Su Chef Review

Unless they’re Sylvester Stallone, or some other member of the privileged classes, most people don’t have a personal chef. No matter how much I wish for it when I blow out my birthday candles every year, I don’t get one. This creates a perfect niche for ambitious cooking apps. Su Chef takes a bite out of the genre, but unfortunately will not be the answer to anyone's wish.

Su Chef attempts to hit us where it counts - the lack of desire to go to the grocery store, the lack of money for expensive meals, and the lack of time to look for healthy recipes. The app touts over 200,000 “healthy recipes” that will save users money and time, as well as work with the ingredients in their fridge and pantry. Searching works two ways: One, do a general recipe search. General recipe searches can be filtered by main ingredient, ethnic origin, type of meal, minutes of labor, and dietary concern (gluten free, lo-cal, diabetic, etc). Two, search by ingredients on hand - type or scan them in.

Results of Su Chef's general searches are comparable to other cooking apps. The healthy label does not apply to all recipes, unless 783 calories per serving for a pizza with arugula and prosciutto is the new “healthy.” To be fair, I didn’t use the lo-cal filter on that one. Use the filter and find there are over 1,000 main dish low calorie recipes to peruse. Find a recipe that’s a must-cook? Just add it to favorites, and even create an instant grocery list. However, I haven’t been able to get this option to work right.

The search by ingredient function is handy. Per the results, it may not be possible to only use those items, however it will help shrink that grocery list. Oh, and there are totally unrelated recipes that will sneak in - for example my search with garbanzo beans, lettuce, pepper, tortillas, and cheese pulled up tuna-melt tacos. The recipe calls for Gala apples, light mayo, tuna, corn tortillas, jack cheese, and spinach. Close.

In essence, it’s another cooking app to throw in the mix. The design and interface are definitely nothing to toast. And there are no perks like recipe ratings, comments, or share features. But new recipes tend to spice things up, so at least there’s that. And let’s not forget, actual cookbooks cost upwards of $10-$20. By comparison, apps like this are cheap. With that logic, it’s not a bad idea to add Su Chef to the collection.