Hasan Minhaj Thinks America’s Biggest Accomplishment Is Cereal

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Hasan Minhaj Thinks America’s Biggest Accomplishment Is Cereal

This isAmused Bouche, SAVEUR’s food questionnaire that explores the culinary curiosities of some of our favorite people. This interview series dives deep into their food routines, including dinner party strategies, cherished cookbooks, and the memorable bites they’d hop on a flight for.

Comedian and actor Hasan Minhaj is known for quippy questions, biting comebacks, and colorful commentary, but his most delightful soundbites are about food. During a recent hour-long chat, he named a wide range of favorites, including bananas and oranges (“they come prepackaged and are great for traveling”); macaroni and cheese (“I love every category and version of it, from the box of Kraft to anyone’s Thanksgiving mac ’n’ cheese”); and dal chawal (specifically his mom’s version of the lentils and rice dish, “pure comfort food and my love language”).

These are the best-of-the-best bites for Minhaj, which is coincidentally the name of his new movie—Best of the Best,streaming now on Netflix—that he cowrote with Prashanth Venkataramanujam and stars in as a professor and former dancer. The film pays homage to real-life Bollywood competitions, following collegiate dancers Maya and Anjali (played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia, respectively), whose characters were inspired by “deeply passionate college kids in the biggest world that a lot of people have never heard of.”

Fiery passion is at the center of Minhaj’s life, especially when it comes to actual spice. “Some people want to drive at 85, some like a nice even 65, and some take it five miles below the limit,” he explains in a speedy analogy. “My spice level? I want to feel things in all caps. Life is to be lived. So I’m like, ‘Give it to me!’ Give me the full robustness of flavor that’s possible. I am a maximalist and love it all!”

His other spice of life is chai, “a form of commiseration, community, and love in Indian households—and an entry point to gossiping.” He loves that everyone does chai differently (he and his wife, Beena, prefer a more ginger-forward profile, while his parents like it sweeter). That’s why he became an investor and partner in the New York City-based Kolkata Chai in 2024, working with brothers Ani and Ayan Sanyal to expand the reach of a drink so engrained in their lives and culture. “It’s a welcome change to a lot of people’s only chai experience being at Starbucks in Middle America. It’s really amazing how you can change the complete perspective of an entire culture because of a drink that people can explore and make their own.”

Read on for Minhaj’s answers to our Amused Bouche questionnaire—it’s no surprise they’re chock-full of equally heartwarming and appetizing soundbites.

If you could only eat one thing 24/7/365, what would it be?

America is celebrating its 250th-year anniversary, and I think as a country, America’s greatest accomplishment is what we brought to cereal. I have been caught many a time red-handed with my full paw inside of some Golden Grahams, going to town. I will kill half a box, straight up, no milk. It is a snacking cereal. I’ll be watching a prestige drama and stress-eating Golden Grahams. Sometimes I’ll even drizzle honey over a bowl. I’ll also do the same with Honey Bunches of Oats. There’s a Montagues-and-Capulets debate here of blue box or orange box. I’m a blue box guy, because I love the almonds, extra crunch, and sweetness. It was my granola mix before I started eating granola, and it’s like trail mix without dastardly raisins coming in and f—ing shit up!

What’s the first thing you learned how to cook?

A strawberry Toaster Strudel, one of my all-time favorites. I popped it in the toaster as a kid, and it was an eye-opening experience. When I came home from elementary school, it felt like I was a master chef making myself this crisp little strudel cake and frosting it. I felt like a confectionery master. It was incredible. I toasted it on a level three and would sometimes pop it up and flip it midway through.

How about your latest kitchen adventure?

I actually didn’t hit my growth spurt until much later in high school, so I was quite undersized and malnourished-looking when I was younger. I was bullied a lot. My mother would make me eat three hard-boiled eggs on the way to school. And I hated hard-boiled eggs. Now that I’m a parent of small children, I understand the efficacy of hard-boiled eggs. But now I will pan-fry hard-boiled eggs, because really my hatred of them came from texture and temperature issues. But if you cut them in half and fry them yolk side down, there’s a crispness that makes it turn into a crunchy, almost taco-like topping that you can put on top of bread and butter.

