On the hunt for the best WordPress recipe plugins to showcase your delicious food?
In this post, I’ve collected six great free and premium plugins that will help you display:
- Recipe instructions
- Ingredients
- Nutrition information
- Etc.
You’ll find everything from simple recipe cards to more comprehensive options with serving calculators and other advanced features.
Let’s get right into the plugins…
Six Best WordPress Recipe Plugins Compared
1. Tasty Recipes
Tasty Recipes is a premium WordPress recipe plugin from the folks at Pinch of Yum (a super popular food blog). It’s definitely not the cheapest option on this list, but I think it does have the best functionality and looks.
So if you’re willing to pay, this is definitely one of the overall best recipe plugins on this list.
So what do you get?
First off, you get five different themes to choose from, including this neat Bold theme:
As you can see in the demo example above, Tasty Recipes includes:
- Print button
- Pin it button
- CTA to hashtag on Instagram
You can add all of the important recipe information, including an option to connect to Nutrifox for nutrition information.
On the backend, Tasty Recipes adds the proper schema markup to get you:
- Recipe rich snippets in Google
- Pinterest Rich Pins
Other helpful features include:
- A “scale” option that lets people double or triple the recipe
- User ratings for recipes (users can rate a recipe when they leave a comment)
- An option to automatically insert ads into your recipe cards
- Options to import recipes from a variety of other recipe plugins
If you want to see all these features in action, you can check out a live example at Pinch of Yum.
Tasty Recipes costs $79. There’s also a 15-day money-back guarantee.
2. WP Recipe Maker
WP Recipe Maker is the most popular free recipe plugin at the WordPress.org plugin directory. Then, there’s also a premium version that stacks on more functionality.
WP Recipe Maker is from the same developer as the also-popular WP Ultimate Recipe plugin, which is why I didn’t include that plugin on this list.
In the free version, you can create recipes right from the WordPress editor using both the classic editor and Gutenberg.
Your recipes can include:
- A print button
- Recipe ratings (via the comments section)
- Photos for any step in the recipe process
And on the backend, WP Recipe Maker adds support for:
- Recipe schema/rich snippets
- Pinterest rich pins
One thing that I like is the “Jump to recipe” shortcode. This is a user-friendly feature that makes it easy for visitors to find the recipe card.
Here’s an example of the recipe card in the free version:
If you’re willing to pay for the premium version, you can also get access to features like:
- Ingredient links to link ingredients to other internal or external pages (like an affiliate link)
- Visitors can adjust the serving size – anywhere from 1-20 servings.
- Custom nutrition labels
- User ratings without requiring a comment (the free version only allows ratings through comments)
- More recipe card templates
- User-friendly features like a built-in kitchen timer and checkboxes for ingredients/recipe steps
- Convert to different units (e.g. metric vs imperial) – with a separate add-on
- Integration with a nutrition API for automatic nutrition facts – with a separate add-on
The premium version starts at $49.
Get WP Recipe Maker FreeGet Premium
3. Cooked
Cooked is another popular free WordPress recipe plugin that also has a Pro version with more functionality.
Note, while some of the other plugins just let you add recipe cards to the editor, Cooked actually has you save them as their own custom post type. You can embed recipe cards in regular blog posts using a shortcode, though.
The free version is pretty generous. With it, you can create recipes with:
- Nutrition facts
- Prep & cooking times, including interactive, clickable timers
- Difficulty levels
- Serving size changer to adjust recipe size
You also get widgets that let you display information, like nutrition facts. Here’s an example of the recipe card and the nutrition facts widget in action:
Cooked can also help you display all of your recipes, with a recipe list tool including text search and category filtering/sorting.
And on the backend, it adds schema markup for recipe rich snippets.
If you go Pro, you’ll also get features for:
- Recipe user ratings
- Save recipes as favorites
- User recipe submissions
- Social sharing buttons
- More recipe layouts
If you want the ability to display recipes as their own page, rather than just as part of a blog post, this is a good option.
4. Total Recipe Generator
Total Recipe Generator is a popular WordPress recipe plugin at CodeCanyon.
There is one unique thing about this plugin. It is not a standalone tool. Instead, it’s an add-on for the popular WPBakery Page Builder that lets you use the page builder to create your recipes using drag-and-drop.
So if you’re already using WPBakery Page Builder, that might be a good reason to choose this one. Otherwise, you might want to go with a standalone recipe plugin.
Your recipe cards can include:
- Times
- Yields
- Multiple categories/tags (e.g. Keto, Italian, Breakfast, etc.).
- Nutrition facts box
- Pictures in the instructions
- Social share buttons, including a print button
- Ads
And on the back-end, Total Recipe Generator adds support for:
- Recipe schema markup
- Pinterest rich pins
Total Recipe Generator costs just $24 – but remember that you’ll also need to have a copy of WPBakery Page Builder.
5. Simmer
Simmer is another freemium WordPress recipe plugin. The free version at WordPress.org limits you to a max of two ingredients or two instructions, though, so you’ll almost certainly need the Pro version.
With Simmer, you can add recipes complete with:
- Serving sizes
- Yields
- Cook times
- Etc.
Visitors can print your recipes, and Simmer adds all the proper schema markup to get you recipe rich snippets in Google.
You can also create a browsable, searchable recipe library.
One thing I like is the recipe card design. It’s simple, but I like how it lets you add the ingredients and instructions as two columns, instead of separate sections. Here’s an example:
Simmer also has extensions that let you:
- “Connect” recipes together to “Dynamically group multiple recipes to a single post or page”
- Add a paywall to charge for recipes
- A “blog only” extension to disable the recipe library functionality if you only want to use recipe cards in blog posts (you can, of course, use recipe cards in blog posts with the recipe library functionality enabled, as well)
Simmer Pro starts at $99.
6. Recipe Card Blocks
Finally, there’s Recipe Card Blocks. This simple plugin adds three new blocks to the WordPress block editor (AKA Gutenberg). These blocks let you add:
- Recipe details
- Ingredients
- Instructions
Because they’re separate blocks, you can arrange them in any order. And the blocks also include proper schema markup to get you recipe rich snippets.
Beyond that, the ingredients and instructions blocks also come with a print button – you can see an example below:
This one is definitely not as feature-rich as the other recipe plugins. But if you just want something lightweight that works with the Gutenberg block editor, it’s a solid option.
Which WordPress Recipe Plugin Should You Use?
Overall, I think that Tasty Recipes and WP Recipe Maker have the best combination of features and looks. Cooked is also a solid option, especially because it gives you advanced features like flexible serving sizes for free.
Beyond that, Simmer has nice looks, though it’s pricey, Recipe Card Blocks is good if you want something lightweight that works with the block editor, and Total Recipe Generator is one to look at if you’re already using WPBakery Page Builder.
Any questions about these recipe plugins for WordPress? Ask away in the comments!
