How Sarah Ahn Built a TikTok Empire From Her Mom’s Korean Kitchen

Your Mama’s Kitchen

Higher Ground

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cookbook author and content creator Sarah Ahn—best known for “Ahnest Kitchen” on Instagram and TikTok—takes us inside her mama’s kitchen, a place you’ve likely seen on your feed! She shares her family’s incredible story of surviving the Korean War, the secret to perfect Korean fried chicken, and how her 66-year-old mother feels about her unexpected rise to social media stardom.

Your Mama’s Kitchen is a production of Higher Ground.

Produced by Sonia Htoon.

Associate Producers are Camila Thur de Koos and Jenna Levin.

Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen, Ryan Kozlowski and Roy Baum.

Executive producers for Higher Ground are Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman and Michele Norris.

The show’s closing song is 504 by The Soul Rebels.

Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media. Talent booker is Angela Peluso.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by Alloy Health.
0:03.8	Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, the three questions with Andy Richter.
0:09.9	Each week, I invite friends, comedians, actors, and musicians to discuss these three questions.
0:16.1	Where do you come from? Where are you going? And what have you learned?
0:19.0	New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tignitar, Will are you going, and what have you learned? New episodes are out every Tuesday with guests
0:21.4	like Julie Bow and Ted Danson, Tignitaro, Will Arnett, Phoebe Bridgers, and more. You can also
0:27.9	tune in for my weekly Andy Richter Call-in Show episodes where me and a special guest invite callers
0:33.3	to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.
0:38.5	Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.
0:52.1	There's a saying in Korean, if someone has son mat, that literally translates to hand taste.
0:59.2	That's basically what you're saying.
1:00.8	When there's son mat involved in one's cooking, you could taste the love coming out of the mom's hands.
1:07.8	And if someone has son mat, it means they have a talent for cooking that's, that's
1:12.8	energized and powered by the mother's love.
1:24.2	Hello, hello, welcome back to your mama's kitchen. This is a place where we explore how the kitchens we grew up in as kids shaped who we became as adults,
1:33.8	all the things that happened in the kitchen, the food, our parents, their work ethic, their cooking style, the laughter, the arguments, the sweet treats.
1:42.9	I'm Michelle Norris.
1:46.1	My guest today is someone who is part culinary entrepreneur, part trailblazer, a bit of a free spirit, and you might even say
1:51.3	a bit of a homebody. We're joined by Sarah On. She works with America's Test Kitchen, but she's also
1:57.3	a digital creator with her own bustling platform and her huge fan base.
2:02.7	Thousands of people tune into her TikTok and Instagram videos where she goes by Honest Kitchen.
2:08.4	It's a fun play on her family name. You probably pick that up.
	...

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