- Maya Rudolph juggles motherhood and fame, cherishing family dinners despite her kids’ busy schedules.
- Her go-to meal is miso-glazed salmon with roasted sweet potatoes—a fiber- and omega-3-rich combo.
- Rudolph’s dish supports gut health thanks to fermented miso and nutrient-packed sweet potatoes and salmon.
Maya Rudolph may be the star of Loot and one of the most iconic Saturday Night Live alums out there, but at the end of the day, she’s also a mom trying to get her family together at the dinner table. The actor appeared on the Table Manners podcast this week, where she dished about her favorite foods and lamented that family dinners are fewer and farther between now that her kids are getting older.
“We try,” said Rudolph, who has four kids with long-time partner and filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (known as PTA to cinephiles), of structured family dinners. “We used to when they were little but now I feel like having children? Everything they do after school feels like it has become professional-level … so no one is ever home at the same time.”
Thankfully, dinnertime isn’t always One Battle After Another for Rudolph and PTA, and this is in part to their kids’ love of discovering trending recipes on social media. “The kids love to look at things on Instagram,” said Rudolph. “My oldest daughter, Pearl, loves to find recipes and we found this recipe for—I forget what they’re called but you take a potato and you put a chopstick underneath and you slice it really really thin—hasselback. I don’t have the time to do that so I really just throw sweet potatoes in the oven. I love a sweet potato maybe more than anything in the world. They’re so good.”
Alongside those roasted sweet potatoes, there’s a tasty fish dish Rudolph loves to cook. “The most recent thing that I’ve really been enjoying making is a homemade version of a miso cod, but more like a salmon—almost like a teriyaki but with a sweet miso,” she said. “So the top is a bit caramel-y and it gets kind of like crispy and gooey.”
We’re big fans of Rudolph’s miso salmon and sweet potato combination, especially since a large sweet potato adds six grams of fiber to your plate. Miso, a soybean paste made by fermenting cooked soybeans, molded grain and salt, is also great for gut health. Since it’s a fermented food, miso can improve digestion and reduce gas, bloating and constipation. What’s more, salmon is a great source of healthy protein that’s rich in omega-3 fatty acids and provides vitamins B12 and D, lots of minerals and plenty of antioxidants, so it’s also a great choice for a healthy dinner.
To replicate Rudolph’s go-to dinner in your own kitchen, try our 5-Ingredient Miso-Glazed Salmon. To make it, gather miso paste, limes, low-sodium soy sauce, pepper, honey and salmon filets, along with some scallions for serving. Preheat the oven to broil with the rack about seven inches from the heat source, then line a baking sheet with foil and spray it with cooking spray.
Whisk 1 ½ tablespoons of miso, a tablespoon of lime juice, two teaspoons of soy sauce and a teaspoon each of ground black pepper and honey in a small bowl. Then, place your salmon filets onto the prepared baking sheet and spoon the miso mixture evenly over each filet. To cook: Broil the filets for five to seven minutes until they flake easily with a fork. Serve the salmon with some thinly-sliced scallions on top and a few lime wedges for squeezing.
We’ve also got you covered with our super-simple Roasted Sweet Potatoes recipe: Coat a pound of unpeeled, diced sweet potatoes with a mixture of olive oil, salt and pepper, then roast them on a baking sheet in a 425°F oven for about 20 minutes, turning them once to ensure proper cooking.
Looking for more gut-healthy meals? Check out our 30-Day Gut-Healthy Meal Plan for Beginners for more delicious meals that support a healthy gut.
