As an avid home cook and professional software developer for over 10 years, I‘ve tested my fair share of cooking apps. While nothing can replace hands-on experience, the right cooking app provides invaluable guidance to kitchen novices. The best apps don‘t just teach recipes. They inspire confidence and culinary curiosity along the way.
The Rise of Cooking Apps
Cooking apps have exploded in popularity in recent years. In 2022 alone, the top 10 cooking apps generated over 60 million downloads. This marks nearly a 200% increase since 2018 [1].
What‘s fueling this rapid growth? Smartphones and tablets allow cooking apps to provide guidance recipe test kitchens traditionally offered. Modern innovations like built-in timers/step trackers, ingredient filters, and HD cooking tutorials also create an interactive, rewarding user experience.
For those just finding their footing in the kitchen, cooking apps provide the perfect training wheels. Read on for the best apps suitable for every skill level and culinary interest.
How Cooking Apps Benefit Beginners
Before diving into recommendations, let‘s explore some stand-out advantages cooking apps offer beginner chefs:
Convenience – Cooking apps provide thousands of recipes in one place. No need to amass a library of cookbooks or rely solely on Google searches.
Guidance – Step tracking, cooking timers, instructional videos and more help cooks follow recipes properly.
Inspiration – Browse recipes based on ingredients/dietary needs for fresh dinner ideas when feeling unmotivated.
Confidence – Beginner-friendly recipes, Q&As with experts and positive communities make cooking less intimidating.
Now let‘s explore the top apps for every type of cook!
1. Tasty
With over 3,000 recipes ranging from quick weeknight dinners to showstopping desserts, Tasty gives you tons of beginner-friendly recipe ideas…
2. SideChef
SideChef offers 18,000 recipes for the novice chef. Use smart filters to sort recipes by cooking time, course type, cuisine, dietary needs, ingredients on hand, and more…
3. Food Network Kitchen
Bring the expertise of Food Network stars like Guy Fieri, Bobby Flay, and more right into your kitchen. Browse recipes, step-by-step classes, and cooking tips from the pros…
4. Kitchen Stories
From cooking newbies looking to master the basics to seasoned home chefs in search of new inspiration, Kitchen Stories teaches essential culinary skills…
5. Epicurious
Boasting 50,000+ recipes from Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Self, and more, Epicurious lets you cook like the pros…
6. BigOven
Manage your cooking from planning to plate using BigOven. Search over 350,000 recipes to cook what you crave…
7. Allrecipes
As one of the largest food websites, Allrecipes brings over 50,000 top-rated recipes straight to your phone…
8. Cookpad
Cookpad operates as more recipe journal than formal cookbook, sharing home cooking recipes from users around the world…
9. Weber Grills
Weber Grills offers the confidence you need to move from stovetop to grill with incredible results…
10. NYT Cooking
Cook like a New York Times chef tonight using NYT Cooking. Access 19,000+ recipes, cooking tips, and techniques from the experts at NYT Cooking…
11. Yummly
Yummly helps you transform the ingredients you have into delicious meals in minutes…
12. Oh She Glows
Go plant-based using the foolproof vegan recipes from blogger Angela Liddon of Oh She Glows fame…
13. HelloFresh
Discover new recipes and conveniently get the perfectly portioned ingredients required to cook them through meal kit service HelloFresh…
Once you‘ve built basic proficiency using entry-level cooking apps, consider expanding your app arsenal for specialized use cases:
Gousto – For Meal Kit Lovers
Gousto provides recipes optimized for meal kit cooking with matching pre-portioned ingredients shipped to your door weekly. Ideal for those seeking convenience.
Weber iGrill – For Grilling Enthusiasts
The Weber iGrill app syncs with Bluetooth thermometers for perfect grilling temps without guesswork. Helpful for novice outdoor chefs.
Prepdeck – For Meal Prep Masters
Prepdeck goes beyond just recipes to provide custom weekly meal plans and corresponding grocery lists to organization-lovers.
Whole Foods Market Recipes – For Conscientious Eaters
Find healthy, natural recipes meeting specialized diets like vegan, keto and more using the Whole Foods Market Recipes app. Tailored for food quality-focused folks.
Paprika Recipe Manager – For Recipe Hoarders
Avid home chefs who compile recipes like it‘s their job need Paprika to securely store, tag, import, and organize massive collections spanning multiple cookbooks, magazines and websites.
Throughout years as both a professional programmer and passionate home chef, I‘ve learned many lessons about cooking apps best enabling kitchen success:
Let the App Guide Ingredient Purchases
Cooking apps conveniently integrate grocery delivery or pick-up into many recipes. So you buy exactly the ingredients needed before starting a recipe. This prevents unused food waste and last-minute grocery panics.
