I enjoy eating. Food is one of my happy places. With my love of food comes a love and enjoyment for the art of cooking – and being an Apple fan, I often use apps to help me in the kitchen! Here are a few of my favorite cooking and recipe apps!
1. Paprika ($5 each for iPhone and iPad, $20 for Mac)
Although it is on the pricier side ($5 each for iPhone and iPad), Paprika is one of my all-time favorite recipe apps. The app not only allows you to store and manage all of your personal recipes, it can also scale recipes for you, cam make grocery lists, and help you plan meals.
Even better (at least for me), the app can automatically download recipes from most recipe sites, including my favorite site, AllRecipes.com, and even backs up all of your recipes – including personal recipes you have added – so you never lost them. There’s also a Mac app available for $20 in the Mac App Store (yes a bit on the price side), and all three of the apps can sync and share data.
Despite its cost, the entire $30 Mac, iPhone, and iPad system is exceptional. This is my go-to app for storing and searching all of my personal recipes.
2. AllRecipes (iPad, Free, Optional $4.99 Pro Upgrade)
AllRecipes.com is one of my favorite recipe sites, so it’s fitting that it’s also one of my favorite iPad apps! The app can access the entire AllRecipes database, filled with thousands and thousands of great recipes, and also makes it easy to find those recipes by ingredient, or by type.
You can also upgrade the app to Pro for $4.99, which lets you sync with your AllRecipes account (for your online recipe box and shopping lists), easy recipe management (including drag-and-drop editing), and no advertisements!
There’s also an iPhone app available called AllRecipes Dinner Spinner which can help you decide what to cook by randomly generating recipes using your desired criteria!
3. Whole Foods (Free, Universal)
For those of who you enjoy the Whole Foods Market, or who just enjoy eating healthier and more natural foods, this app is for you. It helps you find your nearest store, and helps you find recipes for specific dietary needs, complete with nutrition information and a shopping list generator!
As the description notes, “Every Whole Foods Market recipe includes nutritional information and cooking instructions. You can also enter up to 3 items you have on hand to find recipes using those ingredients.”
4. How to Cook Everything ($9.99, Universal)
At $10, this app appears slightly expensive at first, although it gives you access to all of the recipes from Mark Bittman’s book of the same name (over 2000 recipes), which sells for $20. The app also includes features such as a timer and shopping list.
Possibly the best part about How to Cook Everything, however, is its highly detailed instructions for how to prepare each recipe, as well as common kitchen tasks such as knife sharpening. A comprehensive kitchen resource.
5. Martha Stewart Cookies ($2.99 each for iPhone and iPad)
Everyone loves cookies, right? I know I certainly do. That’s why this app is one of the few that makes it into the Recipe folder on my iPad. The app provides over 90 recipes, and even includes 12 video tutorials. The recipes are also extremely high quality – I have yet to try one of the recipes that I didn’t like!
The Martha Stewart Cookies app does something crucial that I’m sure most of you can appreciate – providing extremely delicious cookie recipes for all occasions! How can you go wrong with that?
6. Epicurious (Free, Universal)
As much as I love AllRecipes.com, I must confess it’s not the only cooking site I frequent. I also enjoy Epicurious. The iPhone and iPad app make it easier to search and browse the site’s over 30,000 recipes, all of which are professional in quality.
As with most recipe apps, Epicureous also includes the ability to make shopping lists, email recipes, read recipe reviews, and more.
7. The Better Bacon Book ($2.99, Universal)
No list of cooking apps would be complete without the Better Bacon Book. While it doesn’t include thousands of recipes, indexing, or shopping lists, it does include 31 excellent bacon recipes, 20 instructional videos on how to cut, cure, and prepare bacon, and more!
Besides containing recipes and guides…this app is all about bacon! BACON! BACON! If you can’t tell, I enjoy bacon – and I probably will until it finally kills me.
