Platform and Price
Free (with in app purchases): Apple
RDN Score
3 out of 5
Synopsis of the App
Audio Chef provides narrated, hands-free cooking instruction.
Pros
- Simple and easy-to-use design.
- Step-by-step audio guides your cooking experience.
- Complete with storytelling and the sound of onions being chopped, the narrator cooks along with you. It's like listening to a cooking video without the visual.
- In a perfect session, the app eliminates the need to touch your mobile device while cooking.
- Option to bypass the audio instruction to use the written instructions only.
- Recipes include a mix of vegetarian and meat-containing meals and are tagged vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free for easy identification.
- Recipes are designed to take as little as fifteen minutes and up to one hour.
- Includes an equipment list for each recipe.
- Search by ingredient keyword to find recipes that feature your favorite foods.
- Includes photographs of each meal.
- Includes a built-in timer.
- Recipes have an international flair.
- Preview recipe titles for new collections before you purchase.
Cons
- A limited number of recordings come with the free app download.
- If you navigate away from the recipe screen after audio begins, you must (touch the screen to) start over or fast forward to resume where you left off.
- Directions don't match the narrator's instructions; so you can't easily go back and forth between steps in audio versus written instruction.
- Food photos need better lighting and food styling to make the recipes look more appealing.
- Only one kitchen timer available.
- Audio sounds hollow – possibly because it was recorded in a kitchen.
- Narrator stumbles a bit.
- No recipe index.
- An Apple only app.
Bottom Line
Kind of like having a friendly cooking coach in your kitchen, Audio Chef helps you create a meal with one less thing (the screen) to clean.