Eating well isn’t always easy. In New York, as well as the rest of the United States, issues as diverse as global food prices to hectic work lives can lead to diets that we know aren’t good for us. Yet, with a bit of planning and some willpower, as well as an assist from technology, we can improve our mealtimes significantly.
Our smartphones can be used for everything from entertainment like Netflix to trading oil futures on prediction markets, but they have also become essential aids for diet and lifestyle, and they can act as a veritable unlimited library of recipes. Apps have basically become the new cookbooks. While there are a lot of cooking and recipe apps out there, we’ve picked ten of the most trusted below:
Best for calorie counting with recipe support
MyFitnessPal
Primarily a nutrition and food-tracking app, but MyFitnessPal also includes meal-planner features that let you log planned meals straight into your diary, so it suits people who care about calories and weight goals as much as recipes.
Best for healthy eating plans
Lifesum
Lifesum blends food tracking with recipes and structured meal plans, so it works well for users who want healthier cooking without being fitness nuts. One thing we love about it is that it offers personalized feedback.
Best for simple weeknight home cooking
Mealime
Mealime is built around personalized meal plans and grocery lists. It is especially good for busy households that want straightforward dinners without too much planning hassle. Great for busy singles and families alike.
Best for cooking from what you already have
SuperCook
This one is ideal for pantry-led cooking and reducing waste. You enter the ingredients you already have, and it shows recipes you can make right now. A really smart app if you are cooking on a budget.
Best all-rounder for meal planning and recipe saving
Samsung Food
A weird history with this one. Formerly Whisk, the rebranded Samsung Food combines recipe saving, meal planning, grocery lists and nutrition breakdowns. It’s probably the strongest “does everything well” option on this list. An all-rounder, and, yes, despite the branding, it works on iPhone too.
Best for guided cooking
SideChef
SideChef focuses on step-by-step cooking, with extras like shopping lists and meal planning. Yet, its USP is being a handy interactive guide, not just firing out the recipe and leaving you on your own. As the branding suggests, it’s like having an experienced chef standing by your side.
Best for organizing your own recipes
Paprika Recipe Manager
A hugely popular option, Paprika is less about browsing a big public recipe feed and more about saving recipes from the web, organizing them, building meal plans, and generating shopping lists. Great for serious home cooks who already collect recipes.
Best for beginners and visual learners
Tasty
Tasty is a little bit like SideChef, but it remains popular because it makes cooking feel approachable. It offers thousands of recipes plus step-by-step instruction mode and short, easy-to-follow cooking videos.
Best for large recipe libraries and family meal planning
BigOven
BigOven offers a huge recipe database, grocery lists, and menu planning tools. It is a good fit for families for, especially when catering for traditional festivities, such as Thanksgiving meals and Christmas dinner.
Best for mainstream home cooking and meal plans
Good Food
A popular brand in Britain, the Good Food app has been a trusted option there for many years. Its superpower is its very large recipe base, and while it doesn’t break the mold in any sense, it does have meal plans and decent tutorials.
