Top 15 Most Popular Recipes in 2023
2023 was a fun year for food and new recipes!
I received more traffic to my website this year than ever (other than the pandemic year when everyone was at home baking!), and I’m so grateful for all the comments and reviews left on recipes.
I recognize the time it takes to check back and leave a review; it is so helpful for others that look through the comments before making a review. And it means a lot to me! So thank you!
Below are the recipes that were the most popular on my website this year both in terms of traffic and reviews.
What recipes were YOUR favorites this year??
#15 Banana Chocolate Chip Snack Cake
Cake for a snack? Sign me up! So many rave reviews on this easy snack cake. Erin commented: I haven’t ever had something like this, it was so good! I loved all the flavors together and it was so easy! I’m with you Mel, I can’t decide if it’s breakfast or dessert!
#14 Creamy Beef and Noodle Soup
This soup is incredible. I’ve made it dozens of times this year, and it’s ridiculously yummy served with these breadsticks.
#13 Quick and Easy Pizza Dough
Chari left this comment on this recipe: I use the recipe weekly and have it memorized and written on my heart. Best pizza dough recipe and so versatile.
Same, Chari, same. I hear from readers all the time how they have tried every recipe in the book for homemade pizza dough with little success…until this recipe! It’s quick, easy, and makes the best pizza ever.
#12 Copycat Texas Roadhouse Rolls
Serve these rolls with homemade cinnamon butter and you’ll never have to put on real pants and leave your house again.
#11 Sour Cream Banana Bread
This recipe has made the “most popular” list for ten years running, I think. It is one of the tastiest banana bread recipes on the planet.
#10 Soft and Chewy Drop Sugar Cookies
If you want the best and easiest sugar cookies of your life, make this recipe. This review on these sugar cookies made me smile.
Annie writes: Honestly, the best sugar cookie I have ever made. And I’ve been baking since 1970 ! No more cut out cookies for me, these are my go to from now on. I rolled them into walnut size balls and dipped them in vanilla bean sugar. They taste like toasted marshmallows.
#9 Monkey Bread
There is a reason this recipe is consistently so beloved and so popular. It makes the most delicious monkey bread (from scratch! move over canned biscuits!).
#8 The Best Gravy for Any Occasion
Sometimes it’s hard for new recipes to compete with these “most popular” lists because they haven’t had as much time online to gain fans and popularity! But this homemade gravy recipe and tutorial is the exception! I posted this right before Thanksgiving, and it quickly surpassed many recipes that had been living on my site for years in popularity. Good gravy can fix anything! That’s a great motto to live by.
#7 Leftover Turkey Soup
Let’s hear it from Barbara who left this comment! (Also, this soup works exceptionally well with cooked chicken subbed in for the leftover turkey.)
This recipe certainly belongs in the Soup Hall of Fame! Full disclosure: I was just the go-fer while my husband made the soup. In any case, the soup is truly among the very best we’ve ever had…and we are in our late 70s! We now plan to get an extra-large turkey at Christmas and use the leftovers for Round 2 of the soup. Don’t know how well it freezes but we’ll soon find out. Meantime, do yourself a terrific favor —Make The Soup!!
#6 The Best Homemade Salsa
With over 2,300 five-star reviews, you know a recipe is a keeper. I plant a garden just for this salsa so I can make jars and jars of it to get us through the year (apparently so do hundreds of you!). It’s the very best salsa, and you can’t convince me otherwise. 😉
#5 French Bread Rolls
This recipe has stood the test of time and been my go-to, all-purpose roll for almost 20 years now. It makes fantastic dinner rolls, hamburger buns, sandwich/hoagie buns and more. Kyra says: Oh. My. Goodness. Heavenly! My first attempt at homemade dinner rolls and even my picky husband absolutely loved them. I will never even consider trying another recipe. I give this 100 stars
#4 Chocolate Fondue
This chocolate fondue recipe is wildly popular (especially around New Year’s and Valentine’s Day). And you won’t believe how easy it is! Get those strawberries, bananas and rice krispie treats (my top three fave dippers) ready for dipping action!
#3 Cranberry Jalapeno Cream Cheese Dip
This recipe is another one that has consistently been one of the most popular and most made recipes on my site year after year. Pamela sums up the deliciousness with this comment: Love this, and it is quite the hit for parties! I also just eat it out of the bowl by the spoonful!! Nice and crunchy, tasty, tart and Christmasy!
#2 The Best Quesadillas
Really. The best quesadillas. And if you don’t think you need a recipe for quesadillas, think again. The simple tips in this easy recipe will have you rethinking that philosophy and embracing this quesadilla recipe wholeheartedly. After all, it was the SECOND MOST POPULAR recipe on my blog garnering millions of views (with hundreds of you making it to rave reviews!).
