7 Best iPhone Apps For Cooks
You’re a self-proclaimed “foodie.” You know every nook and cranny of your kitchen. You go to the Farmer’s Market every Tuesday. You have tupperware for every day of the week. Your Instagram account looks like this: #foodpassion #foodaholic #foodporn #pinenuts.
Listen, we get you. You love to cook. But have you ever thought about raising the steaks? (Har har.) For reals, though, let’s find the best recipe app for you to help you take it up a notch in the kitchen.
Harvest
Harvest helps you pick the best produce. “Whether it’s knocking on watermelons, smelling pineapples, squeezing avocados, or examining the color of peaches, you’ll always know the best approach.” Enter the month and your location, and Harvest tells you which local and in-season products to choose! The app also informs you of pesticide level warnings and food storage techniques. Never eat a bruised peach again.
Paprika Recipe Manager
We’ve all seen the recipe websites with millions of meals to choose from, but you already know that your own recipes are the best — you just need a place to organize them. Search, find, discover, sort, and store recipes all in this one well-designed app. Price-wise, it’s a bit on the steep side, but it’s worth it for the organization factor. Use timers while you cook, and view recipes at the same time. Enter your grocery list, and the items will be combined and sorted by aisle. Plan out your meals for the whole month, and view them in the calendar. Paprika does the boring stuff for you. You just have to cook.
Weber’s On the Grill
Everyone makes it seem like you’re just supposed to inherently know how to grill, and it’s hard to find a ton of quality grilling recipes online. Weber’s has hundreds of great grilling recipes for an entire grill-prepared meal (even dessert), as well as the entire step-by-step process on how to make it. There’s also tons of info about time and temperature for each ingredient. Pretty soon you’ll be only using the grill.
Allthecooks
Want more social media in your life? Allthecooks is an online community for people who love cooking and sharing worldwide. Ask questions, and other users can quickly message back with advice and ideas, or post photos and recipes for others to replicate or salivate over. This cooking app creates a profile for you so you can connect with friends and view what others have uploaded or liked. Social butterflies — get on this, stat.
Wild Edibles Lite
Don’t touch that, it’s poisonous! But do touch that, it’s delicious! And cook it with that other thing growing under that tree! Wild Edibles Lite helps you identify edible plants so you can ingest them without dying. It’s a teaser version to make you want to buy the full app, Wild Edibles Forage ($5.99), but the Lite version is still super expansive and in-depth. The interface is a bit dull, but it’s an amazing reference guide for anyone interested in foraging their own food. The app includes where to find certain foods, how to tell them apart from non-edible plants (with helpful pictures), and how to prepare them. What are you waiting for? Time to hit the trail and search for some palatable plants!
Big Oven
Named one of the “Best Apps for Foodies,” “Best Apps for New Moms,” and “Best Apps for Eating In,” Big Oven has a big name to live up to. Along with thousands of recipes (it’s one of the best recipe apps out there), it’s also a meal planner. Assign recipes for each day at the beginning of the week, and the app creates a grocery list of everything you’ll need. If you have leftovers, you can plug items into the app and it will generate recipes for you so you can use every last morsel. You’ll have to pay a subscription in order to get rid of ads and have access to all parts of the app, so keep that in mind, but it’s still great at the free level.
Substitutions
Mom is gluten-free. Uncle Jerry is vegan. Sally’s allergic to nuts. How the heck do you make a dinner that fits everyone’s needs? For allergy substitutions, likes/dislikes, and missing ingredients, look no further. Substitutions gives extensive options on how to fit restrictions into any recipe. If you’re out of an essential ingredient, you can still make the dish — easily replace one ingredient for another from a huge database. Now Mom, Uncle Jerry, and Sally can all enjoy your awesome meal!
Smartphones and apps makes our lives easier in so many ways, so why not bring them into the kitchen? With these apps you can explore, create, and recreate to your heart’s content.
I’m not sure why you’re still sitting here reading this, actually. Go to your fridge, make something with what you already have, and then make a plan for the rest of the month/your life. Yum!
What are the best cooking apps in your opinion? Tell us why you love them in the comments!
