Cooking blogs face a challenge in presenting their recipes in an easy-to-read format without taking up too much time. While you can just publish recipes like normal posts, it’s a lot better to use a specific format that lists ingredients and cooking steps in an organized manner. The optimal way to go about it is to use one of the best WordPress recipe plugins below. Each one makes writing up recipes quick and easy, letting you publish more with less effort. They provide more features too, such as improved SEO for your recipe content, nutritional information, cooking times, etc. Check out their demo sites to see how each recipe plugin looks like in action.
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1. WP Recipe Maker
Over 30,000 food blogs currently use WP Recipe Maker for their recipe posts, making it the most popular, highly-rated and free recipe plugin today. It has a clean layout that can be enriched with photos and videos to make each step easier to understand. Built from the ground up to work with the latest WordPress features, WP Recipe Maker is compatible with both Classic and Gutenberg editor, as well as other page builders like Elementor. Recipes receive optimized schema.org metadata to make them more search-friendly, and visitors will find them easy to print, too.
Key features and benefits:
- Easy workflow in adding recipes to posts or pages
- Uses metadata optimized for Google Recipe search
- Supports Pinterest Rich Pins
- Enable users to comment and rate recipes
- Create clean print versions of recipes
- Fully responsive and customizable
- Import recipes from other plugins easily
View WP Recipe Maker on WordPress.org
Check out WP Recipe Maker Demo Site
2. Cooked
Cooked provides a drag-and-drop builder with masonry grids you can put your recipes into. Combined with a stylish theme, you can create visually enticing content presenting the ingredients, directions, nutrition information, and even an image gallery. It includes a search tool that visitors can use to look for specific dishes or ingredients, and everything is Google-friendly for maximum audience reach.
Key features and benefits:
- Drag & drop builder for ingredients and instructions
- Uses Schema.org and Google Structured Data
- Create photo galleries and add nutritional values
- Add cooking times with interactive timers
- Recipe search with multiple sorting and category options
3. WP Ultimate Recipe
WP Ultimate Recipe is one of the most popular WordPress recipe plugins in past years, notable for its user-friendly interface. You’ll be able to add multiple recipes to any web page in your blog using shortcodes or the Insert Recipe button. It’s been in continuous development since its initial release, so it remains compatible with the Classic and newer Gutenberg editor. You can insert videos and images to any part of the recipe to help visitors following the recipe see what they need to do and what the dish should look like at certain points. WP Ultimate Recipe is optimized for Google Recipe search with options for taxonomies, post structuring, and more.
Key features and benefits:
- Fully responsive and compatible with Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
- Full text search and recipe index
- Schema.org optimized metadata for Google search
- Provides image-less print version
- Adjustable ingredient quantities and structured content
- Customizable templates, fields, user menus
View WP Ultimate Recipe on WordPress.org
Check out WP Ultimate Recipe Demo Site
4. Recipe Card Blocks
If you prefer the Gutenberg editor, Recipe Card Blocks gives you recipe blocks in the native WP editor to add ingredient lists, meal photos, cooking steps, and other details such as servings, calories, etc. The plugin adds JSON-LD schema markup to all of your recipe content to improve visibility in Google search results, particularly with rich snippets. There’s even a testing tool to ensure you’ve entered all of the needed information to stand out. Once published, the recipe card blocks look fantastic even without customization, though you can do so of course.
Key features and benefits:
- Add recipe cards with schema markup
- Seven blocks for different recipe content
- Insert images in directions for greater detail
- Create social media call-to-action buttons
View Recipe Card Blocks on WordPress.org
Check out Recipe Card Blocks Demo Site
5. Zip Recipes
For professional looking recipes that are easy to create, Zip Recipes takes care of both behind-the-scenes optimization as well as front-facing presentation. It adds a single block with an intuitive editor where you can copy-paste your recipes to if you wish. The editor is flexible enough to be usable in any post type, including custom ones. Recipes you add is kept separate from you other non-recipe content, keeping everything well-organized. Zip Recipes prepares every recipe for rich snippets in Google, using JSON LD and Schema.org microdata, helping you rank higher.
Key features and benefits:
- Simple interface for easy recipe creation
- Featured image used for rich snippets
- Mobile-responsive and AMP compatible
- Pinterest Rich Recipe Pins ready
- Properly formatted print versions
View Zip Recipes on WordPress.org
Check out Zip Recipes Demo Site
6. Create by Mediavine
Create by Mediavine stands out from the rest of this list for being a bit more all-purpose in helping you publish beautifully formatted posts. It lets you create recipes as well as lists, round-ups, and how-to guides, with more format types coming soon. Mediavine focuses on speed, SEO, and ease of use for its Create plugin. It adds Google rich snippet compatibility and single-button schema validation, allowing your content to impress in mobile search carousels. There are multiple themes to choose from but they follow your site’s design, ensuring no two looks the same.
Key features and benefits:
- Lightweight code for improved site speed
- Easy to use both for you and your visitors
- Transfer content built with other recipe plugins hassle-free
- Ad-optimized, mobile-friendly themes
- Live preview and full Gutenberg editor support
View Create by Mediavine on WordPress.org
Check out Create by Mediavine Intro
7. Tasty Recipes
As a purely premium plugin solution, Tasty Recipes offers a comprehensive suite of features for any blog dedicated to recipes. It offers a 15-day free trial with money-back guarantee to entice blog owners to convert, making the process easy with easy importing that can also be done all at once. WP Tasty uses JSON-LD structured data to provide search engines deeper insight into your recipe’s content. The plugin allows for some flexibility in formatting and you can add videos, nutrition info, and further styling. Of course, purchasing it gets you unlimited support from the dev team as well as all future updates.
Key features and benefits:
- Flexible formatting and easy styling to match your blog
- Easy import process from other plugins
- Enable recipe scaling for users
- Full SEO implementation targeting Google and Pinterest
- Allow user star ratings per recipe
Which WordPress recipe plugin is best for my blog?
Despite the similarity in features and functionalities available among WordPress recipe plugins, those that truly stand out emphasize ease of use while ensuring that both front-end and back-end details are all taken care of.
You’ll need to test out recipe plugins yourself to determine how easy or difficult they are when publishing recipes for your blog. Moreover, being able to format posts exactly the way you want is critical in keeping your brand cohesive, so you’ll want to make sure it has the customization options you need.
We recommend only making the jump to premium plugins once you’ve fully tested them and are satisfied with the basic features, or if they offer free trials of course.
