America's Test Kitchen Reviews

I absolutely adore americas test kitchen; their recipes are almost always phenomenal and easy to follow. But unfortunately, AmericasTestKitchen is pretty awful. I can’t save about 40% of the recipes that I really want to try for some reason, the save feature is a bit confusing and if you accidentally click the wrong save icon, it switches to a completely different page and you have to find the recipe again. Also a lot of times there aren’t photos for recipes, or it will be a photo that obviously isn’t correct (and I really like to see things because that tells me how it’s supposed to look!) Its also incredibly frustrating that if you search a certain thing, like recipes with chicken breasts for instance, then click on a recipe to check it out, and then hit the back button to go back to the results, it often scrolls back up to the top and you have to find where you were again over and over. so frustrating. And that’s not even everything! So like I said: wonderful recipes! not so great app. I really hope someone reads these reviews someday and fixes these issues because since I pay money for this subscription, it makes me a little upset that AmericasTestKitchen is SO bad. Please fix it soon, ATK!

I love the whole Cook’s Illustrated family, but AmericasTestKitchen is awful. It’s good at looking up recipes, but saving them in a cohesive manner is a chore to say the least. The interface is clunky. I can tap well below the three dots under a recipe to bring up what I want to do with it (add it to a collection) only to have it bring the recipe itself up, which means I have to start all over again, because it only displays so many recipes that are saved. I have to keep tapping the button to show 10 more recipes at a time, and if I happen to bring up the recipe I am trying to add to a collection so it can be found again, even though I am not trying to bring up the recipe, I have to start all over. It’s just a bit frustrating. Certainly, in the grand scheme of things if this is the worst thing that’s happened to me today, it’s probably a pretty good day, and I could have things a lot worse, but in this day and age of ease and convenience, surely this can be rectified? In re-reading my review, if it is not clear about adding recipes, it’s only because AmericasTestKitchen is what inspired me, somI’m just following suit…

AmericasTestKitchen has had it rough: from repeated logouts to inconsistent search results to HTML tags appearing as plain text. It’s come a long way, and it’s got a lot of spit and polish along its journey. Some hangnails are still there: pressing “back” takes you back to the top page of your search results (but at least remembers what page of results you were on), for example.

But the most glaring absence of AmericasTestKitchen is that there’s no “share” button. I frequently discuss food with friends and family and the fact I can’t send a link to a Test Kitchen recipe or taste test is really frustrating. I routinely have to search for the exact same recipe I’m looking at on one of ATK’s websites just so I can hit the share button in Safari.

“But Test Kitchen articles are members only!” you say? Yes but I’m sharing those links with other website subscribers—and even if I’m not, recipients of those links may be tempted to join. So the lack of a share button in AmericasTestKitchen is not just an inconvenience—it’s also potentially lost revenue.

They fixed some things with the update (FINALLY, after years of no major updates) but the design is still off. With the new update, the back button is just pathetic. Let’s say you search for “strip steak.” You select a recipe to glance over. When you tap “back,” it takes you all the way back to the Home Screen, not the “strip steak” search results. Who thought that would be a good idea? There are other bugs throughout. Tapping on the equipment reviews reveals no info, clearly bugged. Same for taste tests. Having to tap “show more favorites” is just poor design: how about just show them because I’m obviously trying to scroll further down to see move of my saved favorites! For the $ customers spend on subscriptions, ATK does an atrocious job with their app. Very poor work, consider hiring a different developer.

New to AmericasTestKitchen , but so far the most difficult thing is the apps downloaded on my iPhone and IPad do not sync the shopping list. The shopping list also is not available on the website to pull up the list created. Researching recipes on the iPad and working up a list is the most convenient,However the information does not transfer to the website or sync with the phone and time was wasted. All of my recipes / menu research will have to be done on the iPhone in order to use list without creating double work between devices. It is not convenient to take an iPad shopping... and it is not convenient to work on a small phone in researching recipes... I hope this gets fixed very soon. It would also be nice to create menus. Thank you.

AmericasTestKitchen needed updating, for sure. The new app looks great but the UX needs a lot of attention.

First: I search for “roast chicken” which returns a list of recipes. I click on one of them to see what it is, the ingredients, etc. if I decide I don’t want that one and I want to see the next on the list, I should be able to click “back” and see the list of chicken recipes from the search. Nope. It drops you at the main page...where I have to search again for “roast chicken” for the list. Yahoo figured out the expected behavior for moving through search results in about 1995, so whoever wrote AmericasTestKitchen needs to focus on the basics first, get that right, and move onto the next.

Saving favorites seems to be broken for me. I click on what was the “tag as favorite” icon, I’m asked to create a collection, I do that, and...nothing. I’m pushed back to the main page again.

Recently AmericasTestKitchen got a total makeover. On the whole, it’s a big improvement. In the past, it was just a way to look up recipes. Now it has featured content, which is great.

