2011 Readers' Choice Awards Winner: Best Recipe App
The Good
- Tons of recipes
- Twitter integration
- New, improved interface
The Bad
- Grocery list requires paid subscription
BigOven (Free) is a pretty intriguing option among the many iPhone recipe apps you can download at the App Store. It has more than 170,000 individual recipes, so BigOven may have more recipes than any other iPhone app. However, some basic features require a paid subscription.
Read More: Best Recipe Apps for the iPhone and iPad
A recipe app with impressive functionality
The BigOven app was substantially updated recently, and it has made some big improvements -- no pun intended! The interface has been redesigned to make for faster browsing, and the app now has a category breakdown. This makes it much easier to find applicable recipes for any course, including main dishes, breakfast, sides, etc. You can now search by recipe title, keyword, course, or ingredient.
Most of the user-submitted recipes have pictures, and they take up less room than on the previous version, which means less scrolling. I also love the "Leftover Wizard," which lets you search by the ingredients you have on hand (you can also find it in the Whole Foods Market Recipes app). Under the "Recent Raves" tab, you can browse through recipes that have received positive reviews. It’s a neat way to get ideas, which seems to be half the battle of making dinner!
BigOven also does a good job of formatting the individual recipes. Unlike many recipe apps, the ingredients and preparation steps are listed on the same page, so you don't have to toggle between different pages while preparing a recipe.
Lots of sharing options
You can save any recipe to your favorites or email it, and the BigOven recipe app is integrated with Facebook and Twitter. It’s a good way to share content in addition to the usual "email this recipe" functionality. The BigOven app also includes a button that will switch any recipe into metric measurements, which is another unique feature I haven’t seen in many recipe apps. If you have a BigOven account, you can rate recipes or view user reviews.
The BigOven app includes a grocery list, but it requires a paid subscription of $16 per year. The grocery list includes an impressive amount of functionality, and it syncs with the desktop or iPad versions of BigOven. Other features, including nutrition facts and a food glossary, are also features of the paid subscription.
The Bottom Line
BigOven is truly a unique app that sets itself apart from the crowd. It has a number of features you often don’t find on other recipe apps, including the "Leftover Wizard," metric conversions, and lots of sharing options. However, the shopping list requires a pricey subscription, and you can get that feature for much less with competing recipe apps. Overall rating: 4.5 stars out of 5.
What You’ll Need
The BigOven recipe app works with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. It requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later.