Do You Judge a Recipe Based on Its User Rating?

April 21, 2009

The Internet is my biggest resource for recipes and, although I don't normally review recipes, I do pay attention to user ratings.

I prefer to cook with recipes that have five stars (from Food Network) or four forks (from Epicurious).

How about you? Does a recipe's user rating affect your decision to try it out?
Source

32 Comments

verily 4 years 4 weeks

I always look at the comments to see what people thought. If someone says it's overwhelmingly bland or salty or whatever, then I either wind up following their tips if I really want to use the recipe or I find a different recipe.Syako, my pet peeve is like yours, but the opposite. I hate when the commenter says the recipe was great, but then mentions the multiple changes they made to the recipe. How do they know the recipe is good if they didn't follow it??

verily 4 years 4 weeks

I always look at the comments to see what people thought. If someone says it's overwhelmingly bland or salty or whatever, then I either wind up following their tips if I really want to use the recipe or I find a different recipe. Syako, my pet peeve is like yours, but the opposite. I hate when the commenter says the recipe was great, but then mentions the multiple changes they made to the recipe. How do they know the recipe is good if they didn't follow it??

opentypeA 4 years 4 weeks

Always. I also look at some of the comments to see if something needs less oil, more sugar, etc.

chemchick 4 years 4 weeks

I use both epicurious and food network and go by the ratings also. I usually take into account actual reviews also, because, like syako said, if the person changes the recipe and doesn't like it, it's probably because they messed up the recipe! ;)

tlsgirl 4 years 4 weeks

I'm with syako on reading through the comments. I always want to know what people actually said before I trust their rating, because half the time they're doing something so different it doesn't have much bearing on the original recipe.

dootsie 4 years 4 weeks

A lot of the time, I come across a recipe that has five or so reviews. I don't really think that's enough information to gauge a recipe.Usually, if you read the reviews, they have helpful corrections to the listed recipe.

dootsie 4 years 4 weeks

A lot of the time, I come across a recipe that has five or so reviews. I don't really think that's enough information to gauge a recipe. Usually, if you read the reviews, they have helpful corrections to the listed recipe.

doogirl 4 years 4 weeks

Yesterday I was looking at a recipe and was tempted to try it until I read the reviews and saw that nobody liked it. So I decided to cook something else! I always always always read the reviews!

shoneyjoe 4 years 4 weeks

I love to see what people tried and what workarounds they ended up employing in a recipe.

jelibeann 4 years 4 weeks

i agree with most posters above - i will usually only try a baking recipe i find online if it has user ratings/comments, but with cooking, it's easier to see right off the bat if it's going to work out...i think i've actually found more viable "from scratch" recipes on allrecipes.com than foodnetwork.comand this reminds me: today a girl at work brought in home-made falafel from a recipe on the Cooking Light website and they were delicious...never checked them out before, so there's a new one for my list of resources!

jelibeann 4 years 4 weeks

i agree with most posters above - i will usually only try a baking recipe i find online if it has user ratings/comments, but with cooking, it's easier to see right off the bat if it's going to work out...i think i've actually found more viable "from scratch" recipes on allrecipes.com than foodnetwork.com and this reminds me: today a girl at work brought in home-made falafel from a recipe on the Cooking Light website and they were delicious...never checked them out before, so there's a new one for my list of resources!

mswender 4 years 4 weeks

I usually limit the sites I will look at for recipes, of course I like the recipes on here, but generally search epicurious first and go from there. I always look at the rating and then compare with the comments and judge the comments with a grain of salt, though I have gotten a lot of good advice from comments and I am pretty good cook.

soapbox 4 years 4 weeks

I usually base it on the user rating as long as I'm not using AllRecipes. I find that their users (especially for baking) say that every recipe on there is "fabulous" and "four stars" AFTER they added tons of extra ingredients. I dunno, that annoys me. If the recipe is so amazing, then why add so much to it?

soapbox 4 years 4 weeks

Spectra 4 years 4 weeks

LOL, wackdoodle, I'm with you on that! I always read through the recipe that I'm going to try and look to see if it's got good-quality ingredients and if the techniques seem fairly straightforward. Most of the time, I use the 5 star recipes, but sometimes recipes on allrecipes.com get only 1 star because people either don't bother rating them or they can't separate eggs to save their lives. Some of those recipes on there involve opening cans and dumping and that's about it.

wackdoodle 4 years 4 weeks

No because I find many people on recipes sites are either the laziest of home-cooks or very very novice home-cooks. So recipes that have multiple steps and complicated instructions and techniques get low rating even though the end result is amazing.Personally, anytime I've seen a recipe on allrecipes.com that is rated very highly I've looked at it and I usually see that the rating is a result of the fact that it uses packaged food stuffs or that it is easy a caveman can do it i.e., "cut head of lettuce, open bottle of salad dressing and add dressing to lettuce. Serve." I got past that stage of cooking and baking by the time I was 7.

wackdoodle 4 years 4 weeks

No because I find many people on recipes sites are either the laziest of home-cooks or very very novice home-cooks. So recipes that have multiple steps and complicated instructions and techniques get low rating even though the end result is amazing. Personally, anytime I've seen a recipe on allrecipes.com that is rated very highly I've looked at it and I usually see that the rating is a result of the fact that it uses packaged food stuffs or that it is easy a caveman can do it i.e., "cut head of lettuce, open bottle of salad dressing and add dressing to lettuce. Serve." I got past that stage of cooking and baking by the time I was 7.

Smacks83 4 years 4 weeks

Leslie, I hate that too! Why would you make a recipe with stuff you really hate, and then get angry and surprised to didn't like the final products?!Plus, I hate reviews like this : "Gross"What does that even mean? Why was it gross? I dislike one word answers because they seem pointless to me.

Smacks83 4 years 4 weeks

Leslie, I hate that too! Why would you make a recipe with stuff you really hate, and then get angry and surprised to didn't like the final products?! Plus, I hate reviews like this : "Gross" What does that even mean? Why was it gross? I dislike one word answers because they seem pointless to me.

amloveaffair 4 years 4 weeks

If I go to a site with ratings I'll usually sort it by the highest rated ones first. I'll read the comments and sometimes take those tips into account. We don't usually follow recipes to the T though.

Deidre 4 years 4 weeks

Yeah, I do. But mostly, I read the comments. A lot of commenters on Epicurious are good about saying what technically works in a recipe and what doesn't (if the quiche needed to sit 5 minutes longer to set, etc.). If I consistently see readers having the same problems, then I shy away from a dish.

aimeeb 4 years 4 weeks

If I see 50/50 on reviews and I'm still curious I'll give it a whirl. If it's all bad reviews I usually reassess it.

limelindsey 4 years 4 weeks

I like to see the ratings, but I give more weight to the reviews. I will try anything that sounds good to me, but it's nice to see if people had trouble with the instructions, amounts of ingredients, etc.

leslievanhouten 4 years 4 weeks

I've gained important tips from reading reviews and other people's experience can definitely improve my enjoyment of a recipe. Like all user rated sites, I don't weigh each review the same. If someone writes "yuck, this is gross, I hate the flavor of olives" for a puttanesca recipe, I'm probably going to ignore that comment. As for substitutions, it is sometimes helpful; sometimes they improve the recipe.

leslievanhouten 4 years 4 weeks

Link Love

32 Comments

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