Are you trying to improve your cooking skills and learn new techniques? What you need is a little bit of inspiration. There are lots of ways that you can get inspired to be creative, to start your culinary journey today, try these six simple ideas.

1 . Check out podcasts

If you’re looking for some fantastic cooking inspiration you’ll certainly want to check out cooking podcasts. There is a lot to choose from, here are a few top picks:

Food Crush

Here you can expect a lively and intelligent podcast, filled with plenty of fun food facts, dining debate, tips, and foodie trends. The show is brought to you by Food & Dining Writer Lori Fredrich.

Play Me A Recipe

Each week a new cook will guide you through their favorite recipe. Expect to see a lot of tricks, tips, and foodie stories. You can listen for info, or cook along and pause the episode when you need to. Throughout these episodes, you can explore different foods, and learn more about the art of cooking in the form of new recipes.

Milk Street

Led by the founder Chris Kimball, the episodes focus on different types of cuisines as they travel the world and find out what techniques are characteristic and make the cuisines unique. Milk Street started as a television program and the podcast came afterward.

Black & Highly Flavored

This is a Food52 podcast and it’s focused on food from the Black community and who the premier leaders of the food scene are from writers, historians, chefs, and business owners.

2. Cooking influencers

If you’re looking for some great new food ideas why not try following some cooking influencers on Instagram and TikTok. Social media is a fantastic place to get ideas, visual inspiration, and learn about new products. According to Influence 4 You some of the top foodie influencer’s accounts right now include ‘Cooking With Sheeren’, ‘The Happy Pear’, and ‘Anet Velsberg’ on Instagram. As fo TikTok, check out Tabitha Bown, Jon Kung, Chez Jorge, and Men With The Pot. They’re all so inspiring and entertaining at the same time. Learning from the pros is one of the best ways to find new ideas and get your creative juices flowing.

3. New cookbooks

Treat yourself to a few new cookbooks, focusing on styles and recipes that you might not usually try. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn how to cook African dishes? Maybe you’d like to improve your dessert-making skills? You might be looking to test out a few vegan recipes? Whatever you decide, challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. According to Eater.com, these are some of the best new cookbooks of fall 2021:

• Life is What You Bake It by Valerie Lomas.
• Mooncakes & Milkbread by Kristina Cho.
• Black Food by Bryant Terry.
• Korean Vegan by Joanne Molinaro

4. Check out blogs

There are so many awesome cooking blogs out there where you can find cooking inspiration. Once you find a few recipes you love you might even like to experiment by thinking up recipes of your own? To make a start try these Swedish meatballs from That’s Low Carb. You’ll be amazed by just how delicious this dish is!

Another great blog that I love is the Woks of LIfe for authentic, mostly Chinese recipes that are easy to recreate instead of ordering out. Learn the secrets to your favorite takeout cuisine. For a lively take on Vegan recipes I like the Sweet Potato Soul blog, Jenne Claiborne takes the boredom out of vegan cooking. She makes sure that you don’t stick to the same five veggies every night. An honorary mention goes to the Kitchenista Diaries by Angela Davis, a personal chef who is out here on social media constantly inspiring pretty plates, the blog is not being added to currently but there is an archive of nine years to look through for recipes.

5. Food festivals 

Food festivals are an incredible place to try out tasty new dishes and inspire your cooking. Keep a lookout for food festivals in your local area, or cities close by. According to Culture Trip, some of the best food festivals in the USA include ‘The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival’, and ‘Taste Of Chicago’. In the New York area, there’s the New York City Wine and Food Festival which brings talent from all over the world. On a smaller scale, you could go to the Taste of Times Square which is a smaller scale food festival with an international appeal on the crossroads of the world.

6. YouTube and Streaming Platforms

One of my favorite YouTube channels that inspires me to cook is Maangchi, she will make you excited to cook her recipes for Korean food. She is delightful and easy to follow. She even shows you how to maneuver an Asian market to find the right ingredients.

For Netflix and Hulu, inspiration abounds my favorite picks for baking and cooking entree with aside of history is:

• The Great British Baking Show (Netflix)
• Eater’s Guide To The World (Hulu)
• Street Food (Netflix)
• High On the Hog (Netflix)
• Nadiya’s Time To Eat (Netflix)
• and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (Netflix)

Where to find cooking inspiration can lead you to so many different places, whether it’s documentaries, restaurants, or food-based apps. The key is to experiment as much as possible and learn about the kinds of flavors that you love. All of these programs, mix my favorite things travel, and food to make you salivate and unless you have no tastebuds left, it’s not possible to leave your couch uninspired.

Where do you find your inspiration to keep eating, and cooking new things? I want to know. Let’s discuss!

Until our next rendezvous …

XOXO

Trudy