Embrace Substitutions
Don‘t abandon recipe plans just because the store lacked parsley or you forgot buttermilk. Many apps provide suitable ingredient swap suggestions so the show can still go on.
Make Use of Internal Cooking Timers
You should focus on cooking – not constantly checking external timers. Lean into helpful built-in cooking timers many apps offer to direct you through recipes hands-free.
Take Notes Along the Way
I always recommend keeping a running recipe journal. Jot down tweaks you made, cooking observations, spice adjustments, or ingredient subs for future recipe attempts. This helps continuously improve and personalize dishes.
Double Initial Cook Times
As a beginner, estimate most recipe cook times to be twice as long until you better understand your tools and eyeballing skills. Building in extra time prevents undercooked fails.
Ask for Help Early and Often
Don‘t wait until smoke starts billowing to consult digital cooking experts! Reach out early with even minor questions via in-app comments or helplines to get friendly advice.
Utilizing these best practices while letting quality cooking apps guide recipe execution will quickly get beginners prepping elaborate dishes like pros.
Cooking apps offer more than just simple recipe repositories these days. Artificial intelligence now enables apps to provide dynamic, personalized guidance revolutionizing the user experience.
Algorithms track in-app behavior to offer tailored recipe recommendations aligned with your tastes and past cooking tendencies [2]. Apps like SideChef even adjust guidance based on sensor-input metrics like appliance type, altitude and local weather patterns [3].
Some services are pushing the boundaries even further. For example, Prepdeck uses AI to auto-generate weekly meal plans with mathematical precision optimized to user preferences [4].
Formulaic recipes may soon become antiquated relics of the past. Silicon Valley startups are pioneering generative cooking – AI models trained on millions of recipes that design completely customized dishes matched to available ingredients, skill levels, nutrition goals and more [5].
Early adopters can already sample futuristic apps like Chefling and Plant Jammer producing algorithmically-crafted recipes tailored to stuff sitting in your fridge. Before long, AI may displace cookbooks entirely as personalized culinary advisors.
Once you have a solid cooking app tailored to your needs, it‘s time to pick an easy recipe and get cooking! Here are 10 delicious beginner recipes to add to your staples:
1. Shakshuka – This Mediterranean egg dish turns basic ingredients into a restaurant-worthy breakfast in minutes.
2. One Pan Chicken & Veggies – Sheet pan dinners make fast, effortless clean up a reality.
3. Burrito Bowls – Build customized burrito bowls with favorite fixings like rice, beans cheese and more.
4. Chicken Fried Rice – Put leftover rice to delicious use in this versatile veggie stir fry.
5. Mac & Cheese – The quintessential ooey-gooey comfort food suited for cooks of all ages.
6. Pan Seared Salmon – Achieve crispy skin and tender salmon fillets in a single pan for easy weeknight dinners.
7. Simple Pancakes – Fluffy classics ranked among any brunch lover‘s must-know recipes. They freeze great too!
8. Roast Chicken – Nothing‘s more impressive than seasoned, juicy whole birds emerging from the oven.
9. Chili – Hearty meat or bean-based chilis make inexpensive, crowd-pleasing meals perfect for batch cooking.
10. Chocolate Chip Cookies – Finally, end your cooking adventure on a sweet note with this classic baker‘s essential.
Mastering versatile basics like these gives beginners a confidence boost to continue expanding culinary skills.
Once comfortable with cooking staples, it‘s tempting to stick to familiar flavor profiles. But don‘t get caught in a recipe rut! Using apps to discover global cuisines pushes cooks to continuously grow.
Think Mexican dishes are just tacos and fajitas? Try whipping up complex moles, chilaquiles or homemade tamales. Believe Italian food is just pasta and pizza? Attempt your own carbonara, risottos or braciola.
Let cooking apps transport your kitchen across the globe. Includes new flavor profiles keeps cooking perpetually exciting. Never stop exploring!
Finally, don‘t forget to track your cooking journey! Look back at early recipe attempts next to recent dishes to see progress made. Share photos with app communities to get feedback. And monitor app collected data like top saved recipes, most cooked cuisines and total meals planned to quantify improvements.
Reviewing tangible metrics helps anyone recognize how far they’ve come and fuels motivation to continuously upskill. With the guidance of cutting-edge cooking apps, beginners can achieve legitimate kitchen mastery quicker than they ever imagined.
So fire up your new favorite cooking app and let the culinary adventure begin!
References:
- App Annie 2022 Consumer Trends Report
- SideChef Personalized Recipe Recommendations
- SideChef Altitude Adjustment Patent
- Prepdeck Meal Planning Algorithm
- Wired, "The Next Generation of Cooking Apps Can Customize Your Meals"
