Padma Lakshmi on How Her Mom Shaped Her Love of Cooking: 'She Was a Tyrant in the Kitchen But in a Loving Way'

As the host of Bravo's Top Chef and Hulu's Taste the Nation, Padma Lakshmi may be best known for exploring how other chefs perform in the kitchen. But the culinary star says it's the time she spent in her family's kitchen, cooking and learning by her mother's side, that has shaped her the most.

"I've always loved to cook. If I look back on my childhood and how I liked to spend my time with family and friends, it was always cooking. It was always in the kitchen. That's where I was happiest," Lakshmi, 50, tells PEOPLE food & lifestyle director Sonal Dutt, during an interview organized by the employee resource group Women @ Meredith.

While growing up, she recalls watching her mother, Vijaya,prepare delicious and nutritious meals for family and friends who would drop in. She says her mother "was great in the kitchen" and was famous for "being able to whip up anything in about 20 to 30 minutes." She jokes, "She was a tyrant in the kitchen, but in a very loving, benevolent way."

"She was a nurse for over 50 years, and she was on her feet all day long. She was also a single mom for much of my childhood, so she was extremely efficient and fast in the kitchen," says the creator and host of Hulu's Taste the Nation. "She didn't have the luxury of spending four hours at the stove."

Lakshmi, who recently reissued her first cookbook Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet, incorporated those skills into her own home cooking—and now shares them, along with her favorite recipes, with her followers by posting instructional videos on social media. "I don't know why that it surprises people that I'm a good cook!" quips Lakshmi, who hosted a cooking show on the Food Network in 2001. "Maybe it's because people don't actually see me cook on TV anymore, but I love sharing and teaching people about the food I love to cook and eat."

"It's a ritual that I really enjoy," the star says of her quarantine cooking segments, where she has made everything from spicy linguine with shrimp to mango curry. It's also given the star more opportunities to spend time with her 11-year-old daughter, Krishna—who occasionally joins (and some times takes over!) Lakshmi's cooking demos.

"Krishna is a great cook, and loves experimenting with ingredients," she says. "It's been great to see her gain confidence and simply have fun in the kitchen."

It's something Lakshmi hopes her daughter and her fans keep up long after the pandemic is over. "We've all had to cook more at home during the last year, and it's been a good reminder of how comforting and nourishing it is to cook at home. The healthiest thing that you can do for your family is to cook your own food. Even if that's just scrambling an egg, rolling it in a tortilla, and slicing some carrots and cucumber," she says. "Because you're controlling what you're putting in it, you're controlling how much oil you're using or you know, what you're buying as ingredients for those dishes."

During the interview, Lakshmi also shared that just because she's a pro in the kitchen doesn't mean she's immune to the occasional cooking fail.

"I made something [recently], and I was supposed to add a certain kind of beer. I thought, 'Let me try this hazy, pale ale' that I found instead of the normal, regular beer that I [was supposed to] add," says Lakshmi, whose first children's book, Tomatoes for Neela, is out in August. "It made it a little bitter because it also has lemon and the lemon peel is bitter."

"I tried to add water to dilute it. I diluted the bitterness but I also diluted the overall flavor," she says with a laugh. "Not a home run, let's say. We still ate it, believe me. But no one was writing home about that one."