(5/5 Gladiator shields) I recently needed to figure out what dinner I could make from what I already had in my kitchen. The dinner needed to appeal to everyone. I was drawing a blank. So, I downloaded several free recipe apps and ran them against a few searches and compared them to Google. The Yummly app won my evaluation and I promised a complete review after I used the app a few weeks. My rating increased from 4/5 to 5/5 Gladiator shields. Read my several app evaluation here. For a full Yummly app review, keep reading.
Pros:
- Very Large selection of recipes.
- Saves dietary restrictions as default settings.
- Variety of food courses and uses.
- Picture recognition of ingredients.
- Shopping list help.
- Connections to online grocery ordering.
- Email/text shopping list.
- New pre-release pantry stock use/tracking feature.
Cons:
- The new pre-release pantry stock use/tracking feature needs more key functions.
- Do the online grocery ordering links include your preferred grocery source?
- Are you willing to share your grocery account login and password with a separate app?
Overall, my entree and side dish searches usually responded with thousands, sometimes tens and hundreds of thousands, if the criteria was broad enough. I was able to apply my dietary restrictions as saved setting filters to be in default search use. My searches were based on an ingredient, a couple ingredients, and a recipe name. Recipe name searches like “fish stick tacos” gave me a large enough selection for me to find the one version that appealed the most and to give me ideas to customize my meal.
The available recipes don’t just cover meals. I found recipes for spice blends, beverages of many types, and even a lip rub recipe! I was able to find recipes to make chocolate liqueur as well as drink recipes using chocolate liqueur. If you need the latest cleanse/detox drink recipe, it is probably there too.
A nice feature is having the app recognize an ingredient/pantry item using your device’s camera. This works well. A son and I were entertained for a good hour trying to stump the app. The app won once I learned I sometimes needed to focus on the right part of a label. Beyond the entertainment factor, this is a reliable accessibility feature.
Speaking of pantry, there is a new pre-release virtual pantry feature. This looks very promising. Basically, load the app with your pantry ingredients and it will let you search based on your whole pantry. In the search list the app will report how many of the recipe ingredients you have and the total number of recipe ingredients. Inside the recipe, the app will report if an ingredient is about to expire. You can add the expiration date to the pantry item or let it calculate it based on when you added the item. A nice touch is if you are missing an item and the app feels you have a substitute, you will see the substitute information. This is pre-release. I am hoping the abilities to filter searches for having all ingredients and to edit the amount of a pantry item you have will be in full release.
If instead of winning your daily household version of TV’s “Chopped”, you are trying to make a meal plan for a shopping list, the app has you covered. When you find a recipe you like add all or certain ingredients to a shopping list.
In the shopping list you may add your other grocery store needs like cat food. The items added through recipes can be organized by recipe. If you change your mind about making a recipe just one click will remove those items. If you select to organize the list by category, it will group like items and show how much/many by recipe. From the shopping list you can link over to an online ordering app of your choice. This will require giving the Yummly app your grocery account login and password. So this is a feature I will not be using. Instead I emailed my list. I also could text the shopping list, or rather, text a link to the list. Both options would have been really useful back when I was shopping for my Dad. Have you ever stood in the grocery store trying to make out someone else’s writing and item nick names?
Given all of the beneficial features I am sure the Yummly app will be useful in your meal planning too.
My Disclosure.
Life, Humor, and MS 