AllApps

The best recipe apps.

NYT Cooking is the top pick, for anyone who already cooks from its recipes and wants them organized in one searchable, subscription-backed place. If you want a shopping-list companion instead of a recipe browser, AnyList does that one job well. Everything else on this list solves a different problem than "find and follow recipes": calorie tracking, meal-kit delivery, or import tools that break for many users.

The filter. Every app here is rated 4.2 or better, has been updated in the last eighteen months, and has no significant number of reviewers reporting it broken. Price is not the rule on this list — some are free, some are not.
Top pick

NYT Cooking: Quick Tasty Meals

The New York Times Company
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Free4.9★ (545,637)Updated Sep 9, 2026unverified
Verdict
This is a subscription recipe app, not a free one, and reviewers who pay say the recipes and search/save design are worth it. Some older-device users report the app locking them out of content they're paying for, which is a real friction point.
Best for
Someone who already cooks from NYT recipes regularly and wants a well-organized, searchable place to save and follow them, and is fine paying an ongoing subscription for it.
The catch
It runs on a subscription, and a handful of paying users report being unable to access recipes on older iPads, plus general frustration with subscription mechanics.
Native app

ReciMe: Recipes & Meal Planner

ReciMe Pty Ltd
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Free4.8★ (291,299)Updated Sep 10, 2026unverified
Verdict
ReciMe is easy to use and popular for organizing recipes, but the subscription paywall shows up early and aggressively, and the recipe-import feature (a core selling point) breaks or misbehaves for a meaningful chunk of users.
Best for
Someone who wants a polished recipe organizer and is fine paying for it, and who mainly types or copies recipes in rather than relying on photo or video import.
The catch
You're pushed into a free trial that auto-renews before you can properly test the app, and the recipe-import-by-photo/video feature freezes or fails for a notable number of reviewers.
Native app

HelloFresh: Meal Kit & Recipes

HelloFresh
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Free4.7★ (219,400)Updated Sep 8, 2026unverified
Verdict
HelloFresh is a meal-kit subscription app, not a general recipe app — its core function is managing weekly deliveries and menu selection, and reviewers describe real friction with the app itself: unusable menus, crashes, and customer service that's hard to reach when something goes wrong.
Best for
Someone who already wants a weekly meal-kit delivery service and is willing to manage a subscription through an app that sometimes needs a support call to fix delivery or billing problems.
The catch
Multiple reviewers describe the app menu becoming unusable and customer service being unreachable (hold, hangups, frozen chat) exactly when a delivery or order goes wrong.
Native app

AnyList: Grocery Shopping List

Purple Cover, Inc.
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Free4.9★ (80,369)Updated Sep 11, 2026unverified
Verdict
AnyList focuses on turning recipes into shopping lists and syncing them across a household, rather than being a recipe discovery app. It clearly works well for that narrow job, but core features like Apple Watch sync sit behind a subscription.
Best for
Someone who already has recipes from around the web and wants them turned into a shared, synced grocery list with a partner or family.
The catch
Several reviewers note that syncing to Apple Watch and other paid-tier features require an ongoing subscription, and some explicitly say they dislike that model even while paying for it.
Native app

Nutrition Coach: Food tracker

Eclipse Studios
View on the App Store ›
Free4.8★ (87,757)Updated Aug 28, 2026unverified
Verdict
This is a calorie and meal tracker with syncing to Health app and Apple Watch, not really built around recipes. The free trial signup flow is called out repeatedly as pushy, and some reviewers report the app just stopped working with no support response.
Best for
Someone who wants a simple daily calorie and meal log that syncs with their Apple Watch and Health app, not someone hunting for a recipe browser.
The catch
Multiple reviewers say the signup process makes it look like the free trial is the only option, and when problems come up (the app breaking, wanting a refund), developer support doesn't respond.
Native app

Who should skip this entirely.

If you just want a handful of recipes to cook this week, skip this category entirely and search the web or a food blog instead — you don't need a subscription or an app account for that. If you're trying to track calories or macros, that's a fitness app job, not a recipe app job, even though one app here blurs the two. And if what you actually want is groceries delivered with instructions attached, that's a meal-kit service, which comes with its own delivery and billing hassles separate from cooking itself.

Questions.

Is there a fully free recipe app on this list?Not really — the apps here either run on subscriptions for their core features or bundle recipes into a different paid service, like meal-kit delivery. Expect to pay something if you want full functionality.
Which app is best for importing recipes from other websites or videos?ReciMe advertises this as a core feature, but a meaningful number of users report the photo and video import breaking or freezing. If import reliability matters most, test it carefully during any trial period before committing.
What's the difference between a recipe app and a meal-kit app?A recipe app helps you find, save, and follow recipes using ingredients you buy yourself. A meal-kit app, like the one on this list, manages a subscription that delivers pre-portioned ingredients to your door — cooking is secondary to logistics.
Can any of these apps turn recipes into a shared grocery list?Yes, that's AnyList's whole focus — it converts recipes into synced shopping lists for a household. It's not built for browsing or discovering new recipes, though.