A young chef who’s taken TikTok by storm has collaborated with a popular food brand for some great causes. Tineke ‘Tini’ Younger, 24, is working with meal-kit company HelloFresh in a joint effort to support No Kid Hungry and women’s shelters through meal sales and signups.
Younger shot to fame after joining TikTok to share recipes for meals that she made for her boyfriend (now husband), Antoine Wright Jr., and has since published the cookbook “Cooking for my Boyfriend.”
Less than five years on from her emergence into the spotlight, and Younger has appeared on season 2 of Gordon Ramsay‘s “Next Level Chef” and amassed a monumental online following (almost 12 million followers on TikTok an additional 3 million combining her Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook fans).
In an interview with Parade, Younger spoke about her collaboration, while also talking about how she’s preparing to welcome twin girls into the world during the upcoming holiday season.
Younger Used Her Own ‘Go-To’ Dinners for the Collab
Speaking about her partnership with HelloFresh, Younger went into the recipe development process she undertook in preparation for the collab. She said, “Yes, so I did a stuffed chicken, because that is one of my go-to dinners when I don’t feel like cooking, but I still want an at home dinner [that is] semi-healthy, and it’s just not takeout, you know?”
She continued, “And that also is a dish that I like to demo when I go to the women’s shelter. I like to demo a stuffed chicken again, because it’s like, you can stuff your chicken with anything you want, anything in your pantry. I [also] did a chicken cutlet over some pasta — I feel like you can’t go wrong with that. Like I’m actually gonna make something like that for lunch after this. So I love pasta, and I feel like during the fall and winter time kind of making it more on theme with the season.”
According to HelloFresh, Younger’s seasonal recipes include Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffed Chicken with Mashed Potatoes & Garlicky Green Beans and Crispy Chicken Cutlets & Rigatoni in a Creamy Butternut Squash Sauce.
The Collab & Cause Are ‘Really Important’ to Tineke Younger
Younger then discussed why the collaboration is particularly important to her, saying, “This is really important to me again, because I like to volunteer at the women’s shelter, and HelloFresh has reached out to me, and they came up with this concept. So not only did it benefit the women’s shelter, it benefited No Kid Hungry.
“I’ve always grown up volunteering, so it’s just something normal to me, and I have a huge platform. And again, I don’t think kids should go hungry, so I just felt like it was perfect for me, very authentic, and it’s something that I’m very passionate about, and to me, if it’s something I’m really passionate about, it’s very easy for me to promote it and like the authentic side of it.”
The meals Younger has put together for HelloFresh will be available during the weeks of November 8 and November 15. For every meal sold, HelloFresh will donate $1 to No Kid Hungry, up to a total of $50,000. Additionally, HelloFresh will donate $25 to No Kid Hungry for each new sign-up from now until December 3.
Tineke Younger Is ‘Nervous’ About Motherhood
On June 24 this year, Younger revealed on Instagram that she and her husband were expecting twins, in a post captioned, “2 sous chefs on the way❤️.”
In her interview with Parade, she discussed how she’s feeling about the pregnancy and the imminent birth of her two “sous chefs.”
After explaining she was going to start meal prepping for the twins soon, Younger was asked if she’s nervous about motherhood. She replied, “I’m more nervous about how they’re gonna come out. Then also, I already, like, I wake my dogs up in the middle of the night to make sure they’re still breathing. So I’m not looking forward to actual human babies. I feel like I’m not going to get any sleep.”
Younger then said that the only way her pregnancy has affected her cooking is her not being able to stand for as long with two babies inside her, which she finds frustrating.
She then revealed that she isn’t having any unusual cravings, which she’s disappointed about, because she was looking forward to discovering what weird concoctions her body would crave during pregnancy.
