Epicurious Reviews

by Embles66

I have loved and been using this app for YEARS — long enough to have saved and organized over 1,000 recipes, including many unique to me (and not saved anywhere else). Two days ago I opened it up … only to find a “site redesign” had completely stripped out the old Recipe Box. Gone were all the categories I had created and filed my recipes under; gone were all my notes about tweaks to the given recipe, etc. There isn’t even a search function anymore! The only thing left is a single column of my saved recipes, with a simple “Load more” button at the bottom. These changes have essentially made my Recipe Box utterly USELESS. (If I want to find a recipe I saved 5 years ago, how many pages will I have to load just to find it? 200? 300?) Perhaps the worst part about this wipeout of all my old data was that this app gave me ZERO warning it was going to happen. Nada, zip, zilch. I am now rethinking my entire relationship to this company and will also start letting every other cooking outlet and cooking friend know about their crappy behavior. Shame on them.

by Margo Ruth

I have tried for weeks to get Epicurious to work after it booted me off one day and cleared my updates to my recipe box. I can use the website just fine in my browser, so I know it’s not my password, but Epicurious never lets me log in. I tried to submit a error report through Epicurious via the posted link and surprise surprise it told me the server was down and they were unable to communicate. Tried deleting Epicurious over and over again, and it never seems to work. I have tried to change my password just to make sure that’s not the problem, and the link to change the password always sends me straight to the home page of the website, from which point I have to find a different change password link on the website. Having no way to submit an email to support from Epicurious and being unable to use Epicurious in general makes it pretty useless to me at this point.

by Magentaego

The this app App has not been stable or worked for me in probably a few years. Every so many months I check to see if there’s a new release, download it, get my hopes up, launch... and crash. I don’t think I’ve kept Epicurious on my phone longer than 20 mins in the past few years. No idea what all the enhancement releases are for if the underlying stability is bogus. Definitely not the only reviewer with these issues. Just wish they’d either go back MANY releases or start from the ground up and rewrite the whole thing. I really really really miss Epicurious. And the website has become such garbage with all the ads I find I need an adblocker to keep my sanity. Such a bummer. I’ll keep checking and i’ll keep strong disappointed. But maybe ONE day I can use this again.

Updated a very long time later. Just updated to a new iphone 12 and was so excited to try the this app app again and see if it would work finally. NOPE. Serious garbage. Crash crash crash crash crash.

by Zazuuuu

I have been using this app for years. The recipes are amazing. Unfortunately Epicurious is terrible and glitchy. I can’t believe Condé Nast allows Epicurious to function this way. I have never written a negative review for an app before but Epicurious is terrible.

I use Epicurious for almost all my recipes and save my personal recipes in there. I love the recipes and collections. Unfortunately, however, be prepared to lose years of saved recipes. It’s impossible to access your account to change your password if you have forgotten it (their “forgot password” links don’t work on phone or computer) and this app won’t respond to repeated emails on the topic. I have emailed them at least four times with no response. It makes no sense. It’s such a basic feature and so easy to respond and say you are looking into it.

Luckily I still have my password saved on a different device and can access my recipes, but I have no access on my phone. Please fix this.

by Johnnyapple Ore

The this app app has a very poor search function. Even if you know the exact name of the recipe, it may or may not work
For example, the small video that plays on an unrelated recipe page featured “Chocolate Dipped Pistachio Shortbread.” When I entered that exact title into the Search function looking for the recipe, it was not found. Makes no sense
If you know only a partial name of a recipe, the search won’t find it. And the search brings up all tyoes of extraneous articles that have no relevance. The search by word or partial name needs a major rework. It’s very frustrating and makes me not want to use it. The NYT cooking app is much better.
There must be hundreds of thousands of recipes in the database, yet Epicurious finds only a related few if you enter a major ingredient.
I’ve subscribed to Bon Appétit since the 1970s and am disappointed by the lackluster search performance of Epicurious. It needs much refinement and attention to these issues.

by Rollipollies

For some reason the login function doesn't work on my iPad. I've tried several times and Epicurious just closes the page as though I never entered my login details. It's very frustrating. Other than that, Epicurious is good. It has a recipe box section and a shopping list section from which you can choose items from your recipe box in order to help you prepare your meals. Please fix this login issue. Other than that, good work.

