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The Top 5 Free Recipe Resources

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When our parents and grandparents wanted so bake or cook, they’d either open up a cookbook or their recipe boxes, filled with recipes gleaned from relatives, books, and friends. Today, for the most part, we open Google. While many people still keep recipe boxes full of old family recipes and recipes that turned out too well to not write down, the Internet is the recipe source that cannot be ignored.

No matter what you want to make, whether it’s soufflé, pot roast, cookies, or a Thanksgiving turkey, you’ll be able to find a recipe online. Millions of digital recipes are at your fingertips. While this is a great thing, it’s sometimes hard to sort through the many results that you get. Which website will give me the best results?

Here are 5 of the top online recipe resources.

Allrecipes.com

Allrecipes is like having your own personal interactive recipe box at your fingertips. Recipes are separated into many different categories and can be sorted in many ways. For instance, you can search for “slow cooker chili” and sort recipes by relevance, user ratings, or popularity. You can also peruse the collections they have – one of which is “Slow Cooker Chili”. It groups all slow cooker chili recipes break them down further into categories and give you the top 20 recipes.
You can also log in to save recipes you find in your own recipe box. There, you can also create menus and shopping lists. Already have the groceries, but not sure what to make? You can search by ingredient. Just plug in the ingredients you want to use, and the site will spit out recipes that include those ingredients.

Pinterest

Pinterest isn’t just for crafts and weddings. Going to the “Categories” drop-down and choosing “Food & Drink” will certainly inspire anyone wishing to cook or bake. The images there should lead you to the recipe after you click on one. These pins are a conglomeration of images from anywhere on the web, so it’s like having every food site together in one.

The only drawback to Pinterest recipes is that they’re not easily separated into smaller categories. The search function does work fairly well, though, so you can search “cookies” or “casserole” and get some good results. Also, some people may have specific boards created, such as “cupcakes” or “comfort foods.” Find these by using Google search and adding “Pinterest.” For instance, if you’re looking for comfort foods, Google “comfort foods Pinterest.””

Epicurious

Epicurious is similar to allrecipes.com in that it provides categories of searchable recipes and a recipe box function. However, they offer even more ways of sorting recipes. You can sort by main ingredient, cuisine, preparation method, and more. For instance, you can take a simple search for “cookies” and narrow your search by choosing the main ingredient as chocolate, the dietary consideration to vegetarian, and the holiday/celebration to Christmas. You now have results for chocolate vegetarian Christmas cookies.

Tablespoon

Tablespoon is a relatively new branded recipe site for General Mills. Although many of the recipes use General Mills products, the site is otherwise very subtly branded. It doesn’t say “General Mills” all over. This site is all about the categories. While they have all the normal categories, they also have the “Quick Dish” section, which is all about really easy, quick recipes. The “Taste for Adventure” section is full of not-your-average recipes for the adventurous cook, and the “Rock UR Party” is all about party food.
Like the other food sites, you can sign in (you can use Facebook if you want) and store your recipes in your virtual recipe box. The site also features coupons for General Mills products, printable right from the website.

Foodnetwork.com

If you’re a foodie, you’re probably familiar with the Food Network. The website features recipes from all your favorite Food Network chefs. If you watch Rachel Ray make something yummy, you can head over to FoodNetwork.com to find the recipe. They also have easily searchable recipes and a virtual recipe box.
Recipe categories include great categories, such as “Weeknight Dinners” and “Family Cooking”. You can also go to the “Chefs” tab to check out top recipes from specific chefs on the channel. They also have a “Restaurants” section, where you can find restaurants that have been featured on the network.