For many students, after leaving the dining halls college is their first experience cooking for themselves. And oftentimes being a rookie in the kitchen combined with having a tight budget can lead to some pretty interesting meals. Scrambled eggs and Spaghettios anyone? But don’t let yourself get stuck in a cooking rut just because of a few dinners gone wrong. Her Campus is here to show you which great cooking apps you need to download before attempting your next meal!
Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List
Perfect for: Beginners
Price: Free
A straightforward design with more than 30,000 recipes to choose from, the Epicurious app is perfect for collegiettes just beginning their cooking careers. You can save all your recipes in your recipe box, and even share your favorites with friends through email, Facebook, and Twitter.
Whole Foods Market Recipes
Perfect for: Vegetarians, vegans
Price: Free
If you’re vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, or on a special diet, Whole Foods is perfect for you. Along with plenty of healthy recipes to choose from, the app also provides nutritional information, and has an “On Hand” feature, which chooses a recipe based on ingredients you already have in your kitchen.
Grubhub
Perfect for: Takeout lovers
Price: Free
For those nights when you just don’t feel like cooking, download Grubhub to help you find the takeout you’re craving. Enter in your location and it’ll pull up all the delivery places nearby, plus it lets you order online through your app. They also offer occasional discounts and coupons for those looking to save a couple bucks.
Meal Planning by Food on the Table
Perfect for: Multitaskers
Price: Free
If you’re looking to do a lot of things with one app, Meal Planning by Food on the Table has you covered. It has searchable recipes along with a weekly meal planner, and helps you budget your grocery list. The coolest feature is that it shows you what discounts and sales the grocery stores in your area are offering. So not only does it help you plan your meals, it helps you budget too!
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Seafood Watch
Perfect for: Seafood lovers
Price: Free
With a focus on sustainable ocean-friendly eating, this app recommends which seafood and sushi joints you should check out in your area. You can search easily for a certain type of seafood or sushi being offered in your area, and if you’re on a health kick there’s even a list of “Super Green” seafood to browse.
BigOven
Perfect for: Risk-takers
Price: Free
If you like a lot of variety in your meals, BigOven definitely delivers. They have 250,000 recipes all submitted by users, so you’ll be able to read reviews of each recipe and see what others thought of it. And you can search recipes by a keyword, course, or ingredient, leaving you plenty of room to get inspired.
Spark Recipes
Perfect For: Dieters
Price: Free
If you’re currently counting calories and looking to eat a little more healthily then this app is right up your alley. It provides calorie, carbohydrates, and other nutritional information for every recipe so you’ll be able to stick to your diet. It also offers cooking tutorials to teach you how to make the tasty meals.
Martha Stewart Makes Cookies
Perfect for: Bakers
Price: Free
If you’re more excited about your dessert than your dinner, this app offers over 60 cookie recipes for the bakers at heart. You can search by flavor or type, and the app design makes it super easy to find what you’re looking for!
There are a ton of different cooking apps out there, but hopefully this list will get you on the right track. Learn the basics of cooking first, and branch out from there. And it never hurts to ask friends who are more experienced in the cooking department for some tips!
Do you know of any other awesome cooking apps? Comment below, or share a story about a killer recipe you’ve tried!