MasterCook is one of my favorite kitchen tools. I’ve used this software to store and organize all my recipes for more than two decades, and honestly don’t know how I’d run my kitchen without it.
Way back in the day, when software was still delivered on a floppy disk (remember them?) I bought my first copy of MasterCook, a recipe and cookbook management system. It quickly became an essential tool, one that I refer to several times a week if not more. For me, the most important feature is that I can enter and categorize all the recipes I’ve collected and created over the years. No more messy recipe card file!
I actually have two recipe files stored in my copy of MasterCook. One is for recipes I use all the time. The other file is for recipes I’ve collected and would like to try someday. I’ve set up categories for my recipes for the way I meal plan. For example, I categorize some recipes by regional cuisine like Meditteranean (which covers Italian, Greek, Moroccan and other cuisines).
You can easily search recipes, too. For example, if you have a cup of sour cream in your fridge that needs to be used up before its expiration date, just search on “sour cream,” and MasterCook will find all the recipes that contain that ingredient. And you can print your recipes too – every other year or so, when my printed copy gets a little ratty and covered in handwritten notes, I’ll update the recipe database and print out a brand-new copy.
I’ve shown a screen capture of one of my recipes in MasterCook above. Other cool features – you can easily scale the servings a recipe makes up or down if you need to, and the nutrition analysis can be automatically calculated.
What’s New in the Latest MasterCook?
Now, as you can see above, I don’t have the very latest version of MasterCook. But if you go by their site, you can see all the newest features. The Windows software is normally around $175 a year (though they often run specials; as of this writing it’s 25% off!).
There’s also a version you can use in the cloud or on mobile devices that normally runs around $100. According to their site, this version allows you to scale recipes, though I’m not sure about printing, etc.
Other cool features you might like depending on the version you choose:
Menus and Meal Plans: If you’ve got a special event coming up, or even if you’d like to make a meal plan for an entire week or month, this feature lets you organize it all in one place.
Cost Analysis: If you’re budget-minded like me, you can add the costs for ingredients that will then show up in your recipes or menus.
Pantry and Wine List: Lets you track the items you keep in your pantry, fridge, etc., as well as wines.
Cloud Syncing: With the new subscription or cloud versions, you can sync your recipes across devices, the cloud, etc.
Group Templates: This to my mind is really cool. You can work online with other MasterCook users to create a cookbook. So you could work with siblings, cousins and others to collect all of your family recipes, for example.
I should mention, too, that the MasterCook version that I have came with more than 20 pre-installed cookbooks on various topics. A few examples are Delicious Desserts, Food for 50, Morning Meals, and many others. I “assume” they’re still included, but I’d suggest you check first if you’re interested, which leads me to…
The Best Part of MasterCook
The community behind MasterCook, both the employees and the users, are just terrific, IMHO. Before writing this post, I reached out to MasterCook for permission, and heard back almost immediately from Pam Erickson. Pam mentioned that she’d started as a volunteer helping people with MasterCook back in the early 1990’s, around the same time I started using the software. Today, she notes, she’s a part owner of MasterCook.
There is an active and thriving community of users of this recipe software, ranging from home cooks and bloggers like me to large restaurant and commercial kitchens. I can’t speak for everyone, but many are big fans and contribute ideas and input to various forums. Over the years I’ve looked at other software similar to MasterCook, but too often it’s tied to one brand or website or is limited in some other way.
If you have recipes tucked away here and there, and you need a good way to organize and store them, please consider MasterCook!