Her personal chef said this pepper dish was on Diana's menu nearly three times a week.
Celebrate Princess Diana’s Birthday By Making Her All-Time Favorite Meal
Published on Jul. 01, 2025
Happy birthday, Princess Diana! Today marks what would have been her 64th birthday. It’s kind of a bittersweet day, but one that I think is best commemorated by celebrating the princess’s love of one very specific meal.
The royal family is known for having some fairly strict protocol around meals. Royal menus were often prepared up to three days in advance, and Queen Elizabeth was famous for always eating what was on the menu. But in classic Diana form, the princess liked to step outside the box.
More often than not, Diana would go off menu and request one particular dish. Chef Darren McGrady, a former royal chef at Buckingham Palace who later became Diana’s personal chef, was always happy to oblige her request.
What was Princess Diana’s all-time favorite meal?
For the most part, Princess Diana maintained a vegetarian diet. She never ate beef and she only occasionally ate lamb and fish—rainbow trout being her preferred kind of fish. But as for her favorite meal, Princess Diana was absolutely obsessed with stuffed bell peppers. “She probably had it two or three times a week,” says Darren McGrady in this Delish video.
With meat (mostly) off the menu, stuffed peppers and stuffed eggplant were constantly on rotation in the royal kitchen. Unlike Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana didn’t mind garlic, so there was no problem using it in her dishes. “The stuffed bell peppers were filled with all the things she liked. Some zucchini, mushrooms and some rice,” Darren continues in the video. “Some mozzarella, and of course, some Parmesan cheese.”
The entire pepper was finished with a smoked tomato sauce, which Darren made with tomatoes grown in the royal garden. “It brings back so many happy memories, preparing this dish,” he says. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Princess Diana on her birthday than with a delicious meal of stuffed peppers!
Related:
