While eating out or ordering food may seem tempting, it can soon pay off in terms of both calories and bills! Cooking at home is easier on your wallet and health. Hence, it is important to have the best recipe apps on your iPhone or iPad, whether you eat to live or live to eat.
So, I’ve found the perfect tools so you can always prepare nutritious meals with the ingredients you have on hand. What’s more, you can find something that suits your desires, tastes, time availability, and dietary preferences. So go ahead and cook up a storm with these best recipe apps.
1. Delicious – Recipes, Cooking Videos: Editors’ Choice
As the name suggests, Tasty is a one-stop app for all the goodies! You have over 4,000 recipes at your fingertips, presented in an elegant, step-by-step guide mode. This means that they are very easy to reproduce. Trust me, given my clumsiness and lack of culinary prowess, if I can do it, then anyone can!
I love the My Recipes page, which works like a mobile cookbook. It’s perfect for those who love the nostalgic charm of hardcover cookbooks passed down from generation to generation.
The search tool is incredibly powerful and allows you to filter by ingredients, cuisine, and social event. So, you will never be lost on what to cook!
Detailed personalization makes Tasty one of the best free iPhone recipes. You can find hundreds of recipes to suit your dietary needs, such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, and more.
Also, one of my favorite features is What’s in Your Kitchen. This allows you to find recipes based on what ingredients you have. Just select the three ingredients you have and the app will recommend recipes based on them.
pros
- Great for beginners
- Extensive collection of recipes
- Satisfies a variety of dietary needs
- Find recipes for the ingredients you have
Minuses
- Some recipes do not have an exact classification. For example, you can see the egg recipe in the vegetarian section.
Price: Free
2. Food Network Kitchen: The best app to learn how to cook
Here is an app for those who want to improve their culinary skills and learn from the pros. He has tons of video recipes for every palette. The app offers many free features and a monthly subscription to exclusive content.
For example, you can freely browse over 80,000 recipes and save your favorites for access across multiple devices at any time. Plus, you can conveniently deliver ingredients through Amazon Fresh with the click of a button in the app.
But when you opt for a subscription, you can take classes with renowned professional chefs, cookbook authors, culinary experts, and wow celebrity guests. It’s perfect for brushing up on the basics or learning new tricks to cook up a storm!
The great thing is that your purchase of a premium subscription helps feed hungry children through a partnership with No Kid Hungry. Finally, Food Network Kitchen is also available on Apple TV.
pros
- Classes with experts, chefs and celebrities
- Advanced search filters
- Donations through partnership with No Kid Hungry
Minuses
- Interface needs to be optimized
Price: Free ($2.99 per month for Premium)
3. Delicious Recipes & Cooking Tools: Personalized Recipe App
If you need support in the kitchen, Yummly can be your best friend. It offers personalized guidance every step of the way, from recipe recommendations to helpful video tutorials, timers and more convenient tools to make the cooking process easier.
Yummly searches for the best recipes on food blogs and websites and provides you with a personalized feed based on your preferences.
Plus, you can save your favorite recipes and create collections to keep everything organized. You can even schedule a recipe and the app will remind you when it’s time to start cooking.
The app also simplifies the grocery shopping process by adding ingredients to a shopping list and categorizing it by recipe or aisle. Or use what’s in your fridge and discover recipes you can make with what’s on hand.
At the same time, you can keep track of the meals and portions of what you eat thanks to the integration with the Apple Health app. You can also add the Yummly widget to your home screen to get the perfect recipe for any moment of the day.
pros
- Personal recommendations
- Beautiful, intuitive design
- A wide variety of recipes based on dietary preferences, ingredients, etc. d.
Minuses
- Too many ads in the free version
Price: Free ($4.99 for monthly Premium)
4. Kitchen Stories: The Best Free Recipe App
I love how beautifully designed and visually stunning this app is! No wonder it won an Apple Design Award and is sure to inspire you to get creative in the kitchen.
Enjoy HD tutorial videos and fun articles on cooking, baking and everything in between. Recipes are a great balance of tasty and healthy. In addition, you can also share your recipes to become part of the global gourmet community.
In addition, you can customize your profile and save your favorite recipes in personalized cookbooks. I especially appreciate the “cooking mode”that guides you through each recipe so that the result is exactly what you expect.
When you’re done, don’t forget to upload photos of your creations and share your kitchen stories with others in the comments section!
pros
- Great for beginners
- Detailed guides
- Supports English, German, Simplified Chinese
- Good user interface
Minuses
- Mismatches are similar to the Tasty app. For example, you can find a fish recipe in a vegetarian filter.
Price: Free ($4.99 per month for Premium)
5. Paprika: the best recipe organizer
If you love collecting recipes as much as I do, you definitely need this app! It’s perfect for organizing every aspect of your nutrition, from grocery lists and meal plans to recipes from your favorite websites. It syncs perfectly across devices so you can access it anytime, anywhere.
What else? You can import from other apps such as MacGourmet, YummySoup!, MasterCook and Living Cookbook. Finally, keeping order and sharing recipes is easy. It is easy to use and allows you to conveniently catalog all your food needs in one app.
Given its all-round utility, I’m sure you’ll be using Paprika for years, making its one-time price well worth it!
pros
- Integrated Application
- Extensive customization options
- Well designed and functional
Minuses
- Manual entry of personal recipes
Price: $4.99
6. Fit Men Cook: The Best App for Cooking Healthy Recipes
I think we got rid of the gender stereotype a long time ago that only women cook. So here is a recipe app that is primarily for men who want to stay in shape. While exercise is essential, the root of your health is in the kitchen. Get dozens of meal ideas in various categories such as post-workout snacks, low carb lunches, and more.
This app will change your mind if you think healthy food is tasteless or boring. It will help you with easy-to-make, nutritious meals that will help you stick to a healthy diet without spending a lot of time on variety.
Along with step-by-step instructions, it helps with meal planning, grocery shopping, and macro counting for bodybuilding or weight loss. All in all, a wonderful tool that will inspire you to take care of your health.
pros
- Calls for healthy eating
- Recipes for Various Diet Plans and Fitness Needs
- Especially for men
- Great for cooking for both beginners and professionals
Minuses
- A bit expensive
Price: $3.99 (Additional in-app purchases start at $0.99).
7. SuperCook Recipe by Ingredient: The most innovative recipe app ever.
How many times have you found a tempting recipe only to find that you are missing some key ingredients? Say goodbye to nausea and try this smart recipe app that suggests meals based on what you already have.
To get started, go to the app’s pantry page and select all the ingredients you have from a list of over 2,000. Categories include fruits, vegetables, meats, oils, sauces, spices, and more. The SuperCook then works wonders to find the perfect recipes to match your ingredients.
When you run out of something, take it out of the pantry to automatically change recipe recommendations.
This app boasts millions of recipes from thousands of websites in 20 languages. It inspired me to get creative in the kitchen and is a must for anyone who wants to cook more.
pros
- Very easy to use
- Recipes in 20 languages
- Helpful for people with dietary restrictions
Minuses
- Lack of unique or innovative recipes
Price: Free
8. BigOven Recipes & Meal Planner: Best Cooking Community
When it comes to culinary inspiration, BigOven has great ideas for you! No more digging through old cookbooks or frantically searching the internet to find something to cook. Just collect your favorite recipes from all your favorite sites in this application and sort them into folders so you can quickly find them later.
The highlight is the vibrant community of home cooks who share your passion and motivate you to stay in the kitchen. You can find your favorite community members and their recipes on the home screen. Also, read reviews left by others and get notified about comments or questions about recipes you’ve posted.
Plus, you can get even more benefits when you upgrade to a BigOven Pro ad-free subscription. For example, you can upload an unlimited number of recipes and find more that fit your diet and lifestyle with per-ingredient nutrient information and advanced search filters.
Plus, create custom folders to store recipes for any occasion. Plus, plan and distribute weekly meals across multiple BigOven accounts.
pros
- Stores all your recipes in one place
- A vibrant community of culinary lovers
- Multifunctional
Minuses
- Compatibility issues with some websites
Price: Free (Pro starts at $1.99)
9. Plant Based Recipe Forks: The Best Vegan Recipe App
A plant-based lifestyle can be incredibly beneficial for both health and sustainability. And this app is the perfect companion on your healthy eating journey. It’s not easy to find the best vegan apps so I was happy to discover this.
It’s from the makers of the critically acclaimed movie Forks Over Knives. You can access over 600 delicious vegan dishes, with new recipes added weekly!
Moreover, the step-by-step instructions make cooking easier. You can view the ingredients needed for each step by simply clicking along. Make handy shopping lists for the products you need. Sync them across multiple devices with iCloud. Finally, get plant-based lifestyle tips to help you eat healthy.
pros
- Clean design that’s easy to navigate
- Without advertising
- Delicious healthy recipes
Minuses
- Recipe catalog needs to be completed
Price: $4.99
So what are you waiting for? Get up and get ready! Let me know in the comments below which of these best iPhone and iPad recipe apps deserve a chef’s kiss!