Garnish & Gadget | 6 Best iPad Apps for Home Chefs

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Despite already having an affinity for creating in the kitchen, the advent of the iPad has made the task 100% more enjoyable for me. If you use your ‘pad the way I use mine, you pin and click to the recipes those luscious Pinterest photos lead you to and go from there. It’s most certainly an excellent start, but of course with cooking, there’s always be more. Take for example the fact that I can’t convert measurements to save my life and am lost on the best substitutes for ingredients that I’m missing. So that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the App Store comes in.

Searching “Food & Drink” in the App Store is slightly overwhelming and so I’ve pared down the list to six well-rated home-chef-helping iPad apps. Enjoy!

Evernote Food

If you like living an organized life, Evernote Food is a perfect app for cooks who want to catalog the foods they’ve experienced. From finding great new restaurants to documenting how to make family recipes, Evernote Food gives you one place to discover, collect, and remember your life’s memorable moments in food. Annnd the user interface design is gorgeous!

Harvest

Stellar food requires stellar ingredients. The Harvest app makes sure you have just that by teaching you how to select the best produce. Learn to tell when fruits and veggies are the freshest and most ripe by searching the app’s huge produce database. While browsing your local market's produce section, look to this app to determine the levels of pesticide residue before you buy. Once you're satisfied with your produce picks, Harvest will also tell you how to store them to maximize flavor and freshness.

Hello Vino

If you’ve ever wandered to the wine aisle and felt petrified about dinner pairing, you’re going to love Hello Vino. The free mobile app provides recommendations for every occasion - from the best wine to pair with food, wine for holidays or gifts, and also gives suggestions based on your personal taste preferences.

Kitchen Calculator Pro

Struggle with math in the kitchen? Kitchen Calculator Pro is a life-saver. Convert volumes, weights, temperatures, and measurements, and if you happen to need precise measurements for a certain ingredient, Kitchen Calculator allows you to add your own entries to save for future use.

Paprika

Instead of slapping you with another 10,000 recipes, Paprika allows you to catalog the recipes you already have by adding them manually to the app or searching for them via Paprika’s built-in web browser. The app also allows for easy grocery list creating if you stumble upon a dish you’d like to make but don’t have all of the ingredients.

Substitutions

So you just ran out of something major and now your recipe calls for it. You can either panic or rush to your iPad to use Substitutions. With categories like Allergy, Bake & Cook, Low Carb, Migraine, Vegan, etc., this app organizes many substitution options for every occasion.