A popular plant-based cooking show has returned for a new season on discovery+.
“Mary McCartney Serves It Up” follows British photographer and cookbook author Mary McCartney as she makes picture-perfect plant-based meals. In each episode, McCartney aims to show the audience how easy and delicious plant-based cooking can be.
“I grew up in a vegetarian family, so the opportunity to have a mainstream meat-free cooking show was something I was super excited about,” said McCartney.
In each episode, McCartney is joined by celebrities and guests who cook alongside her. In the past, she has been joined by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, as well as her father, singer Paul McCartney. Her guests aren’t always strictly vegetarian or vegan but are often open-minded to learning about plant-based eating.
“I think more and more people are open to it, there’s so much more cities like New York and London and so many more restaurants that make meat-free options on the menu, I think people’s palates are much more open-minded about it and enjoy it,” said McCartney. “It’s really encouraging. I think people are more aware of how the food gets to their plate and I think maybe people love animals, people love their pets, and they’re connecting more like, let’s just sort of give it a bit of a break.”
This season, viewers will see McCartney cook alongside actor Jamie Dornan, musician Bryan Adams, actress Simone Ashley and musician Celeste while she shares her sincere love of family gatherings and meat-free entertaining for the holidays. Along the way, she and her guests will perform transatlantic cook-alongs, and answer some revealing food Q&As.
Over the seasons, McCartney has shown the world how to make a variety of plant-based meals, including banana sheet pan pancakes, towering nacho traybake, smoked tofu Pad Thai, and cream of tomato and rosemary soup, just to name a few. For each episode, McCartney tries to think about what her guest would enjoy and gives it a plant-based twist that is just as delicious as the original dish.
“With Jamie Dornan, he’s Irish, so I was thinking what would be a hardy plate of food for him,” said McCartney. “So I made a plant-based take on steak and chips: I did mushroom steak where I got these really big field mushrooms, fried them and seasoned them, I made chunky fries and beurre blanc sauce.”
For McCartney, coming up with the recipes is sort of second nature to her having grown up in a vegetarian family, but she enjoys the challenge of it.
“I love the challenge of, what could it be like if I made it exactly like the classic but swapped out the butter for olive oil and things like that, and it was really good,” said McCartney. “I love it, it’s what I love to do. It makes me really happy and I love things that have lots of flavors.”
McCartney says that the response to the show has been very positive and allowed her to connect with the audience over social media.
“As the seasons have gone on, I’ve become more and more connected to the viewer. I get messages on social media and build a connection,” said McCartney. “It really is about the viewer and it stems from people I know that approach me and say ‘I’m really interested in eating less meat, but I don’t really know what to cook.’ I think it’s about giving ideas and keeping me company in the kitchen.”
In this season, McCartney is looking forward to viewers learning about plant-based meals that are quicker and easier to make on your average weeknight.
“I’ve gone with sort of quicker easier recipes every time. That’s one thing in doing the cooking show that I’ve done is rather than meat-free, how quick and easy can it be?” said McCartney.
The new season of “Mary McCartney Serves It Up” is now available on discovery+.