UPDATE: I bought a new iPad a few weeks ago and updated all of my apps, yet Epicurious STILL refuses to let me login. It’s not like it’s telling me that my password is wrong and that I need to guess again or reset it. No, instead it just acts like I’ve never entered my information once I press Sign In. Soooo frustrating!!! How am I supposed to access my Recipe Box or my Shopping List. It’s really inconvenient having to access this website from my laptop when I’m cooking in the kitchen or planning meals on the road. PLEASE FIX THIS this app!!!

by Jaliah C Turner

Tried Epicurious for about a day and the recipes were great and they organized the different categories really well. My only and biggest problem is that Epicurious decides what it’s going to save on my ‘save recipes’ file. I spent almost an hour finding all these great recipes and scrolling and scrolling. A couple hours later when I tried to make one of my saved recipes, I checked my saved recipe file and it was completely empty! I had a least 30 recipes saved that I spent an hour trying to find! Then I found one that I liked again and added it and immediately checked the saved recipe file and still nothing. So I’m not sure what’s going on but that again turned me COMPLETELY off. There’s to many recipes on Epicurious for the saved recipes category to not be working/glitching.

by Bagirathi

First: I have loved this app and used it often. Second: Epicurious is very disappointing. Since I don’t take my laptop into the kitchen when cooking, you’d think Epicurious would be fully functional.

My main complaint is that it doesn’t allow for reviews. I rely on others reviews in choosing recipes to play with, so like to leave my own without having to login in on a different device. In addition, the “fork ratings” of recipes are not consistent between the website and Epicurious ! Tonight I made a 4 fork recipe from Epicurious that was subpar, and when I went to review it realized it was rated much lower on the full website. They really need to fix these deficiencies. I’ll look for another site that allows you to search and save things to a recipe box now. This one simply isn’t good enough.

Update: Oh and great! Now Epicurious won’t even function to allow logins for the old recipes saved there! Keeps bumping me back to the login page. I’m not clear why BA has trouble putting out a functional app. Other food sites don’t have such difficulty. Ridiculous.

by DoBetterPls

I have been using Epicurious off and on for about 5 years. I have seen the addition of new features like the Shopping List which I totally love. However, Epicurious is filled with bugs, and glitches no matter how many updates are made. There’s always a new issue with Epicurious and therefore becomes an inconsistent resource which completely defeats the purpose of being a recipe/cooking resource. As of right now, when you open Epicurious , after the loading page the screen turns completely white, you can not see any of the content, you can not select anything, it’s just a white screen. This inconvenience is similar to what happens about 6 - 8 months ago when Epicurious would just close if you tried to sign in to view your saved recipes. Before that, Epicurious would just close right after the loading page and you couldn’t access anything. There are no apps with similar content/quality recipes which is even more frustrating because there’s an obvious mismatch between the quality in content and the quality of app developers that manage Epicurious. I am hoping for a day soon where either another, well coded app, is made with quality content or this app gets it together. However I am not to confident in the latter.

by OneEyedCyclops

The recipes are great, and I’ve really enjoyed making them, but Epicurious itself isn’t great. The back button doesn’t work well, it has a really tiny hit box so sometimes it takes me longer to hit the back button than it does to read the recipe. I’ve never had this issue with any other app. Also, the timers don’t notify you when they’re finished… they count down, but there’s no sound or notification when they’re finished, so you’re better off just using an egg timer or your oven clock or even the timer on your phone. Thanks to the timers not working, I over cooked a whole dozen eggs. Bummer.

Also, for whatever reason, you can’t review a recipe from inside Epicurious . So while you can use Epicurious to view recipes, you can’t participate in reviews and such, which makes me question how accurate the reviews are. Plus, it just takes away the sense of community and participation. Why even include reviews if you’re not going to let people do their own?

On the upside, you can save recipes to come back to, but you can’t sort them so it’s sort of chaos, but still, it’s nice to have them in a list instead of a million browser tabs.

