Storing Your Favorite Recipes in the Cloud: Top 3 Methods

There are very few things we don’t use the Internet for, and finding and sharing recipes is an excellent example of how much the digital world has entered our lives. Not that cookbooks are coming entirely out of style, but online recipes are free, customizable, and often include video instructions, making it a lot easier for newbie chefs to test their skills. In fact, a recent study found that 43% of people find their recipes online.

This shift has created many opportunities for food bloggers, though it’s important that you know how to use these browsing habits to your advantage. One example is going for cloud-based recipe management tools instead of local storage. Cloud-based options make it easier than ever to create and share recipes online, whether through your own website or as part of a shared database.

They can also help you to:

Access/create an extensive database of recipes
Create custom meal plans
Generate shopping lists
Share recipes on social media
Save recipes you’d like to try again

There are many different kinds of recipe management tools to choose from, including website plugins, IOS (Apple), Android apps, and web apps.

Considering all of these factors, it’s easy to see why people prefer these options to traditional cookbooks or software options that need to be installed on your computer. They are much more flexible and customizable to specific user requirements.

In this article, we’ll look at the top three options for cloud-based recipe tools, whether you’re a creator or a user.

Let’s start!

Factors to consider when choosing your recipe app

When embarking on the quest to find the perfect cloud-based recipe management tools, you must consider your personal goals and requirements. After all, your app choice can significantly impact your culinary journey, whether you’re exploring your love of cooking by checking out a wide range of recipes or sharing your recipes with foodies worldwide.

For recipe creators

If your long-term goal when using a cloud-based recipe management tool is to take on the role of a food writer or online influencer, you need to find an app that offers a wide range of advanced features. This will make it easier for you to create and share content online. As such, you may want to keep an eye out for the following properties:

Comprehensive recipe editor

Ideally, you should look for an app that provides a robust and user-friendly recipe editor. This means that you’ll then be able to create eye-catching and easy-to-follow recipes that your audience will love. Keep an eye out for features such as:

Visual styling. These features will allow you to customize your recipes with images, step-by-step instructions, ingredient lists, and cooking tips. This is particularly important as users are unlikely to interact with recipes that appear as giant blocks of text, as it makes them appear overly complicated.
Interactive elements. These features will allow you to add various interactive elements to your recipes, such as timers, cooking notes, and video demonstrations, enhancing the user experience and making it easier for them to follow your recipes.
Step-by-step guidance. This feature will allow you to easily create and organize detailed step-by-step instructions for each recipe, improving the user experience.

Recipe versioning and iteration

As you develop your craft, you may want to alter your recipes, meaning you should look for an app that allows you to save multiple different iterations of your recipes. This way, you can track the evolution of your best recipes over time while providing your audience with consistent access to top-quality recipes.

Online exposure is crucial if you want to become a food influencer or online chef. After all, without this recognition, it can be hard to build a career for yourself online. As such, you should opt for software that allows you to share recipes on your website or create a public profile that showcases your work.

You should also ensure that your platform integrates well with social media platforms so you can share your work with a wider audience. This is particularly important when you consider that more than 70% of adults use social media for recipes.

Analytics and feedback

To grow your platform, you must be able to understand how your recipes are received. As such, you must choose an app that provides access to analytics such as likes, views, comments, and shares. This will help you gauge the popularity and impact of your recipes, providing you with a clear window of opportunity when discovering essential changes you must make to move forward.

For recipe users

If you aim not to share your recipes but instead gain access to hundreds of recipes through a database, then your requirements would be slightly different. In that case, you should focus on finding an app with a user-friendly interface or one that enhances your culinary journey. As such, here are the features you might find useful:

Access to a vast recipe database

When developing your culinary skills, you must try out a wide range of recipes, which means that you need an app that gives you access to as many recipes as possible. In that case, you’ll probably need the following options:

Advanced search and filtering. These features will make it easier than ever to search for recipes based on a range of personal requirements, such as your skill level, the amount of time required, cuisines, dietary preferences, and specific ingredients.
Collections and folders. These features serve as something of a recipe organizer and will allow you to save your favorite recipes into customized collections and folders, making it easier to find yours.
Sharing options. These features will allow you to quickly and easily share recipes with friends, family, and other budding master cooks or on social media so you can share your love of cooking with others.

Meal planning and shopping lists

Some apps will contain integrated meal planning and shopping list features so you don’t forget any essential ingredients when visiting the grocery store. You can use them to plan your weekly meals ahead of time by importing recipes from your database and creating a cohesive schedule.

For example, you could use this feature to ensure you cook the quickest, simplest meals on your busiest day! You can use the same tools to automatically generate shopping or grocery lists based on the recipes you’ve selected.

Collaborative features

You should also keep an eye out for apps that allow for user collaboration, such as sharing or recommending recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists with others. This will make for a more interactive overall experience.

Exploring the top 3 cloud-based recipe management tools

WP Recipe Maker

If you’re one of the 180 million people who use WordPress as the canvas for their website, then the WP Recipe Maker is the perfect tool for sharing recipes online. In fact, it was explicitly designed to support aspiring food bloggers to create a platform where users can find, save, and share recipes, putting them on the path to success.

