Peeling the skin off potatoes and then seasoning them with salt, rosemary and other spices, Sanne Lewis, junior, works on a recipe she found on TikTok alongside her sister.

Whenever Lewis sees new recipes she likes on her “For You” page, she likes to save them in a folder and send them to her older sister. Then, when Lewis is hungry or bored, she and her sister make different recipes together.

“It’s a lot of fun to make food with my sister because food brings people together,” Lewis said.

Lewis loves making potato recipes, and her favorite chef on TikTok is named Kevin Ashton, a sorority chef, who Lewis said makes plenty of videos about food, something that gives her a lot of options.

“Good recipes can come from anyone though, regardless of if they’re verified or not,” Lewis said.

Lewis said finding recipes on social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram is a more accessible way for people who might not cook a lot to get inspiration.

“You have unlimited recipes of different varieties of foods,” Lewis said. “You’re not only looking through a book specific to one food category or foods from one culture.”

Kacey McBride, science teacher, said she uses social media platforms to find new recipes and inspiration for making her family dinner. She’s used social media so extensively that she has become a better cook from it.

“There’s a lot of recipes I wouldn’t have tried previously because it had a technique that I didn’t know how to do,” McBride said. “By watching somebody else cook, and [seeing] the product be made, you can figure out how to do a certain process.” 

McBride didn’t always use social media to find recipes, but the popularity of TikTok has drawn her away from cooking blogs and toward video recipes.

McBride said she has made a lot of dips for Sunday Night Football, but that she also tries other recipes like Apple Dijon Chicken.

Elaine Nelson, senior, loves to cook healthy recipes she finds on Reels, and in the past, she has made recipes like Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Starbucks Breakfast Sandwiches, which she said all turned out really well.

“Amazing, everything was so good,” Nelson said. “It was eaten within seconds.”

Nelson said she prefers using videos rather than blogs and cookbooks, but that it ultimately depends on what the user wants to make.

“You can see the final product of someone who actually made it, versus the recipe you just see pictures of it,” Nelson said. “It doesn’t always turn out like the pictures, but in a video, you can see the process of how they did it.”

An example of this was when Nelson made her ‘Starbucks’ breakfast sandwiches. Nelson said the video provided important context on how to reheat, and put together the sandwiches, making it much easier to make them.