Pop singer Taylor Swift has three go-to recipes to make at dinner parties – and they're all swiped from well-known chefs. Ina Garten’s real meatballs and spaghetti, Nigella Lawson’s Mughlai chicken and Jamie Oliver’s chicken fajitas with mole sauce. Although, Taylor has her own trick for the meatballs – use packaged breadcrumbs and ground beef only.

This Aussie actor is a bona fide foodie who credits his dad for getting him into cooking. He told Food & Wine that, according to his father: “If you’re ever looking to really impress someone, particularly a girl, flambéed crêpes suzette is a good way to go.”

Model, writer and cook Chrissy Teigen is well known on social media for her culinary creations and she offers great tips across her channels. Her food hacks include: start hard boiled eggs in cold water and bring to the boil; add pancetta to chicken pot pie for another layer of flavor; and substitute potato for cauliflower for a lighter mash. Delicious. 

Though she does her best to stick to a low-carb diet, given that Dolly's a Tennessee girl through and through, she loves her hearty Southern cooking too. One of her speciality dishes is chicken and dumplings, and she shared her straightforward recipe with her legions of Instagram followers. It’s country cooking at its very best: Dolly’s recipe contains just eight ingredients, proving less is more when it comes to whipping up a culinary delight.

Kim can cook! The socialite and TV personality is known for rustling up soul food feasts for her family, sharing the results on Snapchat. Her offerings include fried chicken, green beans, rice and cornbread, and she's got a hack for making perfectly crispy cornbread: line a tray with butter and sugar before pouring in cornbread mix and drizzle honey on top to make it extra sweet.

A staunch vegan, actress Alicia Silverstone has some great tips if you’re planning on becoming vegetarian. On her blog, The Kind Life, she speaks to other plant-based eaters and shares and collates tips and tricks for cutting back your meat and dairy intake. One post suggests simple tweaks including trying some veggie restaurants, investing in vegan cookbooks, turning your favorite dish into a veggie version, and trying mock meats such as Field Roast and Beyond Meat.

Given his Galician heritage, it’s no surprise that actor-director Emilio has a thing for Spanish cuisine, and he recommends frying padrón peppers in Spanish olive oil with salt and lemon. Emilio also likes to grow said peppers from scratch and is impressively green-fingered – during summer he even leaves plantings on his doorstep for neighbors to take.

Actor and author of the Italian-inspired Tucci Cookbook, Stanley Tucci knows a thing or two about cooking. His tip for the best-ever mashed potatoes is to use olive oil instead of milk or cream and beat in a raw egg yolk just before serving.

Emma Watson finds the best way to start the day is a la Mexicana. The Harry Potter star makes guacamole, salsa, and scrambled eggs, throws the lot into a tortilla and toasts it. It sounds simple, filling and delicious.

NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers has such a thing for his mom’s homemade Chex Mix (a cereal mix that can include nuts, bagel or potato chips, pretzels and seasoning) that he declared it his death row meal. The secret tip? Add melted butter.

She was impossibly beautiful and super slim, and the My Fair Lady actress had a few foodie secrets. She never skipped breakfast, and would take a "detox day" once per month, where she only ate yogurt and apple. But one of the star’s favorite dishes was spaghetti al pomodoro, which she served, according to her son Luca in Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit, “absolutely swimming in sauce”.

On a cooking video uploaded to YouTube (Cooking with Kylie), the half-sister of Khloé, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian professed that when she makes burgers her secret ingredient is none other than teriyaki sauce. “This is the secret potion: teriyaki sauce,” she says. “This is what’s up.”

British actor Tom Hiddleston's recipe for a killer bolognese is “a big generous knob of butter, a little bacon, and then carrots, celery, ground beef…a tin of tomatoes, bit of red wine, bit of milk, healthy garnish. Stir it a bit...." He adds: "So you kind of braise everything... And, then once it's all sort of stewing, stick it in the oven at about 350°F (180°C)."

One of Twilight star Kristen Stewart's favorite dishes to cook is Mexican tortilla soup and she kindly shared her recipe with Vogue. The spicy broth takes little more than 30 minutes to make and is topped with diced avocado, shredded Cheddar, cilantro, lime and tortillas.

Actress and comedian Amy Sedaris has a thing or two to say about cooking and entertaining in her cookbook, I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence. Some tips are tongue-in-cheek, such as cutting off drunk guests. But there are many other useful hacks including one for meatballs: "Freeze them on a cookie sheet before putting them into a freezer bag so they won't stick together".

Mexican food is a favorite for Friends star Jennifer Aniston, and she loves nachos in particular. Her hack for a healthy, homemade version of the snack is to take tortillas, cut them into triangles and fry them in coconut oil.

