Ina Garten’s Favorite Vanilla Extract Is One of Our Favorites, Too

Respectfully, f*ck your imitation vanilla. Throw it in the trash. You need the real stuff. I’m not the only one saying it. Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa herself, agrees! There’s a depth to real vanilla extract that imitation just can’t quite recreate. While it may be an expensive purchase on the front end, you only use a little at a time, so it’s something you’ll have for a long time. Sounds like a great birthday present, if you ask me.

You could (and arguably should) make your own vanilla extract, but who has the time or the space for that??

Let’s be real. Not everyone is living out in the countryside with a whole cellar to dedicate to their canning and crafting. You have to take the reasonable route sometimes and that includes buying store bought when you can’t follow Ina’s instructions on starting your own six-month long vanilla brewing process. Which brings us to the main point—Garten also gave a shoutout to her favorite store bought vanilla extract.

“I love Nielsen Massey vanilla [and Vinz Karl].”

Straight from the horse’s mouth! Okay, for legal reasons I have to clarify that Ina did not say that second part. I added it. Shocking, I know, but now you know the truth. While Ina didn’t have much to say on the subject of Nielsen Massey’s vanilla extract in the video linked above, we’ve tasted it ourselves and have plenty to say.

Sporked correspondent Hebba Gouda tasted nearly a dozen brands of vanilla extract by mixing them into small portions of pudding. “Instead of mellowing the pudding into a comforting but somewhat one-dimensional butterscotch-y flavor profile,” Hebba wrote, “Nielsen Massey’s vanilla extract lent a bit of sharpness to this pudding that was really delicious. It’s not just one of the best vanilla extracts, it’s ‘the good vanilla.’”

There you have it: Nielsen Massey is Ina and Sporked approved. And that’s a good thing. (Oops, that’s Martha’s phrase.)