It’s a really delicious, warm-and-gooey snack that I started making when I tried to give my daughter a hard-boiled egg and she immediately spit it out. I’m like, “Yeah, the cycle of torture continues! There needs to be a better way! Let me figure out a way to make this delicious.” The secret was making a quesadilla as the on-ramp she needs to get eggs in her. It was an experiment I worked backward from, kind of like writing a joke, telling a story, or working on a screenplay. My daughter loves quesadillas but hates eggs, so by making it into crunchiness that would blend right in, it wouldn’t feel like a squishy thing that I’m force-feeding her.

What’s your treat-yourself splurge?

Growing up, we were never allowed to order dessert from restaurants. It is my greatest joy to order dessert from restaurants. I’ll tell the missus to order whatever she wants. Sometimes she’ll be indecisive. She always wants the chocolate lava cake, but she’ll be eyeing a berry tart. It’s a distant second, but I’ll take the bullet and order both for us to share. Sometimes when I do it, I’ll look over my shoulder to be like, “Are mom and dad going to find out?” But now I’m dad. We’re mom and dad!

What’s your most cherished cookbook?

I do not cook from cookbooks, but I will cook from YouTube Shorts. There’s just something about the looping nature of it breaking down the recipe. It’s tickling something in my mind and letting me know, “Hey, it’s not that hard. You can totally do it! You’ll get to completion, and it’s going to look pretty good.” And then as soon as doubt kicks in, the video starts playing again and snaps me out of it. It’s like the feeling of playing a song that you love over and over again, like “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan. Play it again! “Men in Black”—play it again! I want to listen to it again, and that’s the feeling I get when I search “chicken tinga recipe” on YouTube Shorts.

Is there a cooking disaster that made you swear off a dish forever?

My wife does most of the cooking, but I want to put on the record that I try. I do cook, but a lot of the reaction is like, “Oh, you tried. I appreciate the effort. And that’s great for you. Why don’t you enjoy the omelet that you’ve made?” But I think I make a great soft-scramble, and what I bring to the breakfast table is pretty solid. I used to burn all of my food because I got impatient and cranked up the heat too fast. I learned you can’t bring microwave energy to a stove. Once I understood that foundational element in not burning your eggs, it was a huge unlock. Then I got to experience the full variety of eggs that aren’t charred.

Which nostalgic foods from childhood bring you the most comfort?

Dal chalwal: just lentils and rice. It has always been the first thing my mom makes for me when I get home to Sacramento, from college until now. It’s this beautiful gesture of love that I’m eating dal chawal with my mother, and her grandchildren are eating it with her at the same time. It’s pure comfort food and my love language.

When you’re playing dinner-party DJ, what’s spinning?

It’s a seasonal thing. Beena is really the entertainer and has been an incredible host since we met. For a holiday party, she’ll queue up a Pentatonix holiday playlist. Thematic, but a little left of center and unexpected.

What is your biggest entertaining flex to impress guests?

She loves a theme. We host Halloween on our block every year and call it Boo Bash. We go all out with a Halloween-themed live band, fog machines on the dance floor—aka the driveway—children’s face painting, bounce house, fake blood as drinks in IV bags. Her level of joy and imagination is unparalleled. She’s incredible. I add pizzazz, but I’m like, “Go off, queen!” She is the show. She’s the show creator, and I’m the showrunner.

Tell me about a meal so good you would hop on a flight to relive it.

My grandparents on both sides of my family have passed away, but I’m lucky enough that I was raised by my grandmother on my mother’s side from third to fifth grade. There’s a specific memory of when my grandmother made biryani. When the lid came off the pot and the steam and aroma of all the flavors escaped for the first time, she would put a ladle in and scoop it out for me, with meat that is so tender because it’s been cooking for so long. That’s the feeling that I would chase and book a flight immediately for, but it’s just a feeling. A feeling of love from it taking all day to make biriyani and that she loved me enough to put in that time and energy. Goat biriyani especially was a special-occasion dish, like when a cousin was getting married, and I associate it with being with family and something happy happening. In Hindi you call it ghar kha khana, the food from home. Biryani is the crème de la crème and the chef’s kiss of Indian cuisine for me. Especially my grandmother’s.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.