#1 Homemade French Bread
Ah, this beloved French bread recipe has been a staple for me (and here on the blog) for decades. The nearly 3,000 5-star reviews don’t lie. It will likely be the best bread you ever make, and it has been the most popular recipe on my site for years and years. It’ll take a miracle for this recipe to get unseated as #1!
Which of these recipes have you made? Do you have any favorites that didn’t make the list?
Happy new year, friends! 🎉
Each of these recipes was a huge hit in our home! Looking forward to what comes out in 2024.
Mel, your blog continues to be my favorite place for recipes for my family, but you’ve made it so much more. Thanks for all you do.
Before I had kids, I made your French bread once a week – it was a sweet and simple routine I didn’t even have to think about. Now, 4-kids-in-5-years later, I’m getting back into the habit of it, and it’s kinda like riding a bike – I can still almost do it from memory! And it feels so nice to be baking bread for my whole family. I’m not at all surprised it’s a crowd favorite!
I make a fair amount of your recipes through the year, but surprisingly I only made 1 from this list!! The banana coconut coffee cake. De-licous! It’s a favorite around here. Thank you, Mel!
I have made 13 of the 15. I wish I had a garden to do the salsa, but it has never worked out, and never done fondue…goals for this year! Love all of them!
I have to get busy to try more of these recipes! The salsa is a favorite. I just made your Beef and Barley soup and Wow, it was perfect. I have to also mention two other favorites are the Ginger Crinkle Cookies and Kansas City Sue Chicken.
So funny, I consider myself a bit of a MKC connoisseur, and yet I’ve only made 3 recipes on this list! I guess I have different preferences than most! I make the pizza dough weekly and have it memorized – I even got a pizza stone this year to level up! Happy New Year, Mel!
I know it’s not from this year, but your Instant Pot Smoky Honey Cilantro Chicken has saved the day more times than you can imagine. Thank you for the time and effort you put into making my life so much easier in the kitchen, and for your wonderful and kind way of approaching life.
I make the both the French bread and the rolls several times each month! My family loves them.
I have so many favorites from your site but one of our MOST favorites, that’s actually in my oven right now for New Year’s Eve tonight, is your cheesecake bars from way back in 2009. I always double it and my family raves each and every time, no matter how many times I make it! My mother-in-law always had our favorite cheesecake recipe until I made this one and now these bars reign supreme. We love your use of brown sugar vs. white sugar in the crust. Yummmm 🙂
French bread is the recipe I make most from your website! Can’t go more than a couple weeks without the family requesting it! Thanks, Mel!
Hi Mel, Just a heads up that when I click on the monkey bread recipe it links to the sugar cookie one.
Just fixed it. Thank you!
For New Years, I plan to make all 15 of these top recipes. I tried this today to make sure it will be good, and it was amazing. I cooked all of the recipes exactly as given – no swapping out different ingredients or different cooking steps at all. Then I took numbers 2 through 15 and blended them up in my BlendTec (the big one but I still had to do multiple batches). Then I sliced off the top of the French bread and scooped out the inside and put it in the freezer for later use. I had to do about a dozen loaves. Pour all the blended up recipes 2-15 into the bread bowl loaves, sprinkle with mozzarella and parmesan (grate your own, none of that fake stuff), and bake for 10 minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly on top. Oh man…
I’ve made 8 of these, and all probably this year as well. The beef soup has definitely become a favorite, the banana bread is a staple, and the French bread is per.fec.tion. What would our family eat without you! Thanks for all the hard work behind the scenes!
Honorable mention for me is your sweet and sour chicken. It is made on the reg. Also, anytime I see a recipe that claims it’s the best ever, if I track it back enough times, 90% of the time it’s your recipe. That’s saying something!
Mel, thank you for all of the amazing recipes over the years! You are a household name in these parts and I have binders full of your recipes that I use regularly. Just l last night I served two of your 2023 top fifteen at a family party—the homemade salsa and the cranberry jalapeño cream cheese dip—both so good! For a quick and easy recipe from this past year, we really love your coconut lime chicken and zucchini recipe. When I’m looking for a new recipe, I always go to your website first and I continue to find treasures that I make over and over and tell my friends about too!
I second what Barbara said- the turkey soup is amazing! It is one if my favorites and I plan for leftovers so I can make it. I think I will try the monkey bread this weekend. I haven’t made it from scratch before, but I know I can trust your recipes. Thanks for all the kitchen inspiration!
The croissant bread – it is life!! So dang good! I’d throw it on as an honorable mention for sure!