Today we’d like to introduce you to Krystel Spann.
Hi Krystel, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story with Krystel’s Cooking actually began during one of the most uncertain times in my life.
I’ve loved cooking for as long as I can remember. When I was seven years old, Santa brought me my first Easy-Bake Oven, and I was hooked. As I got older, that love only grew. I took cooking classes whenever I could, eventually went to culinary school, and studied culinary arts, baking and pastry, restaurant management, hospitality management, nutrition, and business.
Over the years, I also became a little obsessive about collecting recipes. I would take family recipes, things I had eaten at restaurants, or ideas I wanted to improve and test and rewrite them until they became my own. Eventually, I had a Word document on my computer that was more than 200 pages long. I always thought that maybe someday I would turn it into a cookbook.
Then my life changed.
I had already been living with lupus for many years when I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Initially, doctors believed I had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which can carry a very poor prognosis. Suddenly, I was thinking about my daughters, how much time I might have with them, and everything I hadn’t done yet.
I kept coming back to that document filled with recipes.
I realized that if something happened to me, I didn’t want those recipes sitting on my computer where my girls might never see them. I wanted them to have the meals we had shared, the things I baked for them, and all of those little memories connected to food.
So I built a website.
I called it **Krystel’s Cooking**.
I wasn’t trying to build a big business at the time. I honestly just wanted to create something my daughters would always have. If other people found the recipes and enjoyed them too, I thought that would be a bonus.
Not long afterward, doctors determined that my pulmonary fibrosis was actually related to lupus. It was still a serious diagnosis, but having a clearer understanding of what was causing it also gave us more options for treatment and gave me hope for the future.
Meanwhile, something completely unexpected was happening with Krystel’s Cooking.
People were actually finding it.
I started sharing my recipes online, and eventually one took off. Hundreds of visitors became thousands, and the website continued growing. I kept developing recipes, learning photography, writing, studying SEO, figuring out social media, and teaching myself how to run an online business.
What I had created because I was afraid I might not have enough time with my daughters eventually became my full-time career.
Krystel’s Cooking grew into a thriving business with hundreds of recipes and millions of people discovering my food. I was getting to wake up every day and make a living doing something I genuinely loved.
And then my health changed again.
My breathing became increasingly difficult until eventually even normal activities were exhausting. Walking through the house could leave me breathless. The kitchen, which had always been my happy place, became physically difficult because developing recipes can mean hours of standing, cooking, baking, photographing and cleaning.
Eventually, I was hospitalized in respiratory failure due to complications from lupus and pulmonary fibrosis.
I came home needing supplemental oxygen.
For a while, I had no idea what that meant for the business I had worked so hard to build. My career revolves around being in a kitchen, and suddenly I had to figure out how to do that while dealing with a body that couldn’t work the way it used to.
So I adapted.
I learned to work differently. I learned to pace myself, to conserve my energy for the parts of the business that really need me, and to accept help with the things I don’t have to do myself. I learned that on some days I can be in the kitchen creating, while on others I need to sit at my computer and work on the business side instead.
Sometimes I’m developing recipes while wearing oxygen. It isn’t what I pictured when I imagined this career, but I’ve learned that a life can look different than you planned and still be a really beautiful life.
And Krystel’s Cooking has continued to grow.
I think that’s the part of my journey I’m most proud of. I haven’t magically overcome my health challenges. I still live with them. I’ve simply learned how to build my life alongside them.
The business that began because I wanted to leave my daughters something to remember me by has instead given me something incredible to keep building with them here beside me.
I still have huge dreams for Krystel’s Cooking. I want to continue growing the brand, reach more families, create more recipes, and someday turn that 200-page recipe document that started all of this into the cookbook I used to dream about.
Life has forced me to change the way I pursue those dreams.
It hasn’t convinced me to stop pursuing them.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road.
One of the biggest challenges has been learning how to build a business while living with a chronic illness that can be incredibly unpredictable. I’ve lived with lupus since I was 21, and for many years I was able to manage it without allowing it to take over my life. Developing pulmonary fibrosis changed that.
There have been periods when my health has affected things most people never have to think twice about. At my sickest, walking from one room to another could leave me breathless. Folding laundry felt exhausting. Even talking for too long could make me need to stop and catch my breath.
That’s especially challenging when you’ve built a career around cooking.
People see a finished recipe and a beautiful photograph, but there is so much physical work behind it. There’s grocery shopping, prepping, standing over a stove, cooking, baking, testing, cleaning, styling and photographing. Before my health declined, I could spend hours in the kitchen without really thinking about it. Suddenly, I had to think about how much energy every part of that process required.
Eventually, my health deteriorated to the point that I was hospitalized with respiratory failure and came home relying on supplemental oxygen. That was probably one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced, both personally and professionally. I had finally built this business that allowed me to do something I genuinely loved, and I didn’t know what my new physical limitations were going to mean for it.
I had to learn that there is a difference between giving up and adapting.
I couldn’t always work the way I had before, so I started finding different ways to get the same things accomplished. I became much more intentional about how I use my energy. I learned to plan ahead, spread physically demanding work out when I need to, accept help, and use the days when I’m not able to be as active in the kitchen for the parts of my business I can do from a computer.
