BigOven – Organize Your Recipes
If you like to cook, you know that there’s no shortage of food and drink apps. But few can match BigOven in the number of useful features. Known among foodies for its practicality and ease, it’s a well-beloved resource that’ll help you around your kitchen.
What’s the App?
BigOven, available for free on iOS, Android, Windowss and even the Kindle Fire, is simply one of the most comprehensive food and cooking apps around. It’s essentially a giant box of recipes that lets you easily tailor nearly every taste to the occasion. You can search through a wide array of dishes and menus — either by keyword, course or ingredient. But beyond the finely tuned search, it can also help you cook with leftovers. Just enter the ingredients you have in your refrigerator or pantry, and it’ll deliver recipes using those elements. There’s also a menu planning function that helps you map out the week’s meals so you can don’t forget to buy essential ingredients. But if you forget, tools can help you scale down — or up — recipes.
Beyond cooking, BigOven also lets you shop through a pro subscription. It’ll automatically generate grocery lists for any recipe, menu or day in the planner. You can also sort the list into store sections to help you breeze through the crowded aisles. You also get full nutritional information as well as access to special recipes for dietary preferences and needs.
You can also add your own handwritten or printed recipes — just snap a photo and the app will convert it into digital form and save it to your account. It’s great if you’re always scavenging from the back of Grandma’s dog-eared recipe books. If you stick with the free version, you can still add recipes through the website — but not the app.
You’ll Want It If…
You’re looking for a comprehensive cooking and shopping solution. It suits nearly all levels of culinary interest — from everyday foodies to practical working parents trying to cook for their family. BigOven is packed with functions, making it a great on-the-go shopping assistant and a great research guide in the kitchen. The navigation is intimidating and you can easily get overwhelmed. But once you’re familiar with it, you’ll like the simple interface and straightforward design.
It’s Not My Thing — What Else Ya Got?
BigOven emphasizes the more practical, everyday aspects of the culinary arts, and it has a utilitarian look-and-feel to match the approach. It lacks the visual razzle-dazzle, so if you’re serious about cooking, and you revel in arcane ingredients and elegant visuals, you won’t like it. Instead, take a look at Gojee, which offers similar features, but with a more adventurous, though limited, choice of recipes, presented in a gorgeous format.
