YOU KNOW the feeling well: You’ve invested time and energy and had to hock your kidney to buy all the ingredients for a “genius” recipe, only to end up with a dish that makes you wonder if the author/writer/blogger has a hit out on you.
For more than 25 years, I’ve had my nose in thousands of cookbooks searching for recipes to test and post on Leite’s Culinaria. You’d be shocked at the number of published recipes that simply don’t work as written or are just, well, blah. And some of these books are from famous, beloved writers. (I’m not naming names, as I don’t want to throw some of my colleagues under the butter-spattered bus, but I bet you have a few names on the tip of your tongue…)
Sometimes, the issue is simply a missed typo, and a responsible publishing house will issue an erratum and get it into the books pronto. But, sometimes, a publisher or author simply doesn’t care.
I remember one time my testers discovered a massive issue with a baking recipe, and when I contacted the author, they wrote back: “Yeah, I know. But I’ve moved on to my next book. Can’t be bothered.” CAN’T BE BOTHERED?
Every time I publish a recipe, I obsessively hit the “reload comments” button for days, terrified a reader will interpret something I wrote in a way I never could have anticipated, leading to failure. The truth is it takes an author a bevy of killer recipes to gain a reader’s trust and just one screwup to lose it.
I’d love to know some of the telltale signs you look for that let you know a recipe just isn’t going to work. Tell all of us below.
And DON’T get me started on AI-generated recipes…
But fear not, mes amis. Here’s a guide I put together based on my years of experience to help you spot a poorly written recipe before you’re elbow-deep in dough and despair.
1. The Mysterious Ingredient
Nothing screams “recipe fail” like an ingredient more elusive than the artist Banksy. Listing “1 cup flour” without specifying which type is like not telling you whether to use unleaded or diesel in your car. Spoiler alert: Only one won’t destroy your engine—or your cake.
2. Vague Instructions
Related to the mysterious ingredient are cryptic instructions. “Cook until done.” Um, what does that even mean? If you’re left staring at a burbling pot with existential dread, wondering if “done” is an emotional state rather than a culinary one, the recipe’s a dud.
3. Missing Steps
You’re halfway through sautéing your onions when you realize the recipe never mentioned when to add the garlic. As you scramble, flipping back and forth, certain you somehow missed the step, your onions turn into black bits of allium death. A good recipe is like a treasure map, not a prompt for an improv class.
4. Inconsistent Measurements
If a recipe flips between grams, ounces, and cups like it’s trying to impress Stephen Hawking wannabees, run. This is no time for a math lesson. I say a blogger ought to pick a system and stick to it. Consistency always wins out.
5. The Over-Ambitious Prep Time
This is a particular peeve of mine. “Prep time: 15 minutes” sounds like a dream, right? You plan your meal so you have plenty of time to slip into that forgiving muumuu and suck down a mai tai or three. That is until you find yourself still chopping vegetables during “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” If the prep time sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
6. Lack of Sensory Cues
“Sauté til golden brown.” Great, but what shade of golden brown? Tawny? Straw? Pancake? The pale dirt of the Alentejan plains of Portugal? I jest (not really), but cues from all five senses are needed to 1.) get the right result and, more important, 2.) help you learn.
If a recipe doesn’t give you enough cues for taste (“the punch of vinegar mellows”), touch (“firm enough that it bounces back when you poke it), smell (“toasty and nutty”), sight (“the color of an old copper penny”), and hearing (“until it snaps like gum”), you’re basically cooking in a sensory-depravation tank.
7. Unrealistic Serving Sizes
Serves 4? More like serves one if you’ve had a rough day. If a recipe claims to feed a small army but yields enough for a light snack, adjust your expectations (and your portion sizes) accordingly.
8. No Yield Information
The opposite of number 7 is the lack of a yield. You need to know if you’re making dinner for two or a family of six. If a recipe doesn’t tell you how much it makes, you have my permission to tell it where to go in no uncertain terms.
9. The Ambiguous Seasoning Amount
Let me say up front I’m guilty of this, too, and am working hard to be more specific. “Season to taste.” Taste? Whose taste? Your gentle, sweet Nonna’s or your chilehead husband’s? A well-crafted recipe gives you a starting point with salt and pepper, not an open-ended invitation.
