Jennifer Garner Makes This Dish for Her Family Every Holiday—And “They Live For” It

Whether it’s a pork tenderloin, a seven-fish supper, or a signature mac and cheese, everybody has the one holiday feast they look forward to throughout the year. It’s a meal you don’t get year-round, and even if you did, it wouldn’t taste quite ‘like mama makes it.’

Well, at Jennifer Garner’s house, there’s one holiday meal that has her kids, niece, nephews, sisters, parents—all counting down the hours until dinner. While teaming up with KitchenAid for the holidays, Garner took a minute to chat with us about her favorite family food traditions, plus the one dish that has become her seasonal signature. 

In large part, Garner takes on the role of ‘morning baker’ in her packed holiday house, whipping up everything from homemade cinnamon rolls to traditional English muffins (no surprise, if you’ve ever seen the beautiful baked goodies she makes on her Pretend Cooking Show).

But, when it comes to dinner, Garner is famed for one extra-special meal that her family waits all year for. “My nephews and niece and my kids,” she shared with us, “they live for this night.”

Jennifer Garner’s Signature Holiday Dinner 

“One thing I will for sure make during the holidays, I will spend all afternoon making homemade meatballs and homemade pasta,” Garner told us in an interview.

Now, we knew Garner was a pasta fan from the easy brown butter and sage linguine she shared on her Instagram, but we didn’t imagine her in the kitchen making pasta from scratch, especially for a full house. And, we have to say, we’re impressed. 

Even Garner admits how intimidating that task sounds out loud, but she swears it’s really not as difficult as it may seem. A simple pasta dough only involves flour, eggs, salt, and water, so it’s fairly inexpensive to make as well. 

“I never ever, ever would’ve had the guts,” she admitted, “except you just try something once and it’s not so bad. Then a few months later, you think, I want to try that again. And once you’ve done something 2 or 3 times, you stop being so scared of it.” 

Along with that sound advice, she shared that her stand mixer pasta attachment is a huge help in getting the large-scale pasta job done. The tool makes her staple dish not only possible, she said, but easy to prepare. “It's just the easiest thing to use in the whole world,” she added.

How to Make Jennifer Garner’s Spaghetti and Meatballs 

Even if you don’t have the heavy-duty pasta-prepping equipment, you can still make Garner’s spaghetti and meatball dinner easily from scratch with a rolling pin and a little elbow grease. Plus, it’s a great chance to get the kids involved in the kitchen. 

While we don’t know the exact recipe she relies upon every year, we bet these top-rated recipes for homemade pasta and homemade meatballs will give you equally irresistible results. In fact, after two or three successes, you might just adopt this meal as a family holiday staple as well.