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TikTok chef, author and Young Masterchef judge Poppy O’Toole started making recipe videos at the start of the pandemic after losing her job, moving back in with her parents and growing frustrated that her siblings weren’t paying attention spent her.

Three years later, she has 4.1 million followers, numerous TV appearances and has even toured Peru to raise almost £200,000 for the charity Action Against Hunger.

Yet she still makes TikToks from home and focuses on the simple foods the British love: baked potatoes, hash browns and the classic Sunday lunch.

This summer she’s set to take the internet by storm again, after teaming up with supermarket giant Sainsbury’s to share new recipes that Brits can use to take their roasts to a new level – even in the scorching heat.

MailOnline conducted an exclusive interview with Poppy to hear all about the perfect summer roast – and how she turned her redundancy into one of the most famous chefs in Britain.

Poppy is a big fan of the Sunday Roast and takes pride in creating content to help her millions of fans play their own game. But now she wants to go further.

Citing research from Censuswide for Sainsbury’s, she told MailOnline that she too is seeing a demand for lighter versions of a roast dinner.

She said: ‘Strangely enough as a child I never liked roast dinners because it was on a Sunday so I knew I had to go to school tomorrow.

‘Being a full-fledged adult now, one of my favorite times of the week is preparing a roast dinner. To think that people don’t have that in the summer, and that they don’t get it because it’s hot outside, that’s just wrong.”

The main feature of the lighter roast, which Poppy has devised in collaboration with Sainsbury’s, is not a whole piece of meat, but pork chops with nduja butter, which can be bought ready-made in UK stores.

Simply fry the chops on each side for one minute, then cook in the oven for 12 minutes before adding the nduja butter and cooking for a further two minutes.

Poppy said the nduja chops “have a Mediterranean flavor that you don’t really get with a roast dinner.”

She paired them with slow-roasted candied tomatoes – a simple recipe where the tomatoes are sautéed with garlic and fresh thyme.

The chef’s recipe calls for combining 8 ounces of oil, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, one tablespoon of salt and two teaspoons of sugar, before adding chopped garlic and fresh thyme to a dish with the tomatoes and pouring over the oil mixture. Then bake on low heat for 90 minutes.

The self-proclaimed Queen of Potatoes recommends replacing heavy, fatty roasted potatoes with lemon roasted potatoes for a lighter, more summery alternative.

Poppy says to boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes before letting them air dry.

Then toss the pudding to make them fluffy – this adds the crunch that every roast potato needs. Bake in hot oil in the oven for 30 minutes.

While cooking, mix the juice of one lemon, two teaspoons of oregano and semolina and garlic. Remove the potatoes from the oven, add the mixture plus additional lemon slices and cook for a further 30 minutes.

She added: ‘I also mix the ingredients with a little bit of stock, chicken or vegetable, which soaks right in, so you get a lovely bit of extra flavour, and then there’s a little bit of semolina in there, so you get a little . of extra crispiness.

‘The hint of citrus hit really takes the whole thing to the next level. Potatoes can be quite heavy, but these have a bit of that fat and crunch, but the lemon just shines through. It’s something I enjoy doing.

“A traditional roast, you’ve got your meat, gravy, and I wanted to expand it into something that’s super summery, that people would want to have even when it’s really hot outside.

“It’s so easy to recreate things like this at home.”

No roast would be complete without gravy, and Poppy has it covered. Simply wrap a head of garlic in foil and place it in the same dish as the potatoes to roast.

Then fry a few shallots before adding a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to the pan. Puree the roasted garlic into a paste and add. Then pour in the stock and gradually the cornstarch to thicken.

For a finishing touch on a special occasion, add some fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme and parsley.

This gravy goes particularly well with Poppy’s giant ‘tear and share’ Yorkshire pudding, which can be prepared in an air fryer.

To make it, simply mix four eggs, 140g flour and 220ml milk. Add small bunches of fresh rosemary, thyme and lemon zest and let the mixture cool for an hour.

Then heat the oil in the bowl for the air fryer at 190 degrees Celsius and fry the mixture for five to eight minutes until golden brown and crispy.

Serve in the middle of the table with a handy jar of gravy to dip the pudding into.

Just three years ago, Poppy couldn’t have dreamed she’d be cooking up this new summer roast for four million of her online followers.

In March 2020, she approached ten years as a junior sous chef in London. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit and she lost her job almost immediately.

She told MailOnline she decided to move back in with her parents and younger siblings so her dogs would have access to a garden.

“I thought we’d be in lockdown for three weeks,” Poppy said.

‘When I got home, my brother and sister spent their time scrolling on TikTok and didn’t pay any attention to me! But then they showed me someone cooking there and I thought, okay, let’s make a recipe, let’s do something.

“So we just started making recipes there, mainly so they would think I was cool, and so they would pay me some attention.”

For starters, her platform was very small and she used it to “keep her mind occupied” while she looked for other chef jobs to apply to.

But messages from followers and key workers thanking her for sharing her recipes and cooking expertise changed things: ‘I thought, I’m actually teaching people things that I didn’t know were important at the time.

‘Then I realized I wanted to continue. Because if I can learn a recipe and make someone’s day better, then I will do it.’

After four months, Poppy received her first collaboration request from a kitchen brand and decided to see if she could turn her platform into the next step in her career.

Her TikTok account started to attract more and more attention before it snowballed when one of her videos, in which she imitated a McDonalds style, went viral on social media.

But it was a challenge. Poppy told MailOnline how, immediately after a video she posted reached 100,000 views for the first time, TikTok ‘broke’ – meaning everything was wiped from her account.

She continues: ‘I didn’t have social media before this either. It was brand new to me.

‘I managed to figure out how it works – it was just amazing and exciting and I’m very grateful to all those people who enjoy my content.’

Although those early years are long behind us, Poppy says she still regularly has ‘pinch-me’ moments when she can’t believe what she’s achieved.

‘A few years ago I was in the kitchen and just enjoying my work as a junior sous chef, so it was a big turnaround, the trajectory of my life was completely different at that point.

‘There are so many pinch points all the time. It doesn’t end because I never thought I would end up in this position.

“The first was when one of my videos hit 100,000 views. Then there was the first time the media became interested in what I had done. And then I realized people were listening to what I had to say.”

She explained how she deals with her newfound fame by not acknowledging everything written on social media.

‘I’ve always been very good at enjoying my life no matter what, which is also useful with social media.

‘At some point I had to decide: I’m not looking at all my reactions now. I still go through and answer a lot of them the first day or so, but after that I just skim through them.

‘I don’t want to be silent at all, but sometimes I don’t need to know it all. That’s how I deal with it.

‘Everyone gets criticized and trolled, that’s just the way the internet is and I don’t think that will ever change.

‘But if, for example, I can express my opinion on International Women’s Day, I cannot use my platform for that, it would be stupid not to do that. It’s not something I shy away from.’