Here are my top two issues, though:

1. The save recipe button. It was a problem on the old app and it is still. If I’m in a recipe, on the top right, there’s a ribbon “save” icon. If I click it, instead of saving the recipe I’m looking at, AmericasTestKitchen takes me to my favorites. The button I’m supposed to press to save a recipe is embedded under the recipe header and is hidden from view when I’m actually down in the recipe. This is dumb and confusing. It’s like none of AmericasTestKitchen developers tried to use AmericasTestKitchen like a home cook would.

2. This is a general one for every person/company creating recipe apps for phones: For heaven’s sake, please repeat quantities in the steps instead of only listing ingredients list up top. In a recipe book, I can easily move my eyes between steps and ingredients, on my phone, I have to scroll, which often means stopping what I’m doing and washing my hands. It’s inconvenient. It’s so easy to fix! Think of the actual users of AmericasTestKitchen !

so I got AmericasTestKitchen after accidentally buying a year long subscription to ATC and Cooks Illustrated. I had read all the reviews and was worried it wouldn't be worth the time but it was a free app so who cares. it's much better than anyone says. the reviews are mostly from January and February and since then they have obviously done a lot of work on AmericasTestKitchen since then. you can save each recipe easily and look anything up that you could possibly want.
my only issue with AmericasTestKitchen is that when I scroll through the recipes and I click one, I swipe back to continue scrolling but it brings me all the way back to the top of the list. its annoying but not the worst. but still annoying.

I’ve been a loyal follower of ATK since the beginning and it’s still my go to when looking for a recipe.

The newer app is sooooo much better than the last one, but still missing one thing… the ability to write a review within AmericasTestKitchen . If there is a way, I don’t know how. I see people are always writing info, but I’m guessing from the desktop version.

Keep in mind, just because you get AmericasTestKitchen doesn’t mean you get the recipes if you don’t subscribe. I don’t get when people get so angry about having to pay for the subscription, but I have zero problems with being a member, since I look up ATK & CC recipes multiple times a week.

AmericasTestKitchen has so much potential but the new version has a lot of weird UX bugs:

Favorites is SO BUGGY. You can only load like 8 recipes at a time and have to click a button to load the next 8, whereas the old version you could scroll to automatically load. You can create recipe collections within Favorites but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to add a recipe to it???? Also if you are browsing in Favorites and click on a recipe and hit the back button it starts you back at the original load page with the first 8 recipes instead of holding your place which in combo with the lack of scroll to load makes it very frustrating.

Shopping List is also buggy. I have had multiple experiences where I check something off and it checks a totally unrelated item off that isn’t even near it but keeps the one I was trying to check off... I also miss the feature where if you had added a recipe to the shopping list and decided you didn’t want to make it you could go to that recipe page and hit a button to remove all the ingredients instead of having to check every single one off in the list.

Again, so much potential here but UX took a big step backwards in AmericasTestKitchen refresh for some reason.

Update: I have changed my rating of AmericasTestKitchen from 2 stars to 1. The developers of this monstrosity commented on my first review below and stated they had corrected the constant login issue. They did not. It still makes me login every single time I open this terrible app. ATK, please fire your current app developers and start over fresh. I’m about to cancel my subscription.

The new app is extremely buggy. Favorites sometimes freezes, or won’t load. Additionally, now AmericasTestKitchen makes you sign-in every time you open it, it’s more annoying than anything. The only other apps I have that require me to log in each time I launch them are my banking apps, and other such apps that have higher security precautions, for good reason. You’re just a cooking app, ATK.

I had been using AmericasTestKitchen for over a year with no issues, but the recent changes have rendered it completely useless. You can search recipes, but you can never view them. With every recipe I try to view, whether from my Favorites or a new search, I get a screen saying “Oops, something bad happened!” Something bad happened, all right - they totally broke AmericasTestKitchen . I tried emailing ATK for support at least two weeks ago, but no response. So now I just have to use the website to find the recipes. I’ve been a paying member for many years. Surely they can do better.
UPDATE: It is now a month later, and the issues are not only not fixed, they are worse. I deleted and reinstalled AmericasTestKitchen , and I couldn't navigate at all. I have deleted it permanently.

We can’t deny the recipe reputation that ATK has, but AmericasTestKitchen is a yearly subscription and AmericasTestKitchen needs lots of work.
I recommend a biometric sign in, because the login function has to be done every time and sometimes it freezes or fails to acknowledge that you have a valid subscription. I called Apple to solve the problem and America’s test kitchen and each one points the finger at each other and both confirm I have a subscription on their ends.
AmericasTestKitchen can be more user friendly, but offers great options such as easy search for recipes based on the ingredients you want to use, and create your own grocery list easily. Saved recipes are great for dinners you want to try or have enjoyed in the past.

