As a young woman in construction, cooking in the kitchen has NEVER been a priority of mine. I got home from a long day of work and wanted food NOW, unless I had already stopped and grabbed fast food beforehand. With that came a serious lack of knowledge in the kitchen. As I started a serious health journey I realized I wanted to try prepping my meals for the week so I didn’t have to stress when I came home. Well that all sounded great, but I had ZERO knowledge OR confidence on making anything out of the ordinary until I found this app. The amount of knowledge they give you on seemingly EVERY part of cooking, PLUS how they have the recipes and pre made grocery list from your selections is so convenient and something I’ve been searching in an app for a while. Highly recommend you give this app a try!

As a young 20-something who has never learned how to cook ANYTHING (I even struggled with Mac and cheese!), I am now cooking meals that younger me would have never thought I could for less than half of the effort that “easy recipes” call for. I especially love how it is a safe space for someone like me who didn’t know ANY cooking terms (like “sweat”). Zest highlights any terms it uses in blue which pulls up a video covering the exact specifics of any term I’m unsure of. It treats me like a toddler, but respectfully, and I appreciate it so dang much!! Also, and I can’t stress this enough for gamer or younger users, it GAMIFIES cooking (yesss!!!) Leveling up and gaining XP is such a great motivation booster! For sure went from someone who can’t cook at all to feeling super grown up when I can cook ACTUAL meals that make me feel great thanks to this app!!

App looks cool, even the introduction quiz was quite fun. I like the app’s layout and “level” system. It feels good to have a benchmark throughout my cooking journey. However, without a vegan dietary preference, it isn’t very usable. The great thing about the app is the importance of flavor profile and understanding the elements of cooking so, with my ignorance, I don’t think I could probably do my own swaps for dairy free. For example, something calls for whole milk or cream, probably not an easy sub for almond milk because of the fat needed for richness and acid balance. Or, how much almond milk compared to whole cow milk. Butter vs margarine. Things like that. I wanted something to help me take the guess work out of meal planning. Ill be waiting! I understand updates are being made so, maybe one day I’ll stumble upon the app again and see added dietary needs. Thank you and take care!