The holidays are upon us, and that means tis the season for cooking unreasonable amounts of food. If you need a little help in the kitchen this Thanksgiving, these apps will help you plan, prepare, and perfect your meal.
In case you hadn’t heard, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. While the holiday is being quickly overtaken by the surge of Black Friday deals (which is really a misnomer given its entire consumption of the entire week), there are purists among us for whom tomorrow’s meal still takes the spotlight.
Whether you’re preparing to wake at the crack of dawn to get the bird ready or figure you’ll wing it (pun intended), these apps can help keep your kitchen chaos free. We can’t promise they’ll do as much for the rest of your holiday, but take what you can get.
Chow made our round up last year and makes another appearance for good reason. It’s one of the most comprehensive and specific Thanksgiving dinner apps out there, made specifically with all your traditional dishes in mind. The app collects your recipes, keeps a shopping list (which you can cross items off with a simple finger swipe), display total cooking times, and runs you through the entire process.
This is another holdover from last year, and one that often makes food and cooking app roundups. Food on the Table (which there’s also a Web app for) allows you to make weekly menus and then budget for them – entering your location will also surface grocery store sales. Using the app in-store, your grocery list will organize itself by category as well, so you don’t have to wander from the produce section back to the bakery multiple times.
We’re not going to lie: The first reason we noticed this app was because it’s so damn good looking. Food porn addicts rejoice, because this is the cooking app for you. The Photo Cookbook displays gorgeous photos of food as well as their ingredients, portioned and laid out in front of your eyes so you can see exactly what’s going into the amazing end creation. Sure, there are more than enough pictures of food out there, but this app injects some much-needed practicality into them. It’s also a nice option for visual learners who’d rather see step-by-step instructions drawn out for them.
If you’re looking for holiday recipe ideas, look no further. What’s great about this app is that in addition to your standard fare, there are some unique twists on old favorites – like a cider roasted turkey, or Christmas pudding cake pops. You can save favorites and turn them into shopping lists as well. The app also includes a timer function.
While the previous app might come with a timer feature, not every cooking app does (which is sort of baffling, but what are you going to do?). If your favorite app doesn’t sport this necessary element, Timegg has absolutely everything you need. You can set up to eight different alarms, which some cooks may actually need come Thursday, and create preset timers if you know you’ll be using specific ones repeatedly.
This sleek and stunning app has prepared for Thanksgiving with a price cut and 18 new festive recipes. Appetites pairs you with individual chefs, who take you through cooking classes instead of just throwing up a pretty picture, a listed recipe, and leaving you to your own devices (or destruction). Videos are short and focus on individual steps, so you can progress through a recipe at your own speed. Note, however, that while the app is $0.99, there are in-app purchases for certain recipes – though it comes with a collection of 30 videos to start with.
Kitchenator provides a simple but necessary epicurean need: measurement conversion. If you’re working from specific recipes that aren’t translated to your appliance needs, simply whip out this app and let it do all the work for you. It’s a nice tool to have on hand just in case, because links can get dicey if you don’t pay attention to your ingredients.
For those of us who either don’t know much about wine, don’t care to learn, but would like something that … you know … tastes good and complements dinner, Blush could not be an easier option. You can keep things incredibly simple asking for recommendations based on the meal, the price, or just personal taste. And for those of us who answer with a color when someone asks us what we want to drink, the app even lets you start off by choosing if you want red or white – it definitely looks out for the noobs among us.
If you’re a classic procrastinator who left Thanksgiving to the last minute, you might want this app in your arsenal. If you’re in charge of bringing a side dish to this year’s meal, the app first asks you what type of food you’re making, how much time you have, and then gives you a recipe you can complete in that amount of time. Now if you were supposed to be cooking the turkey, you might be in trouble – otherwise, it could save you the embarrassment of bringing potato salad from the deli. Again.
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