In an ideal world, none of your fresh produce and groceries would ever go bad. Instead, you would eat every bite of everything you bought. But in the real world, we all have leftover ingredients that we don’t know what to do with. Every piece of food in your kitchen has some serious potential, and there are apps to help you find it by giving you recipes of things to cook with ingredients that you already have on hand. It’s time to Upgrade Your Life with apps that let you cook with what you’ve got.
1. Epicurious: If you’re already an Epicurious recipe junkie, check out their app. They feature all kinds of fun categories to explore, useful reviews and stats on what percentage of people would make the recipe again. When you find recipes you like, just add them to your shopping list and get your trip to the store done faster and smarter. And yes, they have an Apple Watch app.
2. Whole Foods Market: Even if you’re not a Whole Foods shopper, this app is pretty handy. You can pick from 3,700 recipes with stunning images to boot. And since it’s Whole Foods, you know that all of the recipes are wholesome and healthy. Just check off which items on your grocery list you need to buy and you’re ready to hit the market.
3. Allrecipes: Just like the website, the Allrecipes app is full of delicious culinary finds, but what makes the app so unique is a feature called the Dinner Spinner. With the Dinner Spinner, you pick the main ingredient you want to use, the type of dish you’re making (breakfast, dessert, main dish, etc) and how much time you have. They’ll dish up a ton of recipes with videos and a list of ingredients to add right to an in-app shopping list.
DL It: Free on iOS and Android
4. CookBrite: This app kind of has it all. To plan your weekly meal, you’ll go through a process of deciding different types of meals you’d like to make (comfort food or light, fresh food?), then you fill in what ingredients you already have. With that info, CookBrite will select a whole plethora of recipes for you to choose from. From there, pick your recipes for the week and they’ll compile a shopping list for you. If there’s anything on the list that you already have, just swipe it off. It even saves what you have in your kitchen for a constant grocery inventory.
DL It: Free on Android
5. Supercook: If you’re scrolling the web via desktop or laptop, try Supercook. Check off the ingredients you already have, and they’ll start you off with a lot of recipes, and then ask you if you have more specific ingredients to get you some more options. The suggestions are great because you probably have more ingredients than you thought and there are some great meals in your pantry just waiting to get out.
How do you stock up on groceries? Teach us your ways in the comments!
