Over the years, there have been several attempts to give legendary country singer, philanthropist and all-around icon Dolly Parton a commemorative day of her own.
In 2019, then-Nashville Mayor David Briley named August 5 Dolly Parton Day in recognition of both her musical career and the enormous impact of her nonprofit, Imagination Library. Then, in January of this year, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee proclaimed Jan. 19 Dolly Parton Day in honor of her 80th birthday.
It is difficult, of course, to contain someone as singular — and seemingly as genuine — as Parton within a single calendar square. “Down to earth” is an overused phrase, but rarely has it fit someone so famous quite so well. After the singer’s death in August, however, cities and states across the country joined together in recognizing Sept. 25 as Dolly Parton Day. This one feels like it might stick.
The date itself is a wink to one of Parton’s most famous songs: “9 to 5.” There’s the phonetic joke — nine-two-five — but also something fitting in the song’s message of good humor and perseverance when the man, quite literally, seems determined to keep you down. That keep-your-chin-up spirit was central to Parton’s public persona and remains one small piece of the enormous legacy she leaves behind.
Parades, concerts, festivals and other celebrations will take place around the country. If you’re looking to extend the festivities at home, I can’t think of a better tribute than a true Southern feast — perhaps paired with a donation to Imagination Library.
Parton, who said she first learned to cook out of necessity for her many siblings, was a devoted champion of hearty Southern home cooking. She released several cookbooks filled with classics like chicken and dumplings alongside what she called “old mountain stuff”: beans, potatoes and the inexpensive staples of her East Tennessee childhood. She also launched a baking mix line with Duncan Hines and, later, a series of frozen meals and sides.
So, if you’re building a Dolly-worthy table, here’s where to start.
Cinnamon bread
First things first: You can’t throw a Dolly Parton party without a little Dollywood.
The theme park’s famous cinnamon bread may be the closest thing to a Dolly-approved breakfast pastry, and it is every bit as indulgent as you’d expect from something served in a place full of roller coasters, rhinestones and a giant pink butterfly. The pull-apart loaf is warm, soft and buttery, streaked generously with cinnamon sugar that caramelizes around the edges as it bakes.
Technically, it’s breakfast. Realistically, I have been known to sneak a piece at lunch, in the late afternoon or after dinner with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Dolly Day seems like an especially good excuse.
Coleslaw
Dolly’s “Slaw of Many Colors” is exactly the kind of Southern side dish you want on a table crowded with richer fare: crunchy, creamy, colorful and just a little more playful than your average bowl of coleslaw.
The recipe appears in “Good Lookin’ Cookin’,” the 2024 cookbook Parton wrote with her sister, Rachel Parton George, which features more than 80 recipes alongside family stories. Organized around holidays and gatherings, the book feels particularly appropriate for an occasion like this one.
Coleslaw is already a Southern cookout staple, but this version has a little extra personality. Its cool crunch and acidity offer some welcome relief beside chicken and dumplings, beans and potatoes and whatever other comfort food inevitably accumulates at a Dolly Parton potluck.
Think of it as a palate cleanser — provided your idea of a palate cleanser involves a generous amount of mayonnaise.
Macaroni salad
Parton’s macaroni salad appeared in her first cookbook, “Dollywood Presents: Tennessee Mountain Home Cooking” (1989), a community cookbook featuring more than 250 traditional Southern and Appalachian recipes collected from members of the “Dollywood Family” and sold at the Pigeon Forge theme park.
Macaroni salad was one of my favorite sides as a kid, though I’m not entirely sure why. My mom never made it at home, yet the dish still brings back immediate memories of summer cookouts at the local park: hamburgers on the grill, bubbles floating through the air, chalk neighborhoods drawn across the sidewalk.
There is simply something about a cold, creamy bowl of pasta salad that feels destined for a red-checkered tablecloth and a paper plate.
Dolly’s version fits neatly into that world. It is cool, creamy and loaded with crunchy vegetables, with enough tang and sweetness to keep you going back for “just one more bite.” Better still, it’s ideal party food: Make it ahead, pile it into the biggest bowl you own and let everybody serve themselves.