So, all in all, I kind of hate Epicurious , but I love this app recipes so it gets 3 stars, even though Epicurious is a hard 2.

by Pam The Cook

I went on epi when I first heard about it, at least 18 years ago...maybe more. It was the total package....new and amazing! Now, I’m getting a bit disappointed and yet I always come back. Some of my favorite recipes have disappeared from the site and I’ll never retrieve and some of the new is just not good. Sometimes way too trendy and I’m not sure if the staff reads or tries these recipes as written? Like I said, I’ll keep coming back, but I’d like to see more of the basics and not 15 of the same thing with only a slight variance Update: liking some of the reviews of product both food and tools. Would also like to see more standardized recipes for holidays...like basic pumpkin, apple, or cherry pies....most are out there and sometimes you want the food to be exotic and sometimes just “good American food” Also, I use epi on my iPhone/iPad and cannot figure out how to review recipes on there....send me info on that, please

So, i guess y’all do not care about these reviews…so, why do you ask?? I sent the above, at least 2 years ago. I have yet to hear from anyone from the company

by Crams623

Epicurious is mostly awesome. You can browse cooking videos, look at recipes and save the ingredients to a grocery list that you can check off while you shop. It also has timers for basic foods like chicken as well as their cuts, eggs and the different times for different ways, etc., however I dislike that the only timers for most of the ingredients is for roasting in the oven. There isn’t a timer for steaming specific veggies or grill times, slow cooker times etc. it would be nice to add those details in to enjoy the apps convenience a little better. Also, there’s no way to save any of the videos for later. You have to scroll and look for them, you can’t search them in the search box either. And the search lists are very short and sometimes nonexistent. If you type in vegetarian, only one recipe comes up! There needs to be a more broad and lengthy list of recipes in general. I also wish that you could name the shopping list but that’s not a big deal. However, Epicurious does need some major improvements for it to be amazing.

by Bonmot22

I’ve been an this app member since the 1990’s and, until it was disbanded, an active voice in the this app Forum. When the this app Cookbook was in the works I was contacted to contribute one of my recipes which I’m happy to say appeared in the book (Sesame Noodles). Back then Epi was my primary source for new recipe inspirations and I loaded my personal recipe box with them. I still refer back to those on occasion but no longer visit the site as my primary source - it has been preempted by the NYT Cooking Site where I find the recipes more infesting and the comments more lively. It used to be much easier to upload a personal recipe to this site but it’s now too cumbersome to do so or to even go back and revise a previous one. I’m happy that those of us who met in cyberspace via the erstwhile Forum have been thriving in our private group on FB.

by Jesus, Tea, And Food

So, I truly do love Epicurious, but what’s up with it no longer allowing me to play the videos? I loved the videos, I thrived off of the videos, the videos made life just that much better. This problem started about a month ago and I hesitated to say anything thinking it was just a glitch or something but the problem persists... Please, Please, PLEASE fix it, I need you back in my life. And this is totally me just being extra but can you, one, please add more BA content and two, give us a way to search and possibly save videos. No biggie though.

P.S. I still love you guys though so even if the problem doesn’t get fixed and what not, you have my loyalty and I am not going anywhere.

by PJ From WA

I find Epicurious to be my favorite place to get online recipes. Reasons are it gives without asking for money or clicks, it has a large variety of recipes, most of them have reviews, and it is easy to save recipes for future needs. I like checking it out for new recipes because I am not shown ads or otherwise annoyed by obstacles to simply finding good recipes. That is the goal and Epicurious delivers. Is it perfect? No, I can’t get any of the videos to play, some recipes don’t have a photo, some don’t have any or very few reviews and there aren’t very many gluten free choices yet.

by LG2.0

I use Epicurious multiple times a week. As a Bon Appetit subscriber, it’s a great way to find and save recipes from the magazine. It’s also a terrific reference and source of inspiration, especially on those ‘what’s for dinner tonight?’ days. The search tools and photography are great and help to sort through a massive database of recipes. I own over 100 cookbooks but use this app more than any of them.
That said, there is room for improvement. Most notably Epicurious keeps crashing and giving me a blank white screen shortly after the initial content load since the most recent update. Also, I’m surprised that the developers have chosen to only allow reviews to be submitted through the website. I find reviews of recipes to be a very valuable feature since many of the reviewers are knowledgeable cooks, but I rarely contribute to this community because Epicurious doesn’t allow it. Please fix the bugs and enable reviews Condé Nast!