Having grown up on Mexican food, Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria knows how to make a killer guacamole. Her trick is to dice avocados instead of mashing them, use serrano chili peppers instead of jalapenos, lemon juice instead of lime and lots of salt. She says she basically makes a salty lemonade for the diced avocado, tomatoes and onion to swim in.

Singer Jennifer Hudson proudly declared that her healthy baked turkey wings “taste like they’re fried”. Her trick is to cover them in reduced-sodium taco seasoning by adding both to a zip lock bag, sealing and shaking. She only uses a smidgen of olive oil cooking spray to coat a baking sheet and cooks her wings for 18 to 20 minutes.

Cameron Diaz offers an abundance of good advice in her second book The Longevity Book. However, our favorite has got to be her simple trick of adding lemon juice and zest to a dish to jazz it up. Make like the movie star and squeeze the fruit over salad, grate it on pasta and throw a wedge in your water.

Apparently, Scarlett’s vegan chocolate chip banana muffins are so good she’s “had marriage proposals” because of them – fellow foodie Gwyneth Paltrow even asked for the recipe. So what’s her secret? She makes it up as she goes along.

Not keen on making up your own recipes? Try our vegan chocolate brownies for size instead

Having once told E! News, "I'm like a closet home ec teacher...I can really cook anything," this Oscar-winning actress certainly knows her way around the kitchen. And kale chips are one of her favorite snacks. Talking to the Daily Mail, she said that after growing a large batch of kale in her garden one year, she got her family hooked on crispy kale chips covered in cheese.

When formerly kitchen-shy Drew Barrymore was learning to cook, she followed the age-old advice to begin with the basics and build up from there. Aside from soup, pasta, slow-cooked pork tacos and meatloaf, one thing she makes well is a breakfast sandwich. Her version requires crusty bread, eggs, basil, tomato, black pepper and the secret ingredient: Boursin cream cheese. It adds flavor yet it doesn’t overpower.

The retired footballer is a fan of homemade pasta since completing a cookery course in Italy – he now makes his own from scratch and serves it to his family. He’s also a dab hand at risotto (cooking up Milanese risotto with saffron), which is difficult to perfect. His advice? “You have to constantly stir and add ingredients”.

Did you know about these surprising celebrity food ranges?

Green juices are the penchant of the Breaking Bad and Jessica Jones actress. She stays away from sweet apple or agave, though, instead creating combos with “kale, spinach, parsley, cucumber and celery” to keep her healthy.

In Recipes For The Good Life, Patti LaBelle’s third cookbook, the singer shares her famous Over-the-Top Mac ‘n’ Cheese recipe, which contains no less than five different cheeses. Follow suit to turn this comfort food dish into a memorable indulgence. 

Discover the 30 cheeses everyone should try at least once

Actress, goop founder and author Gwyneth Paltrow is known for her super-healthy recipes, and her green goddess salad dressing was a winner with her followers. It contains basil, chives, cilantro, parsley, tarragon, avocado, raw honey, vegan mayonnaise, lemon juice and olive oil.

Amy Adams starred in 2009 film Julie & Julia, as a blogger who attempts all the recipes in legendary chef Julia Child’s Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. The actress herself is a garlic enthusiast, but hates the smell on her hands. Her answer? She uses a nifty rubber tube device to remove the skin.

Are you a Julia Child fan? Check out her 25 top tips for cooking chicken perfectly

Justin Timberlake’s other half eats little wheat or dairy, basing her meals around fish or lean meat and vegetables. The actress' hack to stay on track is to roast vegetables, purée them into soup and keep it on hand for late or lazy nights. 

The supermodel's online cooking shows Well Dunn and How it’s Dunn went down a storm on YouTube. Her favorite food to cook is Thai and the show regularly sees her prepping spice blends and marinating meat. However, her culinary mantra is simple: “Practise makes perfect”. 

According to an interview with Food & Wine, Norah Jones can whip up a mean cocktail. The singer shakes vodka with cucumber and ice really hard so it “mashes up the cucumber” and the ice “waters down the vodka”. She also adds “a little fresh mint, a drop of absinthe or a squeeze of lime”.

Here are 20 easy three-ingredient cocktails anyone can make

Having tried a plethora of diets in her time, iconic talk-show host Oprah Winfrey shares her healthy-living hacks in cookbook Food, Health And Happiness. The businesswoman is a fan of swapping ground beef for lower-fat ground turkey and using lettuce leaves as wraps instead of tortillas or burger buns.

Paris Hilton set social media alight when she debuted her culinary YouTube series Cooking with Paris. The heiress, a self-professed “amazing cook”, sashays about her kitchen with her dinky apron-clad dog, cooking up lasagna. Her top tips include not breaking up the lasagna noodles (because “it just ruins the lasagna vibe”); wearing “chef gloves” to avoid any cheese-grater-induced injuries; and donning sunglasses while chopping onions.

Love this? Now discover America's best celebrity-owned restaurants