Parton loved feeding people. This is exactly the sort of dish built for it.
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Chicken and dumplings
If one dish belongs at the center of a Dolly Parton feast, it’s chicken and dumplings.
Dolly herself called it the recipe she was most famous for, and she frequently connected the dish to what she learned from her mother, Avie Lee. Her version appeared in “Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s” in 2006 and resurfaced in “Good Lookin’ Cookin’” in 2024 as one of the sisters’ family favorites.
This is not sleek, minimalist chicken. It is unapologetic Southern comfort: tender meat and soft dumplings tucked into rich broth, the whole thing landing somewhere between supper and a blanket.
That heartiness makes even more sense when you remember Parton was one of 12 siblings and learned to cook in part by helping her mother feed the family.
In a characteristically Dolly explanation of what makes the dish special, she has said her chicken and dumplings have “love” in them.
We’ll take that as the final ingredient.
Beans and potatoes
Beans and potatoes may not sound especially glamorous for a celebration of one of country music’s most glamorous women. That is precisely why they belong here.
Parton grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee in a family where cooking was less about spectacle than figuring out how to make something good from what you had. She has described those early meals — beans, potatoes and other inexpensive staples — as foundational to the way she learned to cook.
At Dollywood, pinto beans and potatoes connect the theme park’s enormous spectacle back to the Appalachian upbringing that shaped its namesake. Parton also famously loved potatoes, once joking that the starchy vegetable was the reason she could never stick to a diet.
Together, the beans are savory and substantial, the potatoes soft and comforting: exactly the kind of unfussy side dish that makes sense alongside the richer Southern classics on this table.
More than that, they are a reminder that Parton never appeared especially interested in sanding away the humble roots of her childhood. She carried them with her — all the way into an enormous career built, in part, on the warmth and generosity she first learned at home.
Cuppa cuppa cake
Now for dessert — and a little Hollywood history.
Cuppa cuppa cake became famous thanks to Parton’s role as Truvy Jones in the 1989 film “Steel Magnolias.” In one of the movie’s most memorable food moments, Truvy explains the almost comically straightforward formula: a cup of flour, a cup of sugar and a cup of fruit cocktail.
That’s it.
No elaborate pastry technique. No agonizing over whether your peaks are stiff or merely firm. This is pure dump-and-mix baking, producing a simple, sweet fruit cake with a golden, bubbly top and soft, spoonable center.
It lands somewhere between cake and cobbler and is especially good served warm under a generous scoop of ice cream — which feels appropriately unfussy for Truvy and appropriately celebratory for Dolly.
Banana pudding
Finally, I can’t think of a better way to close a Dolly Parton celebration than banana pudding.
The recipe was one of Parton’s contributions to “Cooking with Country Music Stars,” a 1986 cookbook compiled by the Country Music Foundation featuring recipes from some of the genre’s biggest names, including Reba McEntire, George Strait and Conway Twitty. Parton has described banana pudding as one of her favorite desserts, tying it to both her childhood and her mother’s cooking. Versions continued to appear in her later cookbooks, keeping the dessert firmly rooted in the food story she told throughout her life.
Parton’s is the old-fashioned kind: layers of vanilla wafers and sliced bananas nestled into creamy pudding, finished with a cap of fluffy meringue lightly browned in the oven. The bananas add freshness; the wafers soften just enough in the pudding to become almost cake-like.
It is, above all, a dish meant to be shared — friends and family gathered around a kitchen table, everybody reaching for another spoonful while quietly keeping track of who got the last good piece.
If there’s one thing Parton seemed to understand especially well, it’s that food is rarely only about food. It is family, memory, generosity and the simple pleasure of making someone feel welcome at your table.
And it doesn’t always have to be pretty. What matters more is that it tastes good and that you share it with people you love.
So put on a Dolly playlist, pile the plates high and pass the banana pudding.
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