For a long time, it seemed like the only way home chefs could improve their skills was by watching professionals on TV and attempting (with difficulty) to recreate their beautiful dishes.

Meanwhile, cookbooks are unhelpful if you don’t have knowledge of the cooking fundamentals. Well, step aside Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse. Now, the best way to teach yourself how to cook is by reaching into your pocket and grabbing your iPhone, thanks to these apps.

1. Tasty

BuzzFeed's Tasty provides both young and old home chefs with amazing and simple recipes. The site offers this app compiling all its recipe videos, posts, how-to guides, and more to assist home cooks in widening and developing their skills.

The app’s best features include low-ingredient recipe options, easy search tools, diet customization options, and an automatic shopping list. The recipes and personalization of the app are fairly basic, which means more experienced chefs may long for more. But this app is perfect for any new chef.

Download: Tasty for iOS | Android (Free)

2. Yummly

Yummly is one of the most forward-thinking apps that a new chef can use in the kitchen. The app features easy step-by-step recipes with video guidance and more to ensure that dinner is perfect every night of the week.

The app connects easily to the Apple Health app, allowing you to know exactly what benefits and deficits you receive from a particular meal. You can also scan your available ingredients using the camera and the app will select the perfect recipe option for you based on what is already in your kitchen.

Yummly provides classic recipes that use new techniques. The app is focused on the future of cuisine.

Download: Yummly for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)

3. Kitchen Stories Recipes

Although the internet offers many beginner recipes, it's difficult to confirm the taste and specialty secrets of a recipe upon your first attempt. Kitchen Stories Recipes is a communal app where users upload personal recipes for utilization in any kitchen across the world.

In the community, you and others can talk about the successes and failures of an online recipe. Its users upload thousands of recipes every year that include video, written, and verbal instructions for assistance. The service also offers active participation in a community, as opposed to just simple recipes and tools.

Download: Kitchen Stories Recipes for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)

4. SideChef

Meal planning is one of the major reasons people start taking more control over cooking their meals. Many folks are in need of healthier meal options when starting a new personal health or fitness journey.

SideChef is a wonderful assistant for every step of meal planning and works seamlessly to integrate your weekly meals with your shopping list. This means customers can order groceries through the app and utilize the same system to later prepare a week's worth of meals.

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Utilize cookbooks within the program to save favorite recipes and find ease in cooking preparation with SideChef.

Download: SideChef for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)

5. Epicurious

The Epicurious app provides you with more than recipes and entertaining cooking videos. It now includes some amazing tools to help improve your cooking skills, such as a multi-faceted kitchen timer and seasonal food finder.

The kitchen timer assists chefs with pinpointing cooking temperatures to guarantee the perfect cook level every time, regardless of the ingredient being prepared. The seasonal food finder is an amazing tool for those trying to shop locally, as it displays where to locate the best fresh and home-sourced ingredients.

This setting may greatly change your relationship with food and your community.

Download: Epicurious for iOS (Free)

6. Mealime

Mealime is the perfect app for anyone in search of a basic kitchen assistant. Some of the other apps in this sphere have overwhelming amounts of information on their displays. In contrast to this, Mealime opts for a basic approach.

It has easy tabs for accessing current meal plans, grocery lists, and recipe favorites. You can also save personal recipes, making this a virtual recipe book.

Mealime's app doesn't introduce any additional clutter, which is a recurring issue in many kitchens. Also featured is a section that highlights food savings due to meal planning—you might be shocked to learn how much cash you throw in the trash.

Download: Mealime for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)

7. Oh She Glows

Oh She Glows was originally a blog written by Andrea Liddon that featured her bright and exciting plant-based recipes. The app delivers all the same beautiful design and style choices featured on the website.

Related: Vegan Apps and Sites for a Healthier and Eco-Friendly Diet

New vegetarian and vegan chefs understand how difficult it can be to find delicious and healthy recipes. Oh She Glows features over 160 vegan recipes with stunning HD photographs. The only downfall with this app is the lack of consistent recipe updates.

Cooking is patient and dreamy while using it, which helps change many vegan meals from boring to beautiful.

Download: Oh She Glows for iOS ($1.99, in-app purchases available) | Android ($2.49, in-app purchases available)

8. BigOven

The BigOven Recipes and Meal Planner app is a great option for someone looking to cover all their food needs in one place. The menu features some solid basic tools that every home chef needs, like a grocery list manager, meal planner, recipe finder, and ultimately a potential money saver.

Using the Use Up Leftovers option, BigOven helps novice chefs discover how to get creative using nothing but current kitchen ingredients. This app is less popular than other options on this list, but has a dedicated fan following that swears this is the ultimate kitchen aid.

Download: BigOven for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)

9. Pinterest

Pinterest delivers recipes for every single occasion. No matter the meal or the season, it has the perfect option for what you're craving. The Pinterest app allows you to pin recipes and other cooking tips from across the internet in order to later relocate those pages.

Pinterest is an amazing tool for home chefs because it allows you to not only replicate new meals, but also pin designs for table settings, party themes, and more. Pinterest provides ideas for every step of the meal, compared to only having the recipe like some other apps.

Download: Pinterest for iOS | Android (Free)

10. Paprika Recipe Manager 3

Paprika Recipe Manager 3 includes some exciting options for home chefs. One of the best is the companion macOS app, which means you can seamlessly track your meal planning, grocery budgets, and recipe books on your computer too.

Related: Visual Recipe Sites to Learn How to Cook Quickly Through GIFs and Videos

This will be incredibly helpful for people who juggle multiple devices, as the idea behind the program revolves around finding online recipes. Save recipes from a variety of websites and the app automatically reformats the recipes for easy legibility and accessibility.

Download: Paprika Recipe Manager 3 for iOS ($4.99) | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)

The Head Chef of the Future

While it might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think about technology, the home kitchen has seen some of the best advancements in recent years.

Now, using just your iPhone and some apps, you can learn to become a better cook, whip up great meals using what's in your home, and so much more. Try these tools and see what you can make next!