Social media recipes are replacing cookbooks, changing the way we shop

[KENNEDY FELTON]

Do you remember cutting recipes out of magazines or copying them from a cookbook into a notebook? Well, I don’t, because if you’re anything like me, most of your meal planning starts with a scroll.

For a growing number of shoppers—especially younger ones—dinner starts on social media. You see a recipe that looks easy enough and suddenly you’re adding ingredients to your online cart or notes app in real time. And that shift isn’t just a trend—it’s changing the way people shop.

A 2024 report from the Food Industry Association found online grocery shopping hit a new high last year, with 67% of consumers surveyed saying they’ve done it. Among that group, Millennials and Gen Z-ers are leading the charge. The goal for many younger consumers is simple: to make dinner with as little stress, planning, and waste as possible.

According to New York City-based commerce advertising platform Chicory, 89% of consumers say they’re using digital recipes—often from social media.

But social media cooking looks easy until it doesn’t. One minute you’re watching a creamy pasta swirl in slow motion, and the next you’re thirty comments deep trying to figure out if they used heavy cream or Greek yogurt.

Kennedy Felton: “I get most, if not all, of my recipes from TikTok. There’s always that one influencer that’s gatekeeping. I’m like, how am I supposed to find the whole recipe?” Alexa DaFonte: “Right?”

That’s where an app like Sizzle comes in. The new app scans food videos—from TikTok, for example—and builds out a full grocery list, even if the creator doesn’t post the full recipe. It even gives you the option to add to your online shopping cart.

Alexa DaFonte: “Sizzle connects recipes to groceries. It is kind of like if TikTok Shop and Hello Fresh had a baby. I like to also refer to it as the Uber Eats of cooking.”

The idea for the app didn’t come from technical jargon—it came from a real-life struggle the creators wanted to solve.

Alexa DaFonte: “I was like, you know, wow, I’ve spent $300 this week on food alone, I’m still ordering Uber Eats, and I threw away half my food, so…”

Alexa DaFonte: “We see a lot of this kind of accessible, convenient, like, get something delivered to your door, but not in the way that we need, which is through something like groceries, which really is the most affordable option these days. I think that a lot of other companies and food tech businesses really try to push you on things like meal kits being the best way to save money or meal planning in certain ways. But really, the best thing you can do is find ways to grocery shop in the most convenient, affordable, and accessible way. And that’s how we’re trying to do it.”

Aside from the ease of finding social media recipes, the Sizzle team uses a lot of user feedback for their app updates. One coming soon is a pantry option, suggesting meals that allow you to use what’s already in your kitchen, helping to reduce waste, save money, and avoid unnecessary DoorDash orders.

Alexa DaFonte: “We’re not trying to replace, you know, the grocery store system. We’re trying to drive traffic to grocery stores in a way that makes sense for our generation, but also in a way that is so strategic that it would be impossible not to save money.”

So whether you’re still team cookbook or just trying to figure out what to do with that bag of spinach you forgot you bought, convenience-first cooking is here to stay, and it’s changing the way people think about food entirely.

Alexa DaFonte: “I think now more than ever, it is so, so important to know where our economy is going, what people actually want to purchase, and how can you make it so, so, so easy for them at the same time.”

And if you’re wondering if I downloaded the app—yes, I did. No, I haven’t made the pasta I referenced earlier, but it is in my shopping cart.