6 of the Best Recipe Plugins for WordPress
Food blogging is huge, just search for your favourite dish and you will find numerous recipes available.
Any food blogger serious about their site will need a solid recipe plugin that can do certain things:
- Make the bloggers life easier when it comes to adding recipes
- Have good looking recipe cards
- Make your visitors life easier by providing all the relevant info they need in an easy to digest manner
- Be SEO friendly, to make it easier for search engines to find the recipes
I’ve reviewed several of the best recipe plugins for WordPress that are out there right now, that would be suitable for beginner bloggers and food blogger pros alike.
TL;DR
Comparisons
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WP Ultimate Recipe
When first viewed, WP Ultimate Recipe looks daunting as it has numerous menu pages and lots of detail. This detail though is what makes WP Ultimate Recipe an incredibly powerful recipe plugin.
Recipes can be added in two ways: either via the normal recipe editor that is very similar to how WordPress posts work, or by copying and pasting in some text and selecting which bit is the ingredients, instructions etc. This latter option makes short work of adding recipes from other online sources.
The recipe adder has all the details you would think you need: serving amount, prep and cook times, detailed ingredients, easy to add instructions (with the ability to add an image per instruction!).
The plugin has a built in unit conversion system, and its ingredient support is amazing. When you add an ingredient to a recipe, the system saves this as a separate item in the plugins inner workings, allowing you to set some defaults for it, including the nutritional information. That information is even generated for you!
WP Ultimate Recipe also comes with an admin & user rating system built in. As well as that is a favourite system for logged in users, which is a great way to help entice and keep people as registered users of your site.
Further to that, the plugin also allows user submitted recipes.
The settings and options will definitely take some time to go through and tweak to your liking, but they are really powerful and flexible: everything you need is baked right into the plugin.
| SEO Friendly | Easy to Use | Rating System | Unit Conversion | User Submissions | Print Option |
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Cooked – A Super-Powered Recipe Plugin
If you’re looking for a recipe plugin for WordPress that has everything you need, and is easy to use, the Cooked might be the one for you.
Like most other decent recipe plugins, Cooked uses a custom post type system, meaning that adding a recipe is nearly as simple as adding a post.
You can add in ingredients and instructions and the plugin will convert them to tickable items on the front end: very nice for users with a tablet computer in the kitchen!
The plugin allows for nutritional data to be added, and though the available options will cover most bases, you are limited to those and cannot add in your own types. There’s also no automated system to get nutritional data so you will have to know it or find it out when adding a recipe.
The settings for Cooked are detailed enough for most food bloggers and are very easy to use.
The plugin comes with 8 pre-designed templates for the single recipe view and a few variations for the recipe overview.
Unlike other recipe plugins, Cooked does not merge recipes into the post feed; instead it has them separated out on a page with a shortcode.
The recipe overview also has a handy filtering system, allowing users to find the right type of recipe they are after. Sadly, this cannot be turned off.
On a positive note, Cooked also provides a rating system and user submission system.
Overall, Cooked is a solid plugin for beginner or casual food bloggers.
| SEO Friendly | Easy to Use | Rating System | Unit Conversion | User Submissions | Print Option |
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EasyRecipe
This WordPress recipe plugin doesn’t separate recipes from posts which is a little unusual. Instead you add the recipe to a post via a button in the editor.
This will pop up a modal window allowing you to insert the recipe details. One good aspect of this is that should you ever stop using the plugin the recipe details will stay as they are inserted with HTML.
However, not everyone will want their recipes intermingled with their blog posts; from an admin view point it could end up being a nightmare.
The free version is somewhat basic, not even allowing you to insert an image, and it also limits you to one recipe per post.
The looks of the recipe card are not bad, clean and crisp, and you get to choose from 9 different styles.
The plugin also allows you to test the different templates and even customise specific aspects such as font size, all from the front end, so you can find the right one that fits in with your website theme.
EasyRecipe allows user submission, but only with the premium version.
Like with Cooked, EasyRecipe allows for nutritional data but limits it to a specific set of nutritional values, though these are fine for most people.
| SEO Friendly | Easy to Use | Rating System | Unit Conversion | User Submissions | Print Option |
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Simmer for Recipes
This recipe plugin is perfect for those wanting to add basic but complete recipes to their WordPress website.
Simmer for Recipes adds recipes as separate recipe post types, and you can add the standard data of ingredients, instructions, prep time, servings and yields.
Where Simmer differs from other WordPress recipe plugins, is that it is also a portal for a SaaS (Software as a Service) system of simmer itself.
This means that you can extend the plugin by purchasing one of the following:
- Tinypass for Simmer – an extension to allow for micro payments so you can monetise your food blog
- Recipe Connector – a way to combine and order posts and recipes
- Membership – a way to join the Simmer community and get additional benefits.
None of these additonal addon plugins stop you from using Simmer for Recipes, but can possibly (for a fee) enhance the plugin and your site.
Other than that, Simmer for Recipes is a fairly simple recipe plugin with a blog style recipe card, and limited options.
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Zip Recipes
Another plugin that inserts recipes directly into posts, Zip Recipes is the successor of Zip Lists.
The plugin allows you to enter a single recipe into a post, and includes the following:
- Ingredient list
- Instruction list
- Admin star rating
- Time to cook
- Yield & Serving size
- Basic nutritional info
All of these are pretty standard fare.
There’s nothing bad about Zip Recipes, and it is ideal for those bloggers who only occasionally add a recipe or two.
The plugin does use shortcodes in the posts, so if you decide to change plugins later you will need to re-enter any old recipes.
There was one thing that bugged me, though it doesn’t affect the use of the plugin: you have to register your name and email (and provide anonymous site data) via the plugin before you can actually use the plugin.
| SEO Friendly | Easy to Use | Rating System | Unit Conversion | User Submissions | Print Option |
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Recipe Card
This recipe plugin is free and does a great job of converting your WordPress site into a proper recipe blog.
It too inserts recipe cards directly into posts rather than having them as separate entities, but if that isn’t a big deal to you then you should check this plugin out.
It offers a large variety of built in style templates, making it one of the best plugin in this list for choice of readymade styles.
While the style options are extensive, the plugin lacks any other options.
It’s easy to enter a recipe and (depending on the template you choose) the plugin automatically sources nutritional data from Yumprint, which is quite cool.
It offers a print mode and user rating, though the users must sign up for a Yumprint account before they can register their vote.
Being tied to a third party service, and being unable to disable this may not appeal to everyone, but Recipe Card is a simple and easy to use recipe plugin.
| SEO Friendly | Easy to Use | Rating System | Unit Conversion | User Submissions | Print Option |
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Comparisons
| WP Ultimate Recipe | Cooked | EasyRecipe | Simmer for Recipes | Zip Recipes | Recipe Card | |
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| SEO Friendly | |
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| Easy to Use | |
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Wrapping Up
By far the best of the bunch, WP Ultimate Recipe is most definitely ultimate! It can cater to both casual and professional food bloggers alike. It does have a learning curve when considering the wealth of options available to you, but the basics are simple enough for anyone to get started with.
Coming in second place I would recommend Cooked: it has a solid amount of options, looks great and is easy to use.
The rest of the plugins are of course great, though they have certain downs sides such as Recipe Cards automatic integration with Yumprint, and Simmer for Recipes lack of options and features.
Overall, whatever your recipe needs, one of these recipe plugins will surely fit the bill.