by Rwkp

Dear this app, I strongly suggest that you eliminate your app altogether, particularly if you cannot keep it functional. That, or fire whoever is maintaining it for you and replace them with a qualified company. Adding all of your advertising to Epicurious was bad enough, but now your app fails nearly every time I try to use it, booting me out before I can even finish typing in the search bar. Seems to me that if you are trying to attract people to your site, you would want to have Epicurious fixed. In this day and age, any company that relies so heavily on consumers (pun intended) would insist that Epicurious be top notch -- millennials rely on apps and you are carving yourself (ha ha) out of a huge potential future market. Zero rating--don't waste your time with Epicurious, use the website instead.

by Jackiejshr

I am 77 and I have been making cinnamon Rolls for well over 50 years. Most of the time, they were real good. Cinnamon rolls are good. However, I will never make a different recipe than this one. They are THE BEST I have EVER made or eaten. Anyone I have shared them with agree. They are totally addictive.
This time I did make a couple adjustments just for the sake of simplicity. Since the extremely soft, moist dough is one of the secrets of the clouds like texture, I would never change the proportions of the ingredients. This time I did put the dough in the refrigerator over night and shaped the rolls in the morning. It was much easier to handle and there were no ill effects whatsoever. I also melted the butter and brushed it on and then sprinkled on the cinnamon mixture.
Thank you for the cinnamon roll recipe that I have been looking for for more than 50 years.

by Neely97

I have been using this app long before apps - back in the days of dial up! The this app app was one of the first I ever downloaded and it holds all of my recipes so I have it no matter where I may travel. What makes this app so appealing is its organization - you can create a shopping list for recipes, it provides a fairly accurate estimation of prep time, difficulty ratings AND you get feedback from other users: teaks on ingredients, additional tips, etc. All of these qualities make this app perfect for everybody that wants to create in the kitchen from novice to expert. I use it for inspiration when I am just burnt out on cooking but the family expects dinner every bought, too. Absolute lifesaver that has rekindled my love of cooking many times when I was loathing the “what’s for dinner?” questioning.

by QueenSoopers

I am a serious cook with very discerning taste, so any old recipe just won’t cut it. this app is my go-to place for all things yummy.

If I eat something delicious at a restaurant I can usually find the recipe for the dish I liked on this app. If I’m stumped for what to make for dinner on the weeknights I can find inspiration on this app. If I’m looking for a show-stopper dish for literally any occasion I can find it on this app!

My one piece of advice is for new cooks to be aware that most of the recipes on Epicurious are spot on, but I would definitely recommend reading through the entire recipe you’re considering making to make sure that it seems doable and that there aren’t odd curveballs to what you might be expecting (sometimes there are several variations of a recipe).

by PS Reader

This is one of those apps that has the potential to be truly outstanding, but is being help back because it poorly functions. I use (or try to use) Epicurious fairly regularly (weekly), access the website too, usually when totally frustrated by Epicurious , and have subscribed to BA magazine for decades. Epicurious content is good (recipes, photos, reviews). I like some of the features added since Epicurious ’s creation (personal recipe box, front page features, shopping list, lots more photos than when launched), but am so frustrated and disappointed by performance issues. I am frequently tossed out of Epicurious when browsing or reading front page features. Like many other app reviewers, I would value an in app review feature. Not having one does not stop me from reviewing, but does curtail the number I post considerably. I keep coming back and hoping that the performance issues will be fixed, but have been disappointed for many years running now. Given that these complaints have been around a while, they must be hard to fix, but please do more. The issues are driving me away from what could be a five star app (would give you six if it really worked well).

by Pipelinebreak

Coming back after a long while not using Epicurious — loved the iPad version to pieces 5-6 years ago! But now that some time has passed and I’ve gained friends with several severe allergies to dairy, seafood, and garlic (yes that is a thing), it’s quite frustrating the lack of granularity in being able to filter out certain ingredients based on certain allergies or dietary preferences. Also the search function appears to be a bit broken — I was looking up cinnamon rolls because a featured recipe caught my eye but I wanted to see what other recipes were available, and it said there were no recipes AT ALL, including said featured recipe. A bit confusing, that. I would love to see some more improvements in these regards!

by PR In Boston

Saving a recipe from an email to Epicurious was always a bit clumsy and web/app sync never seemed to work. The frustrating workaround for me was to only save to Epicurious after needing to launch it. Now it seems an email link won’t save to Epicurious at all. Sync is fundamental...fix it up please.