Note: While we’re here, “season to taste” doesn’t mean season until it tastes salty. It means season the food to suit your taste. Proper salting brings out all the flavors in the dish. If you find your Swedish meatballs bland and meh, turn to salt first before trying to amp up the flavor with herbs and spices.
10. Peacock Terminology
If “chiffonade the basil” leaves you wondering whether you’re cooking dinner or making a dress, the recipe has failed in communication. It’s just someone showing off. A recipe can certainly use culinary vocabulary, but it damn well better explain it. Clear, simple language is your cooking superpower.
11. Relying Entirely on Prepared Ingredients
Hey, I’m all for saving time in the kitch, but if a recipe reads like an ad for your local supermarket—“add rotisserie chicken from the deli, canned beans and jarred sauce from the grocery aisles”—you’re just assembling, not cooking. And where’s the fun—or flavor—in that?
The biggest offender? Sandra Lee.
12. Ingredients Listed in the Wrong Order
This is a dead giveaway. A well-penned recipe lists ingredients in the order they’re used. If you’re repeatedly running your finger up and down the list trying to keep track, the recipe gets a big fat F in basic organization. A sign of a rank amateur recipe writer—or, worse, AI.
13. Too Many Simultaneous Steps
Multitasking in the kitchen is never a good thing—trust me, I have the scars to prove it. And it’s worse when a recipe instructs you to do three things at once: stir a pot, chop veggies, and flip chicken breasts on the stove. You’re a cook, not an octopus. Swipe left and find a better recipe.
14. Contradictory Steps
If step 2 tells you to preheat the oven and step 7 tells you to let the dough rise for two hours, someone was hitting the vanilla extract a little too hard. Your oven doesn’t need that much foreplay.
Bottom Line
A well-written, reliable recipe is an ally in the kitchen, guiding you through every step with precision and clarity. If you spot any of these red flags, don’t be afraid to tweak the instructions or, better yet, find a recipe that respects your time and effort. You rock, remember that.
Chow,
Small, medium, large. Give me weights or measurements. How large is a large carrot, how small is a small onion?
Enjoyed your "bad recipe" tips today. I grew up in rural NC and my mom's biscuits were famous all over the neighborhood. Many years ago I asked for her recipe (I'm 84 now) and learned some of cooking is in the wrist, background, and fingertips. I pass this along for your illumination and amusement.
Willa's Biscuits (as in her handwriting except for my parenthetical note.)
Take a lump of lard the size of a goose egg
Add a good amount of flour (we knew only one flour, white wheat)*
Mix with your fingers until crumbly
Add just enough buttermilk to mix it together
Don't knead it too much or your biscuits will be tough
Roll into balls and pat flat with a dip in the middle
She cooked these on a wood fired stove, and it was my job to keep her woodbox full of little 1 1/2" thick sticks of fast burning southern yellow pine. These gave her good heat control. I've never eaten a biscuit nearly as good as hers in taste, texture or tenderness. We had 2 1/2 gallons of our own Jersey (high butterfat) milk coming into the kitchen every day, so home-churned butter was plentiful, and we had so much cream that we fed it to the hogs along with clabber (now called yogurt) and leftover skim and whole milk. The hogs gave us plenty of lard, salt-cured country ham, and other pork because three people can't consume 2 1/2 gallons of milk per day. We also grew our own cane and made sorghum at a local mill, usually enough for two years and kept in sealed containers. We grew all of our own vegetables and ate them fresh, whatever was in season. Our grocery list could be written on a post it note: sugar, salt, vanilla, Lucky Strikes for my father, matches, black pepper and one or two other spices, coffee and cocoa. We grew cayenne peppers and sage for our sausage, rosemary to drop on top of the stands of lard to prevent "rust".
Don't get me started about cracklin' cornbread. Even I can make that.
After WWII rural culinary culture went into a great decline, aluminum/grocery stores/automobiles/city jobs/giant farms taking over family farms ruined it all. In my whole neighborhood now, I know only one family who still kills their own hogs or keeps a meathouse or a milk cow. Pork grown in those animal confinement houses does not taste like real pork. Ditto with chickens and turkeys, and milk.
I enjoy your writing. I do wish you could have tasted just one of my mom's biscuits. You'd want to learn the size of a goose egg.
Tom Jackson