‘Nobody Wants This’ Actor Justine Lupe Wants You To Get in Touch With Your Food

Justine Lupe is proof that learning to cook as an adult doesn’t have to be a scary thing. In fact, caring about where your food comes from and how to work with it can be deeply cool. She even makes bringing her own food to work sound fun. (Stars—they’re just like us!) It makes perfect sense that she is the newest partner of Nature’s Fynd, a yogurt made from a mushroom strain found in Yellowstone National Park. Like I said, cool food and Justine Lupe go hand in hand.

Recently she spoke to W+G about what she’s cooking these days, sharing meals with her family, and other deeply rad food moments happening in her life. Spoiler: Her character, Morgan, eats a *lot* in the new season of Nobody Wants This. 

How Lupe eats on (and off) set

If you’ve ever wondered if there’s actual eating on set (or, if you’re like me and you’ve read too much about how reality dating show contestants don’t eat while filming for continuity purposes), Lupe says it depends, but she likes to dive in headfirst when she can. “I try to actually eat because eating is like a real part of human behavior, and it's one of the best parts of life,” she says. “So I want my characters to actually be eating.” 

Which, honestly, sounds like the dream coming from someone who thinks about food all day but doesn’t always get to indulge in whatever I’m talking about. Though she admits it’s more “technical sometimes because you're like, ‘okay, do I have to eat mid scene?’” she adds. “If I'm eating mid scene, I can't do a spit cup.” 

The one thing Lupe *does* try to avoid while she’s filming? “[A] bazillion pieces of candy.” 

Understandably, being in control of your own food every day can add some predictability to what is otherwise a really busy schedule. “I'm in a mode right now,” she says. “Because I'm on a show, I'm doing a lot of meal prepping and so it's a lot of—honestly—a lot of different kinds of meatballs, like bison and chicken meatballs.”

“I was a vegetarian for 12 years,” Lupe notes. “So I'm pretty specific about the animal products that I use and where I get them.” Her ideal meal prep set up? Some protein (probably a meatball), a good vegetable (she loves grilled veggies, especially for the summer), and a grain like couscous. She says it’s delicious to just toss together in any combination.

Learning to cook as an adult

Like many of us, Lupe is a product of the 90s, which means: 90s cooking trends, for better or for worse. “My mom just did not like cooking,” she says. “But she did have some staples that when she did cook them, they were very good; she was really good at making a quiche.” Beyond that, she said her mom also nailed mashed potatoes, and a hyper-specific family spaghetti recipe that included “tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and a red sauce with cheese.”

When it came time for Lupe to branch out on her own, she knew she had a big learning curve. “My mom literally did not teach me to think about cooking,” she says. “She was just not a food-focused person.” So, Lupe took to the internet (as one does) to find inspiration. 

“I think I learned about cooking honestly, pretty recently,” she admits. “I followed this woman on Instagram (Eleonore Toulin) who is a cook in LA, and I [thought], wow, her food looks like exactly the kind of food that I would want to eat.” After watching Toulin’s content for a while, Lupe went out on a limb and reached out to her during a hiatus in filming. (Spoiler alert: Toulin agreed to let Lupe shadow her in the kitchen.)

What followed were weeks of Lupe attending the dinner parties and events that Toulin would cater, watching her cook, prep, and host. This “opened up some skills and inspiration,” says Lupe. “Now I've gotten to a point where I cook pretty often and I have a lot of fun with it.” 

Her biggest tip for getting started: Seek out “good quality” food, and use that to your advantage. Let the flavors shine, and don’t worry about doing anything too fussy or “mind-boggingly complicated,” she says. 

She loves cooking for others (and a solid steak method)

But the best part about learning to cook is sharing it with others, like Lupe does with her husband. “There's something called the marriage salmon—a simple salmon with a beautiful sauce,” Lupe remarks. “We also grill a lot, that's an easy way to just get a lot done.”

Lupe says her husband “shines at the grill,” and uses that as his go-to when trying to do something special, while she takes more classic stovetop methods for their date night dinners. “I love cooking a steak,” she says. “I feel like [Toulin] taught me how to do a really good steak.”

That method? “I cook it for three minutes each side or four minutes each side—in butter and olive oil—then I take it out and let it rest for a few minutes, covered,” Lupe says. “Then I put it back on with some more butter and sage, and then I baste it with the butter.” The steak then comes out of the pan to rest one more time before slicing. 

Another tip up her sleeve is letting the raw steak sit with a coating of salt and pepper before it even hits the stove, so it really marinates in the flavor.

And sharing food moments with her baby

Of course, part of the joy of cooking for her family is having her baby enjoy these meals, too. “We're eating together and she's trying all the things that we're trying—that feeling of community and eating together is like there from the very beginning, and it's not her eating baby food out of the packet while we eat our different food,” Lupe says. “So it's been sweet, really sweet.” 

Her technique involves cutting or mushing up age-appropriate foods so that her baby can try “adult food,” while playing with the texture and getting a feel for all of these new foods. The best part for Lupe is when her baby’s face lights up trying a new food and “[making] a total mess and having fun.”

Because of this approach, some of her baby’s favorite foods are also stuff she loves: Strawberries, sweet potatoes, eggs, and avocados, to name a few. “She's not as into drinking milk anymore; she's *really into* food,” Lupe adds. “She's like, ‘not this—now I have this [food] option, I will be doing that.’”

How mushrooms connect to Lupe’s food ethos

Connection is huge for Lupe, so it only makes sense that one of the most interconnected foods on our planet—mushrooms—play a big part in how she eats and how she views our modern food system. 

“I'm really turned on by innovation in food and innovation that's aimed towards saving our planet,” Lupe adds. “Just thinking about how we're treating our planet, thinking about how we're going to keep our quality of life up, and how to treat other beings on the planet.”

One of the bigger sustainable trends in food right now is mushrooms, partly for their ability to grow in all kinds of places and regenerate at a faster clip than many other foods. “I went to this event and learned how [we’re] using fungi to create different things, like how to make cement out of fungi,” she says. “We're learning how to make a handbag, Stella McCartney is doing a mushroom-based handbag; it’s incredible, the things that they're doing with fungi.” 

Beyond seeing mushrooms in non-edible applications, Lupe “loves” eating mushrooms and can frequently be found at her local farmers’ market, which has a whole stand dedicated to the fungi. Naturally, working with Nature's Fynd Yogurt felt like a good fit for her. “It’s kind of a bizarre thing to wrap your mind around, but it's incredibly innovative,” she says of the mushroom-based yogurt. (Yep, dairy-free, mushroom yogurt.)

The magic includes taking a fungi strain that was found in Yellowstone National Park and, through innovation and science, evolving it into a complete protein where one tray equals the protein equivalent of 20 chickens. “It's sustainable, it's environmentally conscious, and it's kind of magical,” says Lupe.

And, most importantly: Logging off and connecting through food

But you won’t find Lupe searching for TikTok food trends anytime soon: She is “so not on TikTok.” 

Right now, when she’s not on set, Lupe is attracted to “simple food, food that's thoughtful and has good vibes around it.” She adds: “I would encourage people to go to farmers’ markets, talk to the farmers, and see what their process is like—what they're passionate about.”

Above all else: Find what makes *you* excited about food, eating, and cooking. “And that's the thing that I think is reflected in the recipes that I like, and it's why I was attracted to [Toulin],” she elaborates. “I think it's really nice to be surrounded by people who are also excited about what they're doing; it tastes great, and it's good for you.”