Tamarin and other recipe apps
Every app here is good at something. Tamarin’s thing is cooking hands-free: it reads each step aloud and answers your voice. Here’s how each compares, from their own store listings and pages, checked on Nov 7, 2026.
| App | Reads steps aloud | Voice commands | Catalogue | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tamarin | Yes (PRO) | Yes (PRO) | 800 recipes, priced and with nutrition | Free · PRO $6.99/month |
| Tasty | Not listed | Not listed | 10,000+ recipes, many with video | Free (contains ads, per the App Store) · Tasty+ $3.99 a month or $34.99 a year |
| Kitchen Stories | Not listed | Not listed | 7,500–10,000+ recipes, with video | Free (contains ads) · Kitchen Stories Plus €7.99 a month or €79.99 a year |
| NYT Cooking | Partly | Partly | 20,000+ editor-tested recipes | Free with limited access · Cooking subscription from $7.99 a month or $54.99 a year, as listed on the App Store (several prices are listed) |
| Samsung Food | Unconfirmed | Not listed | Over 240,000 public recipes | Free · Samsung Food+ $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year |
| SideChef | Unconfirmed | Unconfirmed | 18,000 recipes | Free (contains ads, per the App Store) · Premium $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year |
| Paprika | Yes | Yes | A manager for your own saved recipes | Free for up to 50 recipes · Premium $14.99 a year (Paprika 4’s introductory price, launched 6 November 2026); Paprika 3 owners keep Standard free |
“Not listed” means we couldn’t find it in that app’s store listings or help pages. Each comparison links every claim to its source.
Tamarin vs Tasty
A huge, polished library of short recipe videos from a very well-known food brand, with community tips, ratings and “Remixes”, and Walmart checkout built in.
ComparisonTamarin vs Kitchen Stories
Polished, professionally tested recipes with HD videos and step photos, from an app with an Apple Design Award and Editors’ Choice on both stores.
ComparisonTamarin vs NYT Cooking
A large catalogue of tested, editor-curated recipes from well-known cooks, with strong video and a very large community of ratings and notes.
ComparisonTamarin vs Samsung Food
A very large free catalogue, saving recipes from any site, and household meal plans that turn into shared shopping lists, with grocery-retailer and Samsung appliance integrations.
ComparisonTamarin vs SideChef
Beginner-friendly guided cooking with a photo or video for every step, recipes you can shop at major US grocers, and control of smart appliances from LG, GE and Bosch.
ComparisonTamarin vs Paprika
A mature, highly rated personal recipe library that saves recipes from websites and ties them to a meal planner, grocery lists and a pantry, synced across every major platform.
Shut down Oct 21, 2026Looking for a Mealime alternative?
Mealime was discontinued on 21 October 2026, and its users were moved to Meals Hub inside the Albertsons Companies grocery apps.
How Tamarin’s recipes are built
Steps you can follow at a glance
Every recipe is rewritten into short steps in cooking order, one action each. The prep the ingredient list asks for, like chopping, rinsing or softening, comes first as your mise en place. Code checks every number in a step against the original recipe, so the quantities, times and temperatures are the recipe’s own.
The ingredients, in the step that uses themPRO
In guided cooking, each step names its ingredients and shows them beside the step with the amount that step needs. Swap an ingredient for an alternative and the swap follows you through every step.
RemindersPRO
Plan a meal and Tamarin reminds you when it’s time to cook it. Keep a pantry and it reminds you before something expires.
Cost and nutrition, worked out ingredient by ingredient
Each recipe’s estimated cost and nutrition are added up from its ingredient lines, and when some lines couldn’t be counted, the recipe says how many it was based on. An ingredient whose nutrition had to be estimated is marked, and says how. The cost is free on every recipe; the full nutrition breakdown is PRO.
Product names are trademarks of their owners. Tamarin isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by any of these apps. If anything here is out of date, write to [email protected] and we’ll correct it.