How to Find the Perfect Recipe

Yep, the recipe.  Cooking is just about using ingredients and following directions.  If you do that and you have a great recipe… greatness.  If you follow the instructions and you have a sucky recipe… suckiness.  It’s really that simple.

So, how do you find a great recipe?  Here are my basic tips to finding recipes that suit your tastes:

1. Consider your palette: do you like spicy foods? Flavors from a certain ethnic cuisine?  Do you like herbal flavors?  Read through a recipe when you find it and search for the key things that you like in a recipe.  Things I look for include: spiciness, anything with an Asian vibe, and recipes that include basil and tarragon.  Usually winners in my book.

2.  Consider the cooking process:  How many steps are there?  Only two? It might be kind of bland?  More than eight?  Sounds like a lot of work.  You’ve gotta put a little love in to get some back out, but too much and you’ll never make it again.

3.  Consider the cooking method:  What do you like the most? Roasting? Grilling? Sauteeing? Frying?  Personally, I love a roasted veggie.  I’ll try any veggie that you put on high heat in an oven.  You know what I don’t like? Braising (and often slow-cooking).  I don’t like mushiness in my food, so I avoid any recipe that calls for cooking foods in liquids for a long period of time.  

4.  Consider the ingredients: This is probably common sense for you, but go for things that you typically like, try things that are new to you, and find recipes that are ingredient-swap friendly to sub the ingredients you just don’t care for.  You can sub most ingredients in any main dish.  Mix up the veggies in a stir-fry recipe.  Try different pastas and cheeses in a pasta bake, and get creative with a quiche.  Part of the fun of cooking is experimenting with new ingredients and methods.

Now that I’ve given you my recipe hunting tips, here are a few go-to sources where I find most of the recipes that I try:

• Might as well get the obvious one out of the way first: Pinterest.  Yep, I’m a pin-addict.   But, it’s important to note, just ’cause it’s on Pinterest doesn’t mean it’s good!  Use the method above first before you hit print and put together your shopping list!
• Cooking Light – Most of my recipe repertoire is from Cooking Light.  It makes it easy to recipe-hunt when you know that all of the recipes within the covers are pre-selected to already be healthy for you.   And usually, the recipes are fairly simple to prepare.  Win-Win.
• Blogs – Yep, I read in addition to write blogs.  I subscribe to a ton of RSS feeds devoted to cooking. Some of my favorite blogs to scan for recipes include: Vegan Yack Attack, Biscuits and Such, Lottie + Doof, and Big Girls Small Kitchen.  Good stuff there.
• My recipe box and recipe folder.  I’ve got TONS of recipes that I’ve torn from various magazines filed into folders based on category.  And, then there’s the recipe box of hundreds of recipes I’ve made and been handed down from my family.  When push comes to shove, trust the generations before you.
• Side note: Back in college I borrowed my mother’s recipe box and typed out every recipe in the box, printed them out on to recipe cards and gave a set to my dad, sister, and kept one for myself.  It’s the best gift I ever gave myself.