How many nights have you asked yourself, “What should I cook for dinner?”
Whether you work all day or stay at home, dinner often seems like the hardest part of the day.
It shouldn’t be. Below are the top 8 creative ingredient finder websites to help you decide what to cook for dinner tonight. You don’t even have to go to the grocery store.
AllRecipes
By far the best website for coming up with a good dinner when you’re out of ideas is AllRecipes.
This site offers the basic recipe search you’d expect from any good recipe site, including browsing by food type, your diet, cooking style, etc.
But the perfect way to answer the question “what should I cook for dinner?” only filtered by the ingredients you have on hand. This is where AllRecipes shines.
To do this, select “Search for ingredients” in the recipe search field. This brings up a new field where you can simply enter the ingredients you have on hand one at a time. Click the + sign to add an ingredient to the filter.
By choosing Go, you will discover a long list of fantastic recipes that include all the ingredients you have on hand.
AllRecipes has other features, including a library of favorites, sorting recipes by collection, user-added photos, a shopping list, and the ability to customize portions and auto-adjust ingredients.
Yummly
If you crave Chinese, BBQ, or Mexican food, avoid the restaurant and head home. Yummly can help you find simple recipes for any genre right on your homepage.
Or, if you want to follow the ingredient route, select Browse from the left navigation menu, select Ingredients from the menu on the overview page, and select the main ingredient you want to focus on.
This is a little less flexible than AllRecipes as you can only choose one main ingredient to create recipes. However, each recipe includes a number of ingredients. So you know ahead of time if you end up with a recipe that’s more problematic than good.
However, like AllRecipes, Yummly offers one-click add to shopping list You can also click the Meal Planner log icon on the right side of the window to add the recipe to the Meal Planner library for quick access later.
The nice thing about Yummly is that you can take a quick 3-step survey so that Yummly can customize your recipe view based on your meal plan, allergies and ingredients to avoid.
Good cooking )
Fine Cooking’s website is part blog and part recipe database. To access recipes, select “Recipes & Menus” from the top menu. Or, if you are looking for ingredient-based recipes, choose Ingredients from the menu. Select View All to see all ingredients.
The format of the list of ingredients is interesting. You will see a blog-like format with ingredients and their descriptions listed alphabetically in the main area.
Pick one to see instructions on how to pick it at the store, how to prepare it, how to store it, etc. Scroll down to see recipes that use this ingredient.
The recipes have nice, detailed images, a well-formatted ingredient list and instructions, and nutritional information.
Other Fine Cooking features include user ratings, a recipe drawer for saving recipes, and the ability to add your own recipe notes.
FridgeToTable
The FridgeToTable recipe site probably has one of the most minimal home pages of any recipe site.
Don’t let this fool you. Start adding all the ingredients you have on hand, choose your preferred diet type and choose Find Recipe.
The resulting recipe list is broken down by product type. You can additionally filter recipes by cooking time, course and other parameters. Select the small heart in the recipe photo to save the recipe.
Each recipe lists the time it will take to prepare it so you know what is going on before you click on the recipe link.
SuperCook
If you want to be called super chef by your family, you should definitely try SuperCook.
This recipe site is all about ingredients. On the left navigation bar, you can enter the recipes you have or select them from a tree structure where ingredients are sorted by categories like vegetables, fruits, dairy, etc.
This site has an extensive database of recipes, so expect a lot of results. There are also suggestions for ingredients at the top, so you can add more ingredients if you have them. This will narrow down the list even further and help you choose what to cook for dinner.
The site is actually a recipe aggregator. It pulls recipes from a large selection of online recipe sites, which is why recipe pages often look different. It’s kind of like Instagram recipes.
SuperCook is also available as an app on Google Play and Apple Store.
RecipeLand
The RecipeLand site is aptly named given the huge database of recipes you’ll find there. But what really makes this site stand out is when you select By Ingredient from the top menu.
As you enter each recipe in the ingredients box, the recipes displayed below will automatically update to include those ingredients.
You can enter a partial name for an ingredient and then simply click the “+” sign to the right of it to add it to your ingredient list.
Are there ingredients in food that you absolutely hate? Change the “C” value to “No” and enter all the ingredients you don’t need!
The recipe pages contain user ratings, large photos, and a quick link that you can select (heart icon) to save the recipe in the recipe box.
Each ingredient is listed on the recipe page with the amount you need. Below the recipe instructions, you will see links to email or print the recipe. You can also add it to your cookbook or select the menu icon to create your own menu.
You will need to sign in to the site by registering or logging in with Facebook to use any of the advanced features.
MyRecipes
MyRecipes is probably the largest recipe database on the Internet. To search for ingredients on the homepage, simply select “Favorite Ingredients” from the menu.
The recipe page is simple. You can only select individual ingredients at a time.
But what the site lacks in the selection of ingredients is in the variety. Recipe results can be filtered by all types of recipes you can cook with this ingredient. And the list of recipes continues on the pages.
The individual recipes are simple and straightforward, including cooking time, cooking time, holding time and total yield. You can print the recipes, email them, or post them on popular social networks.
The only downside to MyRecipes is its over-reliance on ads.
MyFridgeFood
MyFridgeFood is literally about the food in your fridge right now. The home page is a form where you mark all the ingredients you have on hand.
Don’t try to mix odd ingredients to see what happens, because recipe search results only search for at least one ingredient on your list.
The best results are obtained by trying to combine ingredients in a recipe that usually work well together. The result is fantastic recipes that you will want to try your hand at.
The recipe pages are well-formatted, but lack the interactive features that most other sites have.
In fact, the overall site design is a bit outdated. But given the unique and delicious recipes you’ll find here, it still deserves a spot on this list.
With all of these sites as options, you should have no problem figuring out what to cook for dinner. So run home now, check what ingredients you have in your pantry, and start cooking!
–