Self-Taught Vegan Chef :: Food Network Champion :: TV Host
I got 99 problems, but a meal ain’t 1.
But first, some business. Priyanka has amassed a following online, exceeding 200,000, with a loyal following across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and more, so in a sense is considered a vegan influencer, sustainability influencer, fashion influencer, and travel influencer (lot’s of influencing to say the least!). She has worked across several brands globally, from small-businesses to some of the largest brands in the world. Priyanka has also been featured across numerous editorial publications, including a full profile in Forbes. She is sought to as an authority in the industries of vegan cooking, sustainable cooking and fashion, travel, and as a TV personality. Below are some samples of her work. For Press Inquiries, please contact press.chefpriyanka@gmail.com
Now, back to the juicy bits. Born and raised in Staten Island, NY, I am first generation Indian – my parents immigrated to New York in the late 70’s. We are a family full of strong women – I have two older sisters and each of them have a daughter now! You can say my dad is one lucky guy!
My parents were the only members among their family who left India, aside from one of my dad’s brothers. We were so far from our broader family and roots that my parents took strong measures to ensure that we stayed in touch with our culture – my sisters and I learned Kannada (a South Indian language from the State of Karnataka, India) before we learned English, we traveled to India nearly every year during summer vacation, visited the Hindu temple in Queens monthly, and we cooked A LOT.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all important meals in the Naik household. My mom would pack our lunch for school every day and it was never a PB&J – but an Indian inspired spicy Bombay Sandwich, Frooti and Mango Juice. And every night was a different fresh cooked meal. Cooking at home and visiting India every year is what taught me that Indian food is not just garlic naan and chicken tikka masala; it’s regional, it’s familial, it’s diverse, and most importantly – it’s primarily vegetarian. I owe it to my parents and my upbringing for my passion in food, cooking, and retaining my culture through the lens of food.
At a young age, I loved cooking, because it was a huge part of my family’s day-to-day life and I was that kid who has every toy kitchen cooking set and watched every cooking show from Martha Stewart to Food Network. So it has always been a part of who I am. But it was not until twelve years ago, I became a full time vegetarian for environmental and ethical reasons that I realized what a gap there is in the food industry. I would go out to eat as a vegetarian in one of the biggest cities in the world – NYC – only to find that options for me were narrowed down to salads or side dishes. What am I? A rabbit? I’ve never eaten a salad at home and would never think to go to a restaurant just for a side dish! It occurred to me then that perhaps the Western world is not privy to all the amazing things we can be doing with vegetables and in the creation of vegetarian food. Thus chefpriyanka.com was born – I started my blog in effort to share vegetable focused recipes to inspire people on how to cook vegetarian food in their homes. Since the start of my blog, I’ve become a Food Network champion, competed on Quibi’s Dishmantled and won, hosted my own original show on Tastemade, have been interviewed by CNN, GQ, Boston University (my alma mater), among others, and I am working on my first cookbook!
Priyanka on Food Network’s Cooks vs Cons, NYC 2017
When I’m not cooking up a vegan fury, I am at Twitter! I work in tech and lead US API Partnerships at Twitter, based out of Manhattan, NY. Formally, I have held positions at Bloomberg LP, Condé Nast, and Publicis Groupe. Even though my professional life is almost completely unrelated to cooking, I have always found a way to connect the two. While I led the Data Science team at Bloomberg, I created the Bloomberg Pantry social account, where I leveraged pantry items to create original dishes. Bloomberg Pantry became officially part of the Bloomberg suite of tools and was used for culture development and recruiting. I was also the first Twitter employee to be a Guest Chef at the Twitter NYC HQ and the third Twitter employee to be a Guest Chef at Twitter San Francisco HQ serving to over 2000+ people, thus joining the Twitter Guest Chef “Hall of Fame” amongst food luminaries Nigella Lawson, Bryant Terry, Virginia Willis, and other renowned celebrity chefs.
Any tips for the vegetarian on the go?
yes definitely! For breakfast (if you eat eggs) you can make my healthy eggwhite and cheese on a roll and wrap it in foil (i take that work and eat it on the bus!), for lunch you can wrap up the Mediterranean veggie burger in foil (to be fast just replace the grilled onions with raw onions, or take them out altogether!), and I’m going to be posting a variety of lunch and snack options to ear throughout the day! Let me know if this helps 🙂
Your recipes are making me salivate. Can’t wait to try them =]
Pretty sure I love you despite never having met you. 🙂
haha i’m glad you like the recipes! 🙂
Glad I found you-you’re so young, pretty, an economist, a great cook and a vegetarian-wow! Although I’m a nonveg, I’d like to turn vegetarian one day and I’m going to look to your blog for more inspiration for that :-)…great blog!
i woke up to your message and it made my day, literally! I’m so happy my recipes and tips can inspire you! No worries, I was a chickatarian not too long ago! I hope you visit more often and let me know if you make any of my recipes 🙂
hi di….i checked out all d dishes,they r so mouth watering n looks delicious too.i even showed to aayi n mummy.great job….will let u know if i try out any….take care
Thanks!! I hope you and aayi and everyone else make some of my food!
well you visited my page …..neemus is a traditional item of sheherwalis of murshidabad…its a very easy thing to make in winter mornings …..
Loving your recipes, and your amazing efforts into making it worth reading. If you are interested I could repost some of your recipes on The Cooking Channel. The whole idea of cooking channel is hosting recipes worthy of posting. So you are more then welcome. Just contact me on the site if you want.
Regards,
The Cooking Channel
yes, that is something i would definitely be interested! Where do I contact you? Please let me know 🙂
great recipes Pri!!!
Well, basicly you just did your share. I am asking permission since I had some other girl blaming me of plagiarism or something (Im dutch). So I removed it, and asking for permission, which is pretty logical. If you think about it. Anyway, I will just post your recipes, from a to z , not all in one go, just while I work on it, I will post some of yours too, and we do a little blogroll ofcourse, I will do it anyway. So just sit back and watch the posts on the cooking channel, one little sidenote: I use related image + related links, hope thats okay. Its all for seo reasons. Have a great day and I will keep in touch about the developments, you just keep on cooking!
Hey,
I saw the links- looks good! Are you putting a linkback to my site/blog? If so, where can I find it, because I don’t see it anywhere! Where it’s written “By chefPriyanka” the “chefPriyanka” should be a link to my blog. At least, that’s would I would do!
Pri – in case you haven’t yet, you should check out Gourmet LIVE – see how you can push your recipes out there and / or engage with them via Twitter and Facebook.
Hey there, I was just wondering…where do I get the RSS feed for your blog – Sorry about the newbie question if I missed an obvious one…
hi Priyanka i am your fan.i am from kashmir.
hey, if you love animals, why do you eat eggs. 🙁 Have you read ‘Eating Animals’ yet?
Personal choice! 🙂
Love your blog it has great veggie recipes and amazing desserts 🙂
Dear priyanka
So happy to know that a vegetarian chef is going great in foreign shores.
I am a travel agent, vinita, and wish to take A group of ladies to thailand with a special focus on learning good vegetarian cuisine.
Can we have something together or else can u help me with your guidance
Thanks and cheers
Thanks to the excellent guide