Want to be a better chef or just go beyond heating cans of soup in your microwave? Just try some of the best cooking apps to learn how to cook, find new recipes, and even get tips from other users.
1. Best Cooking Challenges: Cookpad
Price: Free + in-app purchases
Cookpad provides millions of recipes for homemade dishes, which include main courses, appetizers, desserts, soups, and more. Create your own cookbook with personalized recipes or simply search for recipes by specifying the food title or one or more ingredients.
In addition, users can bookmark recipes for quick access, follow other users, and share recipes with friends and family on social media. Check out what’s currently in season and even join cooking challenges. Upgrade to premium for better recipe filters.
You’ll find worldwide cuisine featured on the app. Cookpad even has regions to choose from, such as Mexico, Vietnam, France, and Indonesia, for more relevant featured recipes for your area.
2. Best for Meal Planning: BigOven
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free + in-app purchases
BigOven is one of the best cooking apps for planning meals along with getting expert tips and numerous recipes. New videos and editorials are added regularly. Easily plan meals with a grocery list, meal planner, and leftover manager to find recipes to help you use up leftovers faster.
Easily gather your favorite recipes from other sources as well, but you can only save 200. The ads are a bit obtrusive. Premium members get an ad-free experience and unlimited recipes.
Enjoy a variety of American, Spanish, French, Asian, Greek, and more dishes. While there aren’t regional sections, there are dietary sections, but you can always search by type of dish as well.
3. Best Video Tutorials: Kitchen Stories
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free + in-app purchases
Kitchen Stories is a well-designed cooking app that is perfect for people who are just learning how to cook or those on the lookout for new and delicious recipes. It provides thousands of carefully made recipes and more are added on a weekly basis.
What makes it stand out among the best cooking apps is recipes include comprehensive descriptions and videos to demonstrate the steps involved in preparing a particular meal Even better, the app features an ingredient calculator which calculates the exact amount of ingredients you’ll need for a recipe based on the number of people you wish to serve.
Kitchen Stories is based out of Germany, so you’ll see quite a few German and German-inspired dishes. However, there is a large variety of international dishes to make everyone happy.
4. Best Guided Recipes: Yummly
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free + in-app purchases
Yummly aims to provide a personalized experience while searching through over two million cooking recipes via the app. All you need to do is set your nutrition preferences, dietary restrictions, and allergies so that the app can filter out foods that do not match your tastes. The app even uses AI to better cater recommendations based on recipes you interact with and save.
Like all the other cooking apps, Yummly lets you gather your favorite recipes. But, my favorite part is the guided recipes. These include step-by-step instructions with video clips for each step. Just look for recipes labeled Guided. Some are behind a paywall, though some premium ones are free on the website.
Yummly lets you further customize the experience based on types of cuisine. I discovered a few categories most other apps don’t have, such as Swedish, Irish, and Cajun, among the various international options.
5. Best for Cleaning Out Your Fridge: SuperCook
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free
Have a sparse fridge and pantry? SuperCook has your back. Just tell the app what you have and it goes to work, searching for recipes that match what you have on hand. The recipes come from a variety of sources online, most of which feature easy to follow instructions.
Start with a handful of simple ingredients to build your cooking skills. Then, build up to more challenging dishes with more ingredients. Easily save your favorite recipes and build a shopping list when you run out of your favorite ingredients. Plus, it’s all free, and you can even use your voice to list the items you have.
Since the app’s focused on ingredients, you won’t see cuisine categories. However, the app recognizes a surprising amount of ingredients from around the world, leading to worldwide recipes to try.
6. Best Cooking Companion: SideChef
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free + in-app purchases
SideChef is easily one of the best cooking apps to help you learn to cook, managing dietary needs, meal planning, and even managing smart appliances. It’s an all-in-one cooking app that features thousands of recipes from beginner to expert. There are even built-in timers so you don’t overcook your food.
Most recipe feature step-by-step mode to guide you through the process and show you valuable cooking techniques. SideChef also partners with over 3,000 grocery stores so you can add ingredients to your cart right from the app and have them delivered from your local store (if they participate). The app even shows you what the ingredient looks like and the exact percentage used.
With 17 cuisine types, such as American, Middle Eastern, Korean, and Italian, you’ll learn how to cook in a wide variety of styles. However, the shopping focus is more in the US versus other countries.
7. Best AI Assistant: Tasty
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free + in-app purchases
Tasty is the foodie brand of BuzzFeed, so you’ll find an active community sharing recipes and tips. Of course, this community also helps you learn to cook faster. But, what I love most about Tasty is Botatouille, the app’s AI assistant to help you find recipes for any craving and occasion. For instance, maybe you need the perfect chocolate cake recipe for a 50th birthday party. If you love using AI for help with cooking, try Copilot’s cooking assistant.
Save your favorite recipes and get step-by-step instructions to help you make great dishes every time. And, much like SideChef, you can also purchase ingredients directly through the app, which partners with Walmart for most items.
While it’d be nice if Tasty has a filter by cuisine type, you can search by region or country to quickly find international recipes to take your cooking skills to the next level.
8. Best Social App: Reddit
Available on: Android, iOS, Web
Price: Free
Reddit probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind for best cooking apps, but imagine being able to ask a question and quickly get answers from other home chefs. While Reddit isn’t just for cooking, numerous cooking subreddits like r/Cooking, r/Recipes, and r/CookingForBeginners help you go from not knowing how to hold a knife to hosting a dinner party.
I’d recommend checking out various cooking subreddits to find the best communities for your needs. Use these tips to customize your Reddit feed. You can easily use some of the apps mentioned above to collect any recipes you find.
Learning to cook takes time, but with a little patience and practice, you’ll feel like a chef in no time. But, while you’re waiting for something to simmer or bake, use these apps to learn a new language. Or, take a few minutes to start learning C/C++ programming.
Image credit: Unsplash, All screenshots by Crystal Crowder
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