Delish

Review by eFreeware

Delish is a recipe app from Hearst Communications, the publisher behind the food brand of the same name. It sits in the Food & Drink category, costs nothing to download, and is built around a simple promise: new recipe ideas every day, presented in a way that makes cooking feel less like a chore. The catalog runs past 10,000 recipes, and the developer says fresh recipes and videos appear daily.

The main reason to consider it is the mix of browsing and cooking support. You can hunt for something to make by photo, filter by what you have and how much time you have, or let a short quiz decide dinner for you. Once you pick something, the recipe screen is designed to keep you from scrolling back and forth while your hands are busy.

It is not a fully open library, though. Unlimited access to the recipe collection comes with a Delish membership, and without one you can open two recipes during a 30-day period. That structure shapes who gets the most from the app, and it is worth understanding before you install.

A photo wall first, a search engine second

The feature the developer leads with is visual discovery. Instead of a text list of dish names, the discovery page puts photos first, so you can scroll until something looks like dinner and tap through from there. For anyone who decides what to eat with their eyes rather than a search box, that is a more natural way to browse than typing an ingredient and hoping.

The daily dinner finder tackles the same problem from the other direction. It is a three-step quiz, and when you finish it you land on a search page that has already been filtered to match the preferences you gave. That is a small piece of friction removed on the nights when nobody in the house wants to make a decision.

Underneath both sits conventional filtering. You can narrow recipes by ingredient, by diet, by the equipment you own, or by how much time you have. The equipment filter is the one I find most interesting, because it lets you search around the appliances you actually have rather than skimming past recipes that assume a stand mixer or a slow cooker.

What happens once you start cooking

The recipe interface is where the app tries to earn its place on your phone rather than in a browser tab. Summaries are shortened, Cook Mode simplifies the screen, and the directions include step-by-step photos so you can follow along without jumping between sections. If you have ever balanced a phone on a counter with sticky fingers, the appeal of a cleaner cooking view is obvious.

Timers are handled automatically. The app pulls the important cooking times out of the recipe steps and sends an in-app notification when one comes due, which removes the need to set a separate alarm for every stage. It is a small convenience, but it is the kind of detail that matters when a recipe has three things finishing at once.

Select techniques in the ingredients list are underlined. Tapping one opens a short video showing how that technique is done, which is aimed at cooks who would rather see a fold or a chop than read a description of it. There are also full step-by-step videos for recipes, and the developer describes a testing process behind the catalog to back up the quality of what gets published.

Saving, sharing and the social feed

Saved recipes live in one place. You bookmark dishes with a few taps and organize them into what amounts to a personal vision board, which is a tidier approach than screenshotting recipes or emailing links to yourself. If you cook from a rotating set of favorites, having them collected in the app saves a step every time.

A social feed inside the app shows what is trending on Delish's platforms. It is a nice-to-have rather than a reason to install, but it keeps the app connected to the wider brand rather than treating it as a static cookbook.

Between the saved board, the filters and the daily publishing schedule, the app is trying to be a habit rather than a one-time reference. Whether that works depends on how often you cook from a phone, but the pieces are pointed in that direction.

What it asks of you: a membership and a current phone

The app is free to download and it carries ads. It also offers in-app purchases, and the significant one is a Delish membership. Members get the full recipe library, test kitchen tips and a newsletter, per the developer. Free users are limited to two recipes every 30 days.

That is the central trade-off. Two recipes a month is enough to sample the app and see whether the recipe writing and the cooking interface suit you, but it is not enough to use Delish as your everyday source of dinner ideas. Anyone who cooks from recipes several times a week should treat the membership as the real cost of the app rather than the download.

There is a hardware requirement as well. The latest update states that the app now needs Android 15 or higher, and that devices below that version may not be able to download or update it. If your phone is a few years old, check your software version before you plan around this app.

How I would approach it

The sensible first move is to spend the free allowance deliberately. Rather than opening two random recipes, use the dinner finder quiz once and the photo discovery page once, and see whether the results feel like food you would actually cook on a weeknight. That tells you more about the catalog than browsing a category list.

If the recipes land, pay attention to the cooking screen on that second recipe. The shortened summaries, the step-by-step photos and the automatic timers are the parts that separate this from reading a recipe on a website, and they are the parts you would be paying for repeatedly. If they do not change how the cooking goes, the membership math gets harder.

For cooks who mostly want a searchable archive of dishes they already know, the filtering by ingredient, diet, equipment and time is the practical draw. Build a saved board around the equipment you own and the time you realistically have, and the app becomes a shortlist instead of a wall of options.

One more thing worth weighing is the rating. The app currently sits at 2.5 from 282 ratings, which is low enough that I would read a few recent reviews before committing to a membership, particularly if you are paying for a year rather than a month.

The case for installing Delish

Delish is worth installing if you want a steady stream of recipe ideas and you value a cooking screen built for a phone rather than a printout. The photo-first browsing, the dinner finder quiz and the automatic timers are the features that give it an edge over a generic recipe search, and the daily publishing schedule means there is usually something new to look at.

It fits best with people who cook from recipes often enough to justify a membership, and who own a phone running Android 15 or newer. Beginners get the technique videos and the simplified Cook Mode; more experienced cooks get the filters and the saved board. The free tier is a trial, not a way to use the app long term.

The weak points are ads, in-app purchases, a two-recipe monthly allowance without a membership, and a high software requirement. Set against a catalog of more than 10,000 tested recipes from an established food brand, that is a fair trade for the right cook, and a poor one for anyone who only needs a recipe now and then.

What's new in version 2.3.0

We’re continuously improving the Delish App, and we’re serving up a new update to keep you cooking. The Delish App now requires your Android software version to be 15 or higher to provide you with the best experience. If the app is not available to update or download, please update your device's software to the most recent version.