Update:
Continuing to pursue this issue further at the directed email resulted in an invalid address response. So solid for long, nothing has changed on my end. My support request email seemingly not received:

My web site has started to have many more recipes than my iOS app. I never paid much attention to the website count, but something now seems up with saving a recipe to Epicurious from the subscription emails so the syncing became noticed. Yes, I use the same email login and have logged out/in of both several times. Most frustrating!!

Next update:
Further exploring how to get my “favorite after work app to enjoy”, actually sync so it’s useful, it now seems that the 'Rate in Epicurious Store' selection is now unavailable. Great app, bad something!!

by Wargin1995

I can not compliment this recipe enough. I Did Not have to put a 1/2 cup of oil in it like the boxed brands. They are concise and lay low so I decided to cut smaller squares too. The portion control is warranted because the Taste is perfect with a small square! I only reduced the sugar to a cup because of others suggestions. I did not have parchment paper so I did spray oil into ceramic rectangular pans and set timers for 20 mins, then 5 & then shut my amazing 20 year old Gaggenau blue wall ovens off and waited for a few minutes. I did not double the batch, I made separate single batches. All 4 boys and my husband enjoyed them immensely. Then I ate one..... what a mistake! I will be eating too many of these tomorrow!

by Bbala123

I have subscribed before and been a lover of Bob Appetit and this app for many many years! I love the magazines, articles, menus, recipes and was thrilled when there was an app made available. Yes, there have been glitches along the way but nothing that drove me nuts until now.
I use Epicurious some what frequently but honestly would rather flip though my old magazines for inspiration unless I’m thinking something specific and want to search for that type item. Like today...thinking I’d love a dessert with pears as the star. So I search...pears...I find over 200 options.
I’m so excited!! Until in disgust I give up after about 25 because out of those, other than a lovely table setting the only number that had an actual image of the recipe indicated that I was lookin for was maybe 2 or 3😳
What?!?! Isn’t that the whole point!! Don’t we eat with our eyes first!!!!
I want to see what the recipe is talking about...what is it depicting? Is this something I want to make and serve?

Come on this app!!!
You can do better than this..

by Lopo392

I love Epicurious I used Epicurious a lot and have told many friends about it. It’s a great source for quality relieves that you know are from trusted source and will always come out great.
I receive the Bon Appetit magazine regularly and I often save recipes from the magazine on Epicurious to be able to reference at other times. Online I am able to create folder categories, it would be nice to have this fester represented in mobile as well. I also cannot right reviews on the mobile version, which would be nice to able to do since I reference Epicurious a lot.
I have checked to see if there have been any updates and as far as I know I have the most update right now.

by ShyW

I see many users find Epicurious buggy - it’s been great for me the past couple yrs until last week - it simply won’t load new/current content on either of my devices. Please fix!

That said, it’s my go-to for new dishes to try on friends & family, because it’s the “complete” deal - a recipe often followed by many reviews with comments & suggestions by (for the most part) experienced home cooks. Epicurious came thru again this year with a killer salad. Not every recipe is a winner, but often you know that before wasting time & $$$ by seeking out recipes with lots of thoughtful, helpful comments. My #2 app of all time just for that!

by CaraD617

I really enjoy Epicurious! I always get inspiration from the plethora of recipes and especially like that I can search by ingredient when I’m on the fence about how to use up what I have on hand. I chuckle during nearly every video and am selfishly pleased when I find out I’m not the only person who does not know how to cut an artichoke. The weekly meal ideas are awesome and the reviews on products are almost always informative. My feedback to improve would be: let me comment on the recipes after I’ve made them - sometimes they turn out less than great and I’d like this app and their readers to know and/or advise what went wrong. Generally I’ve been happy with Epicurious and look forward to what’s for dinner tonight!!

by Susan LZ

I’ve been using this app for many years. It’s always my “go to” place for ideas. I rarely follow recipes exactly do I usually read through a number of recipes and combine the best of each. I also get ideas from the reviews. This is dodo where the entertainment factor kicks in. I love how people review a recipe and give it “forks” even when they use none of the ingredients. Maybe there should be a different system for reviewing recipes when you modify the recipe to the point where it’s a whole new recipe. Anyway I have a number of favorite “go to” recipes which I love and many more saved that I want to try.