We were lucky to catch up with Adriana Guillen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Adriana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project that I’ve worked on in my career has been my cookbook “Mexico, Ancestral Meals.” When I first began my career in the culinary world, I was mesmerized by technique and creating meals that were creative. To be honest, I was really trying to prove to the world that my food was valuable. However, as the years have passed, priorities changed, and life lessons have been learned, my path keeps bringing me back to basics. When I began writing my cookbook, I knew that I wanted it to be an homage to Mexican food. As I began my research, I was quickly led far back to the beginning of written records of Mexican cuisine. Deep in my research, I learned how healthy, well-balanced, and ancient Mexican food was, especially before colonization. Furthermore, I learned that the “basic” and simple meals that I had grown up eating in rural Mexico as a child were actually the same foods that my ancestors had been eating over 500 years ago. Unfortunately, a lot of these recipes are slowly being lost through the modernization of Mexican food. That’s when I knew that the cookbook had to focus on the staples of Mexican cuisine, with the ingredients as close as possible to the way they were cooked before colonization. Not only is my cookbook an homage to my ancestors, but it is one of the very few cookbooks to document Mexican cuisine before colonization.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I grew up in a small, remote village in Guanajuato, Mexico, where my love for cooking began in wood stove kitchens alongside my mom. Our food was humble, cooked with ingredients right from the fields. When I was almost 8 years old, my family and I moved to the US. While working in higher education after college—what I thought would be my long-term career—I reconnected with my passion for cooking. Operating on a tight budget forced me to cook daily, and the recipes from my childhood quickly came flooding back. This led me to audition for MasterChef USA, Season 4 in 2013, where I was selected from among 40,000 contestants. Though I didn’t win, the experience taught me invaluable lessons and inspired me to pursue a career in the culinary world as a private chef and recipe writer. Today, I share my culinary knowledge through multiple platforms: my YouTube channel, online cooking lessons, and my recently published cookbook. I specialize in healthy, plant-based recipes that emphasize whole foods, abundant vegetables, and rich flavors. While I work with various cuisines, my heart lies in creating plant-based versions of rustic Mexican dishes. My cookbook celebrates Mexico’s ancient recipes that were naturally plant-based before colonization—a heritage I’m passionate about preserving and sharing. Many people are unaware that traditional Mexican cuisine was predominantly plant-based and remarkably healthy, quite unlike the Mexican food commonly found in the United States today. Through my work, I aim to help people cook easy healthy food that is enjoyable.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is helping others. Cooking is something that has been really natural to me, something that is really meditative, and something that has shaped my life in many beautiful ways. When I began sharing my recipes with others, I quickly learned that cooking isn’t natural or as rewarding for everyone. As a private chef, cooking a meal for someone was really fun, but I have found it so much more rewarding when I can actually teach someone else how to cook for themselves. We all need food to survive, and if I can make the process of cooking a little bit better for someone, then my work is valuable. That is why my focus these days is on helping others cook easy meals that are genuinely nourishing, not just emotionally but also for their physical body. The recipes I share are not just recipes that I love; the intention behind each one is to be of service to someone else out there.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I first began my career in the culinary world, I was really focused on simply being creative and becoming a distinguished chef. In 2015, I became a mom to a beautiful little girl, and my entire world shifted. My priorities changed so quickly, and I found myself viewing life completely differently. I decided to take some years off work to focus on being a mom, something that I never thought I would do, but I felt a deep calling in me to do so. It was one of the best decisions that I have ever made for myself and my family. I found myself with little time to cook “fancy” recipes full of technique and simply needing to put a healthy meal on the table for my family. It was during this time that I completely shifted how I wanted to show up in the world when it came to food. In 2020, I began sharing my recipes again, but this time my focus was on helping people cook easy, healthy food at home. The time off and my new experience as a mom taught me that food doesn’t have to be fancy, full of technique, or a work of art to be valuable. If anything, the food that we cook in our homes on a daily basis is often the most valuable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.adrianaguillen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amdvadriana
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@amdvadriana
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@amdvadriana

Image Credits

All images by: R. Adrian Davila