UPDATE: While Tasty Recipes is a fine plugin, I do now definitely recommend WP Recipe Maker over it. While it’s still not quite as easy to set up, there are SO many more options for customizing it, and the customer service is AMAZING. Plus, there is a free version you can get started with.
Before the latest WordPress update, there were several decent recipe plugins to choose from. After the update though, most stopped working and the developers didn’t want to go through the work of updating them. (This can be one of the struggles with free plugins in any category.)
Thankfully, there are a couple of good ones that survived because they have quality developers working on them.
The first one actually has a free option, and then other features become available if you pay. That’s WP Recipe Maker.
It’s a good plugin, it will be great for your SEO (getting found on Google), and again, it starts out free.
However, if you’re a food blogger, many of the features that you’ll want, you’ll have to upgrade for. And if you’re paying for a recipe plugin, there’s another one I recommend more:
Tasty Recipes
Tasty Recipes was created by the food blogger behind Pinch of Yum who needed a recipe plugin that filled in all the gaps of the others (especially the SEO part). (Affiliate link, recommended because I have worked with this plugin and actually recommend it–and so do my clients!)
Why do I recommend it over WP Recipe Maker? It’s way more user-friendly. WP Recipe Maker costs between (around) $60 and $125 a year, while Tasty Recipes costs $80 a year. Besides the user-friendliness, they are about equal in my opinion, both great.
Here is how simple it is to write a recipe using the WP Tasty Recipes plugin:
This recipe plugin has so many great features:
- Tasty Recipes was built to help you climb in search results (both on Google AND on Pinterest!)
- The plugin will import all recipes you created with other plugins so you don’t have to keep the other plugins on your blog, and all of your recipes will look and behave the same
- It doesn’t overwrite the styles you have on your blog, so it matches pretty well as soon as it is installed
- Tasty Recipes gives your visitors the ability to rate your recipes right in your current comment section
- Your average star rating right will show under the recipe title
- They have great support. The first time I had worked with their plugin, I had a question for them about how to use something. Raquel from their support team responded very quickly and was super nice and very helpful.
If you want to go with a pre-made recipe design, they have several to choose from. Check out the one at the top of the post. Here’s another cute one:
Their main recipe plugin is called Tasty Recipes, but they also have a second plugin called Tasty Pins that helps you optimize your images for both Google and Pinterest traffic, along with giving you an easy way to hide additional Pinterest-worthy graphics inside your blog post that only appear when someone clicks on the “Pin” button.
Pin this post so you don’t lose the instructions!
(And to help your blogging friends out too.)
Great info , thank you .
I use WP Recipe Maker and I hate it. I loved my old plugin but it stopped working and I had to choose a new recipe plugin and WP Recipe Maker was everyone’s fav. I don’t know why. You have to add your ingredients one by one. Same for directions. If there is another way I couldn’t find it. My old plugin was sooo user friendly. I want to switch to Tasty Recipes but I don’t know how to do it. Will my old posts automatically switch to tasty recipes or how will the switchover affect them?
PS I’m saving up for a one on one audit with you. lol.
Hi Joan! Sorry, I’m confused. 🙂 What do you mean by having to add ingredients one by one? WP Tasty is about the same, it’s just a little more user-friendly because it doesn’t have nearly as many options.
Hi,
I just saw this reply today. Sorry. I’ve been in the hospital but I am better now. (83 year old granny here. lol.) When I say you have to add ingredients and directions one at a time, I am thinking of my fab old plugin that allowed me to cut and paste ingredients and directions. Such a shame that it stopped working.
Your DIY checklist is eye opening for me. I answered all the questions and the result was a much clearer picture of the state of my food blog. I intend to ask my theme people to help me design my front page and other pages to conform to your suggestions. For a small monthly fee, I get 24/7 support. I don’t know if they can really help me, but for now, that’s all I can afford.
Thank you for your information.
Thank You for Sharing this Article. It’s really helpful for food bloggers like me.