THE DESCRIPTION:
Epicurious contains over 25,000 recipes organized by category, each with user reviews. The app also provides a Shopping List for recipes you choose to save.
THE GOOD:
You can browse on the home page by categories that include “Weekend Dinners,” “Cool Cocktails,” or “Healthy Lunches”, or search food and drink manually according to “Dish Type,” “Dietary Consideration,” or “Seasons and Occasions.” Each category provides a variety of options with icons to help customize your search, and the individual recipes are very user-friendly. Once you have chosen a recipe, the app specifies the yield amount, active time, and total time for preparation as well as in-depth instructions. All of the recipes are rated on a scale of 1-4 forks (used like stars), and by the percentage of users who would make that dish again. When you pick a favorite, you can use the Shopping List to actually find all of the ingredients. The clean, visually pleasing interface makes searching a little easier.
THE BAD:
The search tool is sponsored by Mastercard, so you will occasionally be interrupted by an ad. Even if you select a category, there is no way to search recipes by their rating, and not all of the recipes provide a photo of the finished product. You can’t search according to your ingredients either, if you don’t have something specific in mind.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
You’re getting easy access to over 25,000 recipes from Condé Nast’s best food magazines in one application. If you are interested in gourmet food or trying to broaden your cooking ideas, this is an excellent tool. Try “Whole Foods Market Recipes” for organic options, or “The Betty Crocker Mobile Cookbook” if Epicurious is a little too fancy for you.