The content is good, but the user design isn’t great

1) if you click a recipe from an email, you are brought to the website and the “open app” comes up. However, when you open AmericasTestKitchen the recipe you we’re looking for does not open. This is how every other app works in relationship to the website—wharfs the point of pushing AmericasTestKitchen if you haven’t figured out how to make it open either directly from email or directly from website.

2) putting the “go to bookmarked” icon in the top right is ridiculous. That is the commonly accepted place to bookmark a page of content. Instead, you have that buried under the title of the recipe. Even knowing that the save as bookmark is not in 5e corner, I constantly click there thinking that’s going to save the recipe for me. Please make this feature confirm to UX design conventions!

I will probably not use AmericasTestKitchen but just use the website rather than deal with these crazy design choices.

I really love the new look and features on the updated app. Glad to see it function more like their website. It has all your favorite recipes and gadet reviews, which I find extremely handy. I don’t really spend that much time on my laptop when I’m not at work so it’s nice to have everything on AmericasTestKitchen .

The one really annoying thing about AmericasTestKitchen is the back function. When you search for recipes, and hit the “back button” it takes you right back to the search page so you have to start your search all over again.

Other than that AmericasTestKitchen is great!

Cooked with AmericasTestKitchen (vs my laptop) in the kitchen this weekend and I won’t switch back. No trouble staying logged in from previous session and searching for recipes, then hitting back button worked smoothly (I was taken to the top of group of recipes I was searching in vs back to the very beginning of the search results). My favorite feature is the pop out ingredients list which saves me scrolling on recipe pages and (always) the comments and addl info from test cooks in that comments section. Thank you!

The new update provides a lot of great enhancements, but now I can’t use the shopping list safely. It used to prompt you if you accidentally selected clear all items in the list, so you had a chance to not lose the 50+ items toi meticulously added to your shopping list. It also no longer sorts the items you add on your own into categories and leaves them all at the bottom of the list. Now it’s also lacking the hyperlinks on specific food items to review the results of the taste tests.

I really didn’t mind signing into the website if I wanted to read reviews or view a video, I wish I could go back to the previous version of AmericasTestKitchen . Please fix this!

I’m not a huge fan of the new app and the most frustrating change is to the Back button. When you search, the apps pulls up a list of recipes. Once you click into a recipe to review and want to return to the list to look at another recipe from the list, you click the Back button. Instead of taking you back to the recipe list, it takes you all the way back to the Home page and you have to search all over. Super frustrating for doing recipe research. This is a pretty basic UI function and needs to be remedied ASAP.

NYTimes Cooking app fxn is much more reliable now than this new app. I have been a Cooks Illustrated/ATK loyalist for 20 years and this might just be the last straw to make me leave the brand.

Love the new update! This is WAY better than the old version. I always had to bounce back & forth between AmericasTestKitchen & the website bc it didn’t used to have the comments & reviews I needed. Now it has everything & you can watch the shows! I had a moment of panic when I first logged in bc it says I didn’t have any saved recipes at first but after I refreshed it, they all showed up a few min later- probably just takes time to sync everything. Really look forward to using this! Thanks ATK 👏🏽

I looked up an equipment review and found it easy enough, but there was no date of publication shown. With equipment reviews when they were done is particularly important. I also could read the reviews but not write on; I had to go to the website to do that too, where I also so the equipment review I was looking at was 7 years old. AmericasTestKitchen should enhance the website experience, not diminish it. Why download an app when the website is better? I’ll be deleting it. I don’t need my iPad cluttered by apps that don’t provide any value.

I like the new format but my favorites didn’t initially show up. I thought I was going to have to find and re-save them - not happy. Once I logged into Cooks Illustrated app, then ATK seemed to remember and load all my favs.
When I go to favs, it displays, then redisplays again.
When I open a recipe in my favs then close, it resets to the beginning/top of my fav list, not where that opened recipe was located in the list, so now I have to page, page, page to where I left off.
Don’t see a way to sort or organize my fav categories, they display based upon when each was created, not alphabetical or a way to organize them on preferences.
The “save a fav” tag doesn’t always work, have to click and reclining to get it to work.

The Search function in My Favs does not work!

Would REALLy like a feature to change portion sizes (+ and -) which will automatically change and redisplay correct ingredient measurements. So we don’t have to remember we are cutting the recipe and ingredients in half, 1/3 or doubling or.....

App needs the same feature as Cooks Illustrated app, where the ingredients can be displayed on the right side - separate window, so that you can view and scroll directions and ingredients independently next to each other, not scroll up & down and up & down.

The grocery list function on the new update stinks. I used to be able to add my own items not from a recipe and it would categorize. Now everything I add that’s not from a recipe found on AmericasTestKitchen just gets sorted into “other”. I want my “recently looked at” recipe section on the front page again, a lot of times when I’m cooking I jump around and it makes it difficult to have to search everything again. I understand that the goal was probably to make the website and AmericasTestKitchen the same, but websites and apps are not supposed to be the same in every function.