There have also been all the normal challenges that come with entrepreneurship. Building something from nothing means constantly learning. I’ve had to teach myself photography, writing, SEO, social media, marketing, analytics and countless other things I never realized would be part of owning a recipe website. Algorithms change, traffic fluctuates, things that worked six months ago suddenly stop working, and there are very few guarantees when you work for yourself.
There have absolutely been moments when I’ve wondered whether I could keep doing it.
But I think the difficult parts have also changed my definition of success.
I used to think being successful meant being able to do everything myself and constantly push forward. Now I understand that sometimes success is recognizing that you need to do something differently and being willing to make that adjustment instead of walking away.
I still have limitations. I still have difficult days. I still have to make decisions based on what my body is capable of doing that day.
But I’m also still running and growing a business that I love.
My circumstances haven’t always been something I could control, but I’ve gotten pretty good at finding another way forward when the original plan doesn’t work.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Krystel’s Cooking?
My business is Krystel’s Cooking, a recipe and food brand focused on making really good food feel approachable for everyday home cooks.
I’m a professionally trained chef and recipe developer, with a background in Culinary Arts, Baking and Pastry Arts, Restaurant Management, Hospitality Management and Nutrition. But when I create recipes for Krystel’s Cooking, I’m not trying to cook like I’m in a restaurant kitchen. I’m thinking about the person standing in their kitchen at 5:30 on a Tuesday night wondering what they’re going to feed their family.
That’s really at the heart of my brand.
I specialize in approachable, family-friendly recipes—comfort food, easy dinners, casseroles, chicken and beef recipes, soups, baking, desserts and seasonal favorites. I want someone to look at one of my recipes and think, “I can make that.”
At the same time, approachable doesn’t have to mean boring. I love taking familiar foods and finding ways to make them a little more exciting, whether that’s adding an unexpected flavor, improving a cooking technique, or simply figuring out how to get a better result without making the recipe unnecessarily complicated.
Krystel’s Cooking has grown to nearly 400 recipes, and millions of people have discovered my recipes since I started the site. One of my favorite parts of what I do is hearing from someone who made one of my recipes for their family and loved it. I’ve had readers tell me that something I created became part of their regular dinner rotation or that they made one of my recipes for a birthday, holiday or family gathering. To me, that is the greatest compliment.
I think what sets Krystel’s Cooking apart is that there is a real person, family and story behind the food.
These aren’t recipes created simply because a particular keyword is popular. Food has been part of my life since I was a little girl. I’ve spent years studying it professionally, working with it and cooking for the people I love. Many of the recipes on Krystel’s Cooking started as meals I made for my own family, recipes I collected over the years, or dishes I kept working on until they were exactly the way I wanted them.
I’m also incredibly proud of how much the brand has evolved. I’ve invested heavily in improving the quality of the recipes, photography and overall experience because I want Krystel’s Cooking to continue growing into something much larger than a website.
But what I’m probably most proud of is what the brand represents to me personally.
Krystel’s Cooking began because I wanted to preserve my recipes for my daughters during a time when I was uncertain about my future. I never imagined that other families would eventually invite those same recipes into their homes. What began as something deeply personal has grown into a thriving business and a community of home cooks.
As the brand continues to grow, I want Krystel’s Cooking to become a trusted place people return to when they need a recipe they know their family will actually want to eat. I want to continue developing recipes, expand into more food and lifestyle media, and eventually publish my own cookbook.
There are a lot of things I hope Krystel’s Cooking becomes in the future, but I never want to lose what made it special in the first place.
At the end of the day, it’s still about making something delicious and sharing it with the people you love.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
My biggest advice is to start before you feel completely ready, because I don’t think there ever really is a moment when you suddenly feel like you have everything figured out.
When I started Krystel’s Cooking, there was so much I didn’t know. I knew food and recipe development, but building a website, understanding SEO, learning photography, figuring out Pinterest, growing an audience, email marketing, and running an online business were all things I had to learn along the way.
If I had waited until I knew how to do all of those things perfectly, Krystel’s Cooking probably wouldn’t exist.
I also wish I had understood earlier how important it is not to compare your beginning to someone else’s middle. It’s very easy to look at someone who has been doing something for ten or fifteen years and wonder why you aren’t where they are after a year or two. You don’t see all of the years of work, mistakes, failed ideas, and learning that happened before you discovered them.
Focus on getting a little better than you were yesterday.
I think another important lesson is to pay attention to what is actually working instead of becoming so attached to your original plan that you’re afraid to change it. Some of the biggest growth I’ve experienced came because I was willing to learn, experiment, look at the numbers, and change direction when something wasn’t working.
And don’t be afraid to invest in yourself when you’re able to. Whether that’s education, better equipment, professional photography, help with something that isn’t your strength, or simply buying yourself back some time, you don’t have to do absolutely everything alone for your success to count.
Most importantly, don’t assume that a setback means you’re on the wrong path.
My journey certainly hasn’t gone the way I expected it to. I’ve had to change plans, slow down, adapt, and figure things out more times than I can count. There have been plenty of moments when quitting would have been easier.
But I’ve learned that sometimes the difference between something that succeeds and something that doesn’t is simply being willing to keep learning and find another way.
You don’t need to know exactly how you’re going to get where you want to go.
You just have to be willing to start—and keep going long enough to figure it out.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://krystelscooking.com
- Instagram: @krysteliscooking
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/krissyscooking
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@krystelscooking
