Shanae Johnson Goes From Salus to Social Media Star

Shanae Johnson has always liked to cook. And, now she’s a social media star because of it.

All thanks to the pandemic. While cooped up at home with her family, Johnson’s children encouraged her to start a TikTok account — a video-sharing social network used to share a variety of short-form videos, from genres such as dance, comedy and education. Oh, and cooking, too.

Johnson, an Admissions officer at Salus University before leaving at the end of September, has always liked to cook. She’s mostly self-taught, never attended culinary school, and also learned from her grandmother and mother while sitting in the kitchen and watching what they were doing during her childhood.

So TikTok videos were a way for Johnson to share some of what she’s learned about making her favorite dishes and recipes. She started her account in December 2020, and within a month, she had 10,000 TikTok followers.

Johnson had been using Instagram, another photo and video-sharing social networking service, to post videos of family dinners and recipes for the past year or so and had attracted 2,000 followers.

But something about her cooking videos finally clicked with the public. Initially she had posted videos with just a musical background. But once again encouraged by family, she started narrating the videos herself.

“I would tell little stories about how I came up with the dish and insert my own personality. I think that’s the thing that gave it life,” said Johnson. “There are a lot of people who post cooking videos on TikTok, but not a lot of them do voiceovers. I think the voiceovers make people feel like there’s a real person talking to them.”

And bam, just like that, Johnson’s TikTok followers exploded to nearly 100,000 and her Instagram numbers shot up to around 40,000. She rarely shows her face on the videos. Followers see only her hands doing the prep work for the dish and hear her voice. One of the dishes that she recreated from a Food Network recipe she saw ended up getting 1.2 million views.

“It’s so crazy. I was at the supermarket one time at the seafood counter and I had on a mask,” said Johnson. “As I’m putting in my order at the seafood counter, a woman walked up to me and she asked if I was the lady from TikTok because she heard my voice. It’s so wild.”

Things continued rolling from there, and that began to open up a whole new world of opportunities for Johnson. She started doing private chef work, going into people’s homes and preparing meals for them. And, once the world started to open up a little bit from the pandemic, she’s cooked for small, private gatherings of up to 20 people.

But it was a TikTok recipe video she posted in March 2021 that caught some big eyes — namely the television show Access Hollywood — which featured the recipe on the show that same month. Access Hollywood host Mario Lopez re-created the recipe on the set and then in August, a producer from the show called Johnson and asked if she was interested in filming a cooking segment with Lopez.

“The producer said, ‘Mario really liked your video and he wants you to come out to Los Angeles and film a segment on your macaroni and cheese.’ So my husband Scott and I flew to L.A. to tape the show at the end of August,” said Johnson.

The show first aired on Aug. 26, 2021, and again a few days later on Aug. 31. During the taping, Lopez asked Johnson what her secret was to good cooking.

“I have a saying in all of my videos, that I add razzle-dazzle to my food,” said Johnson. “Mario asked what exactly was the ‘razzle-dazzle’ and I told him it’s the love you put into it. I cook with love.”

In addition, she likes to play around with different ingredients and spices. “I’ll try different things. I’m trying healthier options, because when we were home due to COVID, we ate terribly. I had to develop some more health-conscious recipes,’”she said. “But I enjoy it. Cooking is therapeutic for me.”

Things have snowballed so much that the side gig has become the full-time gig. Johnson decided to leave the University and, along with her husband, pursue cooking ventures full-time. In addition to preparing private home meals, she has professional athletes as clients, sponsorships from companies that want her to share their products on her videos, and is both a social media influencer and service provider.

“I would have never thought that any of this would be possible. I’ve been cooking forever,” said Johnson. “But I’ve been doing a bunch of gigs and traveling around to different places to cook for people and it’s been a huge success. People are coming out of the woodwork requesting these meals. It’s a blessing.”