The plug-in contains many features which can help you to enhance recipe presentation, interactivity, and management.

Recipe presentation and interactivity

WP Recipe Maker can provide you with access to the tools you need to craft a visually appealing and engaging recipe website without having to learn the art of coding. It includes features such as:

Customized recipe templates. The WP Recipe Maker Template Editor allows you to edit the basic recipe template to match your aesthetic or vision. You can customize various features within the template, such as the layout, colors, and fonts. This will help when it comes to building a cohesive brand.

Interactive elements. This plugin also boasts various interactive and practical features that enhance the user experience. For example, recipe servings can be adjustable based on serving size and dietary requirements. Furthermore, ingredients and equipment can be linked to relevant internal pages, enriching the cooking process with additional insights.
Nutritional labels. A recent study found that over 3 in 5 consumers agreed that they would like to change their diet to make it healthier. You can make this task easier on your followers by including labels that provide insight into the nutritional value of your recipes.

While the WP Recipe Maker can make it easier for you to create stunning, eye-catching recipes, it can also enhance the entire culinary journey on behalf of your readers. For example, users can generate shopping lists directly based on your recipe’s ingredients list. This minimizes their chances of forgetting essential ingredients and makes grocery shopping a breeze.

This plugin also offers a wide range of social sharing functionalities, so you can quickly and easily share your recipes on various social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. This, in turn, will enable you to elevate your online presence.

Advanced recipe management and user interaction.

The WP Recipe Maker plugin makes the process of managing your recipe database a piece of cake. It can be used to create:

User recipe collections. Users can save their favorite recipes into personalized collections when using the plugin, fostering loyalty and helping you build your online community. You can then use these collections to create a digital cookbook and earn some extra money.
Shopping lists for collections. The plugin also makes otherwise time-consuming tasks such as meal planning easier by providing your followers with shopping lists for entire recipe collections.
User-submitted recipes. To build an active online community, you may also want to allow users to submit their own recipes.
Private notes. Including private notes allows users to personalize recipes with their own tips, tweaks, and observations. For example, this could be used to tailor recipes to specific dietary requirements.

Beyond this, WP Recipe Maker Pro allows for efficient backend management. You can adjust, update, and fine-tune recipes anytime, creating a database that your users can always rely on.

If you’d like to gain access to the features online above, check out the Elite Bundle.

Yummly

While WP Recipe Maker Pro is primarily targeted at food bloggers, Yummly is designed to support users who want to access a digital cookbook with an extensive database of recipes. It features a variety of user-friendly features, such as:

Personalized recommendations. These recommendations are based on users’ preferences, diets, and history.
Meal planning support. These tools can be used as a meal planner, allowing you to create a meal plan schedule and curate customized shopping lists.
Step-by-step recipe videos. Incorporating video content into your recipes provides beginner chefs with visual guidance when trying new recipes.

WordPress Food Bloggers can also benefit from this platform, as you can integrate the “Yum” button into their WordPress recipes. This means that Yumly users can add recipes to their accounts. Fifteen Spatulas is a great example of using Yummly and WP Recipe Maker Pro as compliments to each other. They have their own WordPress food blog to create recipes with the plugin, but they are also very active on Yummly.

Whisk

Whisk is primarily a mobile app used by both recipe creators and home cooks alike. It boasts a variety of user-friendly features, such as:

Recipe discovery and creation. Features promoting recipe discovery and creation allow users to become part of a vibrant culinary community.
Communicating engagement. To foster community engagement, Whisk allows users to share recipes, interact with their followers, and even ask questions. You can also track these metrics to ensure you’re on the right track.
Rating and interaction. Recipe rating tools allow users to gain valuable insight from their audience, which can help you grow or strengthen your brand.
Custom meal plans. The Whisk app can craft customized meal plans for users based on their specific requirements.

Whisk’s unique blend of recipe discovery and creator engagement makes it an attractive platform for aspiring foodie authorities. By contributing to and interacting within communities, you can establish yourself as a culinary influencer, and this platform can take your career to the next level.

However, it’s still beneficial to set up your own website. After all, this offers more chances for monetization!

What’s the best recipe software for your needs?

The answer to the above question largely depends upon your intentions when using cloud-based website management software – i.e., whether you want to create and share recipes or mainly gain access to hundreds of recipes as a daily tool.

If you’re focusing on content creation, the best course of action is to set up a WordPress site and take advantage of the WP Recipe Maker plugin. In doing so, you can:

Share your recipes with a broad audience.
Organize your recipes into a comprehensive database.
Interact with your audience by utilizing community features.
Build your stand-out brand.
Monetize your content by adding affiliate links, selling merch, and getting brand deals.
Gain traction by developing an effective SEO strategy.

However, it’s also important to note that you don’t need to use one form of software alone – as it’s often best to use various tools to achieve success online. For example, you could use your WordPress website as your primary channel, using Yummly and Whisk to increase brand awareness.

To get started, check out WP Recipe Maker’s Elite Bundle!

Storing Your Favorite Recipes in the Cloud: Top 3 Methods