Food blogs are where cookbooks meet lifestyle magazines. The bloggers range from home cooks who enjoy sharing their favorite creations, to the famous top chef who uses the virtual space to share their ultimate recipes and top tips.
Take, for example, the famous duo Anders Husa and Kaitlin Orr , who have made food blogging a daily endeavor, a travel destination, and, ultimately, a life style.
Or Hami Sharafi, one of the most dedicated Persian food ambassadors, who shares his first-hand knowledge of his family-operated restaurant and courses in cooking and hospitality in his blog “from the inside”.
What is common among them all is that they were born out of a passion for food. Without a doubt, the world is a better place now they are in it – and definitely a more delicious one.
Now packed with stunning photography and detailed recipes, food blogs have come a long way over the past decade or so to meet the exacting demands of virtual food lovers.
You might think food blogging is an easy, free time hobby, but creating such informative, visual treats is no easy task. In fact, it is an art (most of the time, anyway), and, as with any serious art, it requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Any cook who wants to give their recipes a twist that stands out needs not only culinary expertise but also a talent for photography (an image speaks a thousand words, remember) and the art of a wordsmith.
And that’s only the basics. Food blogging today takes culinary stories to a whole new level, covering much more than delectable recipes: food travel, product placement, ‘brave’ kitchen experiments, introducing new restaurants. So demanding is it that some famous food bloggers have become the new connoisseurs of the culinary world, with invites to critique some of the best and hottest places to eat around the world.
From the humble platform for sharing recipes, food blogging has become highly competitive. Some bloggers have managed to build productive businesses out of their passion for food, and they come from around the world.
Whether you look them up for dinner inspiration, or to indulge yourself in great-great grandma’s century old recipe, or simply to feast your eyes on the tantalizing pictures, there are myriad food blogs out there to serve your needs.
Here are our best 30 food blogs of 2021. And maybe, who knows, you’ll get inspired and develop your own food blog to make this unpretentious, but nonetheless exacting,
- Food52
When it comes to the ‘official version’, so to speak, of food blogging, the culinary magazines are on top. This is literary the case with Food52, which ranks amongst the gods of the social media food show with no less than 2.7m followers on Instagram. Like all the respected magazines out there, Food52 has its “how to” perks – we can assure you, you won’t get enough of it.Here you can find how you can preserve your favorite type of pumpkin, the latest trends in home design, and a hearty recipe for a cheesy green Shakshuka – all packed into beautiful stories, sufficiently long enough to keep you company over your morning coffee, and delivered to you directly by expert chefs and artistic decorators.
And when you’d have had enough of indulging in the mouth-watering recipes and heart-stealing pictures, Food52 has a shop area prepared for you, also packed with home and kitchen goodies.
- Serious Eats
Here is a packed food and drink award-winning culinary website that began life in 2006, “a leading resource for all food and drink”. The authors pride themselves on coming up with only “meticulously tasted recipes that really work” – and that’s one good reason to check this one out rather than many other food blogs that feature the recipe you’re looking for.
You’ll also find a bit of explanatory science for the cooking techniques involved here, so the avid reader can get a better grasp of what’s really happening while making their favorite dish. If in doubt about what and what not to eat and if eating healthy is your main concern, Serious Eats’s “scientific approach to cooking” makes it your knowledgeable advisor.
- Deliciously Ella
Initially intended as a personal project, Deliciously Ella (DE) is living proof of how a simple personal blog can become a business, while changing your life and the lives of millions in the process. Ella, author and owner, started small, creating her blog as a part of adopting a plant-based diet. She was determined to create a fully delicious vegan experience with zero compromise on the taste front.
Ella’s flavor- and color-filled diet, has taken here simple food blog to another level: a no.1 smartphone app, “the best-selling ever debut cookbook in the UK”, product lines, a posh London-based deli, and even a podcast. With the help of the DE tasty enterprise, you can have a full wellbeing experience, guiding you in creating all those delicious vegan meals (blog and cookbooks, for a more classical experience), managing your daily stress levels with yoga, creating meal plans and shopping lists (via the phone app and podcast), and even easing your busy schedule and taking those doses of nutritious health with you (if you buy the snacks or frozen products).
And if you find yourself in London, you should pay the Deliciously Elladeli a visit and enjoy the tastiness first hand.
- A Pinch of Yum
Even though she’s not teaching 4th graders anymore, Lindsey, the soulful magician behind this classic food blog, has kept her desire to teach, inspire, and engage with others through her homemade recipes. But also through sharing important and heartfelt bits of her private life, such as traveling, motherhood, family home project, etc.Since blogging has become a source of income for her family, in 2013, Lindsey and her husband, Bjork, built a community called ‘Food Blogger Pro’ – “a place to teach people everything we’ve learned over the last 7-8 years in this industry”.
Now A Pinch of Yum is not just Lindsey but a whole team working on developing recipes, video production, and media scheduling, just to mention a few. If you’re not here “on business”, trying to get a better glimpse of how to develop your own income creating food blog, then you’re here for the real goodies – Lindsey’s recipes. And, oh my!… you’re in for a treat!
- Balanced Bites
A practical combo of online food shop and blog, this one gives you recipes, freshly prepared meals delivered directly to your door, and a blend of spices for even more flavor – all of them, you’ve guessed it, balanced. Balanced Bites acts like your own professional nutritionist, the virtual version, helping especially the busiest of us, those who don’t have any time left for cooking but who won’t compromise on the whole foods and eating healthy front either.Still, if you find yourself in the kitchen willing to prepare a good balanced meal, the recipes are also provided, ready to impress the cautious foodie in you. And because life is more than food (go figure!), Diane Sanfilippo, the author, invites you to tackle life’s latest in her Diane: