They really enshittified the internet so hard that it’s more convenient to have these bulky ass (expensive too if you don’t get second hand…) books that you have to flick through and find room to store and try not to spill shit on and stick little bookmarks in to save commonly used recipe, god damn.
For years I used a search engine, and used Pinterest a lot too to save recipes and categorise them. But the SEO slop, the AI slop, the ads…. It’s just become horrific half the time. I did try downloading a few eBooks and pdfs but the format is really not great for cookbooks.
If anyone has any recommendations for sites or apps that aren’t fucking terrible I would love that. Especially 
ones.
I follow this Tumblr blog: https://fattributes.tumblr.com/
Not vegan but they have a vegan tag and regularly share vegan recipes.
You can use Firefox reader mode (I think Chromium has an equivalent) to get rid of most of the crap.
Then if a recipe is actually good (i.e. I want to make it again) I’ll transcribe it into my notes app. I’d have to do this regardless of how well-formatted the website is, because if I make a recipe repeatedly I’m going to change it and iterate over it, so I need something I can edit. As long the original recipe is at all legible, you can transcribe it. Even if you don’t change a recipe, a lot of the time the recipe may have wording that’s confusing or it doesn’t mention something like you need to save something for later—you can write out instructions that make the most sense for you and work the way your brain works, even if you haven’t actually changed the recipe.
Went to my local bookstore this week and saw that they had the Moosewood Cookbook in their new arrivals. Don’t mind if I snagged it.
I use search engines, tiktok, youtube, and sometimes deepseek. I have cook books but they are basically useless to me, although I mentioned I do use index cards once I find a recipe I like :3
Honestly though tiktok does have real people sharing recipes so in that way its beneficial, I find that watching people cook helps me learn and experiment. There is a lot of mixed info that boils down to preference, although the algo is not vegan.
I’ve gotten back into physical cookbooks as well and 2 of my favorites are ‘Vegan With A Vengeance’ by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and ‘Isa Does It’ by the same author. Good stuff. Has basically every kind of food, gives a good list of pantry staples to cook all the ingredients, and was one of the books I bought on a whim like 16 years ago or so that kickstarted my interest in veganism.
Honestly I just buy produce at random and then start throwing shit in the pan at random, usually works
Going to start copying my grandma & just curate a box full of recipes on index cards
My mum’s got a tin with hand written index cards for cakes and biscuits (and pies, slices, sweets generally), then one folder for meals and another for salads with cutouts from the paper. It’s a good method
I use this method except I just throw them all in a basket. Sometimes I highlight them in rainbow colors !
Literally just ask me. I love making up recipes and have credentials to do so
I got a physical cookbook recently at a yard sale called v is for vegetables because while it isn’t vegan it had some nice pictures of dishes that were and it was essentially free so whatever
But like jfc it phones in so much so hard like it will be like “B, bok choy” and just give the most basic ass fried bok choy “recipe” (have you considered frying it and adding salt?). For Y it literally says Yams then goes “look i needed a Y word okay” and then gave a recipe for the most basic ass roasted sweet potato. This is from like some fancy ass chef guy. That it makes me go like christ fuck recipe books have to be an easy grift, like, fuck, I’ve done vegan yaki udon before theres your Y you dumb fucker
But it has had a few cool things in it like this beetroot tartare that i haven’t tried yet, and it introduced me to sunomono style quick pickled salads which im adding to when i do cold stuff like shiitake bao buns
Yeah you can’t use the internet for cooking anymore. You’ll end up with some AI written site telling you to put 500 grams of ground up fentaneel in your cake now.
Serious eats has really good recipes, and I think you can filter for vegan recipes
the real best way to get recipes is word of mouth from friends and family
If you can get BBC Good Food outside the UK, it’s a fantastic source. Straight to the point, never had a bad recipe. My family have been referring to them for literal decades (though sadly, there’s creeping monetisation, it’s still 99% usable for now).
Not BBC .co.uk recipes, those frequently suck. BBC Good Food specifically, plenty vegan ones too.
Even with the backstory, it’s still faster to get to the actual recipe.
Go to a bargain bin store they usually have a crazy amount of cook books
