“What should I cook for dinner tonight?”
I find myself asking this question every day after I’m done with work and honestly, I’m getting a bit tired of it. Balancing working from home along with cooking at least three meals a day can be taxing when we’re already dealing with all the attendant worries of living through a pandemic.
Even if you love to cook normally, the joy has likely been sucked out of it now. If you’re struggling, then you are not alone. So we at HuffPost India we decided toshare with you the tried-and-tested food blogs and YouTube channels we turn to for finding easy recipes (or sometimes fancy ones) to bring some joy back into cooking.
Here’s where we get our recipes from:
1. Bong Eats
If you like Bengali food, then Bong Eats is your destination for every staple Bengali dish that you can name. Insiya and Saptarshi will literally hold your hand and help you make things you did not imagine you could. Their recipes are well-researched and include the tiniest of details, and is made keeping mind people who do not know how to cook at all. You will ind recipes from the simple begun bhaja (fried brinjal), musur dal (masoor dal) to other Bengali staples such as aloo posto and shukto. If you’re not a beginnner, then this is also a great place to find slightly more elaborate recipes such as fish cutlet and ilish bhapa. Their videos are wonderfully shot, and are great to watch even if you’re not planning to cook anything. I recently tried their recipe for making soft rotis, and they turned out so well.
2. Tasty
You may have seen their videos while scrolling through your Facebook feed. I realised I kept going back to their website and YouTube channel to find recipes to soothe my cravings. Tasty has recipes for one-pot pastas, three-ingredient deserts, and microwave recipes perfect for those who don’t have too much cooking equipment. But if you’re up for it, they also have recipes for date-night dinners and yummy snacks for your Saturday evening binge-watch sessions. Pastas, easy bakes, cookies, cakes, pancakes, cheese cakes, dalgona coffee, you name it—you will find a good recipe for it on this channel.
3. Nigella
We’ve all grown up watching Nigella whip up delicious meals on her show on Discovery Travel and Living. While western food may look complicated, it’s actually not that difficult, and sometimes easier to make than an Indian curry which requires chopping, cutting and frying. So if you think you want a special meal, a quick cake or pancakes for breakfast, then Nigella is your friend. You can find most of her recipes on her website — the recipes for cakes are both by weight and measuring cups. All you need to do is follow the recipe to the T, and you will be able to surprise your flatmate or your partner with your new-found skills.
— Rohini Chatterji
4. Yummy Tummy
I have a soft spot for Yummy Tummy Aarthi, because I gained the confidence to try out a lot of dishes from Aarthi’s simple explanations and step-by-step guides. The website has hundreds of recipes, all helpfully indexed, and I still routinely visit to check out some simple, tasty ideas. My favourite recipe from here is for this quick, simple dry pepper chicken, which is always a hit.
— Sharanya Hrishikesh
5. Goya Journal
I’ve been scrolling through the recipe section of the Goya Journal after I tried one dish that’s become a staple since we started cooking regularly at home. The recipes include a range of curries, rice dishes, drinks, pickles, desserts and baked goods you can whip up at home. While the website includes simple and elaborate recipes from across the country, the photos and recipe name generally give you a sense of how complicated or easy the dish may be to make, As a beginner cook, I tend towards the latter. These can usually be made with staples in the kitchen. Currently obsessed with this brinjal salad in coconut milk.
— Meryl Sebastian
6. Bake with Shivesh
I came across this channel because it features a lot of eggless recipes. There are also videos on FAQs for beginners or how to choose your kitchen tools. Shivesh also experiments with ingredients and ways of baking. You can find videos on how to make a chocolate cake without cocoa powder or an oven or a vanilla cake with no butter. There are also delicious one-minute mug recipes!
— Akshita Jain