Skill Review: Allrecipes

Allrecipes is a must-try Alexa skill for cooking enthusiasts who are on the constant endeavor to upgrade their culinary skills. Developed by the well-acclaimed recipe provider, Allrecipes, this interactive cooking manual makes at-home cooking seamless and efficient. The innovative use of voice guidance facilitates a hands-free experience by sparing you the hassle of tapping your phones now and then to look up recipes and expert tips. Assuming the role of a sous chef, the skill trains you to make impressive dishes of your choice at your pace and convenience.

With a flexible search design, the voice app supports filtering the highest-rated recipes by their name, ingredients, or cuisine type. If you are a novice trying to catch up on some culinary expertise, get ready with your aprons on! The skill will lend a helping hand and furnish a hand-picked recipe as the editor’s choice. These top-notch recipes are carefully selected by their editors’ panel and dynamically relayed when asked for. Replicating the functionality of their website, Alexa allows you to be a smart cook and assemble a meal with what’s in your kitchen. The search feature has a clean design listing the top three results to choose from. What makes it more exciting for Echo Show users, is an interactive display with touch elements and recipe images that inspire your meal plan. Upon making a selection from the list, there unfolds a recipe overview with the user rating, cooking time, and key ingredients. Based on these primary details, the home cook can decide whether to proceed with the cooking instructions right away or to text/email the detailed recipe for later use.

Commendable is how they break down each recipe step by step to simulate real-time instructions. Without rushing you through the process, Alexa pauses after every step giving you ample time to perform the activity; the session never times out. Committed to giving personalized guidance, the skill supports commands such as “next” and “repeat” to navigate the cooking instructions. If ever confused about the measurement of an ingredient, just toss a question and the skill will help you out right away. This comes in handy when you are elbow-deep in the mix and wouldn’t want to fiddle with your gadgets.

That said, the skill has some pitfalls which can overtly impact the user experience. Repeat command fails to function all through the skill but for cooking instructions. Adding to the deficit is the skill’s inability to recognize many of the possible variants of reasonable user requests. Mostly, the voice commands suggested by the skill are solely the ones that it is trained to understand. Occasionally, the skill also fetches recipes that do not contain the ingredients asked for.

The VOGO Voice team scores this skill a 4.2 out of 5-stars based on our review criteria. With an extensive repertoire of recipes at your disposal, Allrecipes can help you discover the expert home chef within. Bringing to the table a personalized service, the skill will adeptly narrow down the recipe you are looking for. So why not try this app and see if you can rustle up some magic in your kitchen?