in her books, pasta is not left in the shadows. One recipe that Winfrey includes in her 2017 cookbook is pasta primavera, in which a combination of vegetables such as zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, and yellow pepper are paired with pasta and basil for an aromatic dish. On Oprah Daily, she shared that one of her old-time favorite noodle dishes is lemon pasta with peas and mushrooms; she even challenged her chef, Philippe Chevalier, to create a butter-free version of it. Cue a creamy meal sans butter that is instead bulked up using the thick liquid formed from leftover boiled oats.

The media icon promotes a love of delicious and nourishing food through her publications and online platforms, including Oprah.com, so that readers can explore her trove of accessible and globally loved recipes. Some featured dishes include pastas made with ground turkey meat sauce and pesto variations that blend kale and walnuts or green olives and pistachios. If all this talk of pasta has you contemplating your own love of penne or spaghetti (perhaps your appreciation even extends to Oprah-level week-long feasts), you'll want to consider cooking your pasta in red wine for an even richer meal — you can thank us later.