For many of our readers, the Thanksgiving Holidays are just a few days away and the mad dash for the grocery store is about to begin. From turkey dinners to sweet potatoes to a cornucopia of casseroles, it is a Holiday to cook for.
The Windows 10 Store has a host of apps available to help those in need of a little help around the kitchen or who may need an idea for a new dish to have on the table. Many are free titles and for his week's Windows Central Roundup, we will shine the spotlight on the top four free Windows 10 cooking apps.
As we do with every roundup, you guys and gals are invited to offer your recommendations in the comments below. If you have a favorite recipe, feel free to toss that out as well.
Allrecipes
Allrecipes is the official Windows app for the Allrecipes website that is the home for more than thirty million home cooks. The main page for Allrecipes provides you with a list of recipe ideas, the ability to search out recipes by ingredient and easy access to your favorite recipes. You also have the ability to search for a recipe by keyword.
The ingredient search is a nifty feature for the times you are limited to what you have in the refrigerator or pantry.
Recipes cover the basics such as ingredients and cooking directions but also includes user ratings. You will also find a quick chart detailing prep time, cooking time, calorie count, fat levels and cholesterol counts.
The app is still sporting a Windows 8.1 feel to it (as is all the apps in this week's roundup) with an app command bar that will pop-up from the bottom of the screen. The command bar, accessible in the recipes, offers you the options to adjust the portions, pin the recipe to your Windows Start Screen, save the recipe as a favorite and view the recipe from your web browser.
While Allrecipes has a ton of home-grown recipes, I did have trouble pulling up Ideas on the main page with a connectivity error being displayed. The Ideas section is simply a collection of recipes that app thinks you may like. I was able to click on the Idea header and jump into the full listing of recommended recipes.
Allrecipes can be used as a standalone app or you can log into your Allrecipes account. Allrecipes is a free app, available from both the Windows 10 and Windows Phone Stores.
Allthecooks Recipes
Here is another community based cooking app that is available in the Windows 10 Store. The official app for Allthecooks.com includes over 150,000 recipes from around the world that cover main dishes, appetizers, drinks, side dishes, deserts, soups and more.
The layout of Allthecooks Recipes is in panoramic fashion with several grouping of culinary delights. Groups include:
- A Category Section
- A Favorites Section
- A Featured Section
- A Recently View Section
- A Trending Section
The Category Section divides the recipes up by meal type, occasions, key ingredients, beverages, Holiday recipes and more. You will also find about half a dozen recipes highlighted to the far left of the main page.
Recipes are laid out in no-nonsense fashion with user ratings, ingredient lists, step-by-step directions, nutritional guides and photos of the dish.
Allthecooks Recipes' App Commands offer you access to the Allthecooks' forums, newsletters, a message center, a shopping list generator and the ability to upload your own recipes. Keep in mind some of these features will require you to create and log into an Allthecooks account (free).
Allthecooks Recipes is a free, ad-supported app that is available in Windows 10 Store. There is also a Windows Phone app available that bears a slightly different title, Recipes by Allthecooks. It too is a free, ad-supported title.
- Download Allthecooks Recipes from the Windows 10 Store
- Download Recipes by Allthecooks from the Windows Phone Store
Epicurious
This Windows cooking app delivers recipes from the editors of the Epicurious and Gourmet, Bon Apetit, Self, Random House and other publications. It is also the official Windows app for the website of the same name, Epicurious.com. The app has a very clean appearance and utilizes the panoramic layout. The main page will display a Recipe of the Day, Featured Recipes, a Recipe Predictor, a Seasonal Ingredient Finder and a collection of recipe categories for you to browse through.
Categories for cooking inspirations include Holiday dishes, chocolate desserts, kid-friendly main dishes, gluten-free meals, stir-fry suppers, low-carb dishes, hearty sandwiches and more.
Additional features include:
- Recipe box to store all your favorite recipes
- Use your location to find what ingredients are in season near you.
- Shopping list alerts
- Voice activated commands to let you follow your recipes while keeping your hands free for cooking
Keep in mind that some features will require an Epicurious account to access.
App commands for Epicurious offer up options to return to the home screen, view your shopping list, tap into your recipe box and access the apps settings. You can pin the command menu to the screen and it will run across the top of the display, throughout the app.
Epicurious is a free app that is available from both the Windows 10 and Windows Phone Stores.
So Cookbook
So Cookbook is billed as the perfect Windows app to browse over 350,000 recipes from a wide range of resources. So Coobook taps into BigOven, Larousse and aufeminin to deliver some tasty recipes for you to try your hand with. The recipe selection covers everything from appetizers to main courses to desserts.
As with the other entries in this week's roundup, So Cookbook is the official app for the So Cookbook website. The main layout also follows the customary panoramic style of so many Windows 8.1 apps and offers the following sections:
- Suggestions: Here's a series of recipes the app thinks you might like that will display a picture of the dish, cooking time and the number of servings to expect.
- My Recipes: Your listing of any recipe you find, like and tag as your favorite.
You then have a series of recipe collections from popular cooking sites such as SoSlow Cuisine, sofeminine.com.uk, Cucumbertown and On Dine Chez Nanou. Some of these features will require you to log into your So Cookbook Account (free) such as the My Recipe section.
You do have the ability to search for recipes by keyword or by browsing categories that include appetizers, breakfast, dessert, side dishes and more. App commands seem a little redundant, navigating you to recipe areas already accessible by side swiping across the main menu.
Recipes follow what appears to be a standard format with a picture of the dish and cooking time/portion summary, ingredients and step-by-step directions. You also have a play button that will launch a timed, automated guide for preparing and cooking the meal; a hands-free walk through for cooking the dish in a manner of speaking.
So Cookbook is an attractive cooking app to have tucked away on your Windows device. It is a free, ad-supported app available from the Windows 10 Store.
