Favorite recipes website?
November 17, 2009 7:19 PM   Subscribe

What is your favorite online source for recipes? I'm looking for reliable recipes. Bonus points for the ones with recipe ratings.

I'm busy, broke, and love to cook. I'm looking for fun new online recipe sources. I've gone to the basic websites, like Food Network and Better Homes & Gardens, which are very reliable, but I want to try something different. Many websites feature user-submitted recipes and sometimes those are missing ingredients or necessary steps or just plain taste terrible - so ratings help me to sift through those recipes.
I've very busy and on a tight budget. If I'm going to spend my time and money cooking or baking, it's got to be on a good recipe.
Thanks!
posted by Neekee to Food & Drink (29 answers total) 74 users marked this as a favorite
 
allrecipes.com. I weed out the shitty recipes with ratings too.
posted by anthropomorphic at 7:21 PM on November 17, 2009 [2 favorites]


I assume you've tried epicurious.com? That's generally my go-to site.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


Cool Tools just had a post on recipe aggregators. Check it out.
posted by mjklin at 7:23 PM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I second allrecipies, I've found some great stuff there...
posted by HuronBob at 7:24 PM on November 17, 2009


Simply recipes.

Also, sources for food photos that usually link to recipes:
Foodgawker.
Tastespotting.
posted by zinfandel at 7:31 PM on November 17, 2009


If you like Better Homes & Gardens and Food Network, you might like Real Simple. I used to get the magazines... but thank goodness for the internet.
posted by patheral at 7:37 PM on November 17, 2009


We LOVE cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/
posted by mmf at 7:39 PM on November 17, 2009


Seconding epicurious. I rely on the ratings and reviews there a ton. In general, you can't go wrong with a recipe rated 4 forks and >90 % make again percentage. There are often alternative ways of making the dish in the reviews as well.
posted by peacheater at 7:40 PM on November 17, 2009


I always check The Kitchn first. Not as much as dedicated recipe sites but what they have tends to be great.
posted by monkeymadness at 7:50 PM on November 17, 2009


I use epicurious as well. I do read the reviews for anything that looks interesting whatever the ratings are, because every now and then you get complaints only from people who substituted for every ingredient and also changed the cooking method.

I find Fine Cooking to be regularly excellent in the recipes they have available for free.
posted by jeather at 8:05 PM on November 17, 2009


I love smitten kitchen. A blog plus great recipes mostly from the better food magazines. Beautiful photos.
posted by kgn2507 at 8:07 PM on November 17, 2009


I use taste a fair bit.
Also, Pioneer Woman Cooks (she takes a lot of photos - be warned)
2nding Smitten Kitchen - really love the easy chicken meatball receipe (have been forcing family and friends to write it down/print it out)
posted by latch24 at 8:18 PM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


ok, I just realised PW and SK don't 'rate' as such, which I know you are looking for, but they are both pretty good cooks and I haven't really had any bad experiences with their recipes.
posted by latch24 at 8:23 PM on November 17, 2009


Foodgawker.com is a food-porn-laden, image-heavy site that aggregates recipes from a bunch of different websites. I like it because I need inspiration to plan and cook meals and the pictures of awesome-looking food helps. You can search by tags as well, so you can look up "salsa" or "lamb" and see what looks good.
posted by ijoyner at 8:28 PM on November 17, 2009


I love this blog, Stick to your Hips. It has the most luscious-looking pictures I think I've ever seen. The recipes look easy enough and if they turn out anything like the pictures, the results will be delicious.
posted by VC Drake at 8:34 PM on November 17, 2009


Recipezaar is pretty good if you only look at the frequently and highly rated recipes. They tend to be a bit on the comfort food side (i.e. not inherently healthy), but you can always make your own adjustments.
posted by peep at 9:34 PM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm a fan out of Not Eating Out in NY.
Good recipes, and almost always really cheap. She also rates her recipes in terms of their health factor and cost effectiveness.
posted by geryon at 1:17 AM on November 18, 2009


I love BBC's Good Food Recipes -- they always use fresh ingredients, are very simple, and always taste amazing. They have ratings, and also note the ones that have been "tested" by the Good Food editors.
posted by ukdanae at 3:12 AM on November 18, 2009


taste.com.au. Is an aggregator of several Australian and UK food magazine recipes. Things from Delicious magazine are the most reliable, imho.
posted by smoke at 3:14 AM on November 18, 2009


Most recipes on allrecipes.com are user-submitted, and I have had bad luck with many of them--even the ones that are highly rated. I tend to avoid it.

Cooks Illustrated has very good recipes, though they tend to be time-consuming to make. But if you are looking for the best food, they're the way to go. Some of their recipes are free--especially the ones that come from their television series, America's Test Kitchen--while most of them cost money. They are worth the price.

On the other hand, for easier recipes, food manufacturers have lots of good recipes--for starters try Kraft, Pillsbury, and Tyson.
posted by massysett at 4:23 AM on November 18, 2009


My go-to recipe source is the already-mentioned recipezaar. It is so massively huge that you can really find just about anything and sift/sort into more manageable piles by ingredients, prep method, ratings, etc. I also think it has a good balance between simple/popular/family-friendly recipes and fancier fare. In my experience, the number of recipes with missing ingredients/steps is relatively low.
posted by drlith at 4:33 AM on November 18, 2009


I'm a big fan of Cooking Light. The recipes are all reasonable with respect to fat and sodium, the user reviews and ratings are often very helpful (and only occasionally frivolous), and there are some pretty useful search criteria available.
posted by DrGail at 5:08 AM on November 18, 2009


An off-shoot of Pioneer Woman is Tasty Kitchen, it acts as a forum for her exceptionally large readership, and has recipe ratings too.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:51 AM on November 18, 2009


Came in here to vote for Simply Recipes. The recipes on that site are reliably delicious and easy. It has rarely steered me wrong.
posted by Kimberly at 8:07 AM on November 18, 2009


I second cookinglight.com.
posted by bearwife at 8:56 AM on November 18, 2009


It's new, and a little cutesy-high concept (weekly recipe contests; at the end of a year, the winners are turned into a book), but Amanda Hesser's Food 52 has some good stuff.
posted by neroli at 8:59 AM on November 18, 2009


I would heartily second Pioneer Woman Cooks, even though yeah, she doesn't "rate."
posted by Windigo at 9:39 AM on November 18, 2009


There are the fairly monolithic "collection" sites, most already mentioned: Basic go-to refrences albeit not collections: Sometimes food celebs have message boards or fan-contributed recipes, like Nigella Lawson. Martha Stewart comes to mind too.

And naturally: I find if you really focus on a handful of food bloggers that REALLY jive with you, it can open up whole worlds--food bloggers tend to be each other's friends and allies. I suggest Orangette, Smitten Kitchen, Dorie Greenspan, David Lebovitz, Tartelette, 101 Cookbooks, Coconut & Lime, The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and The Wednesday Chef.
posted by ifjuly at 11:11 AM on November 18, 2009 [7 favorites]


James Beard Foundation - Recipes from the "dean of American cooking".
posted by saoyama at 5:07 PM on January 11, 2010


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