While we all know it’s much better to cook food from scratch and use fresh ingredients rather than ready meals, sometimes it seems to be a downright chore. For those with limited experience in the kitchen, the idea of learning to cook quick meals in the manner of a chirpy TV chef is a little daunting.

Apart from the investment in hefty cookery books full of obscure terms and ingredients that you’ve never heard of, there are the complicated mystical techniques that come with cooking.  Thankfully, there is now a whole world of mobile apps out there to make cooking that little bit easier.

If you’re a veteran in the kitchen who knows their roux from their rosti and hollandaise from their mayonnaise, don’t look away now.  These apps make life a lot easier for any cook, with any level of experience.

Must-Have Food Apps

• Everyone loves Jamie Oliver, don’t they?  Well, perhaps not if you’re an Education Authority Catering Manager, but otherwise he’s great.  His twenty-minute meals app is based on the series of the same name and it’s a must for those who have only just discovered what the kitchen is for.  At the same time, it’s no bad idea for those hardened veterans either, as sometimes we all fail a little, in the inspiration department.  The app contains sixty easy recipes, all simple to prepare in the necessary twenty minutes, making them a little quicker than your average ready meal.  Jamie likes to be on the working end of a camera and the app includes an hour of him telling you what to do; for the inexperienced this is invaluable.
• If you find that despite Jamie’s helpful tips you’re still all at sea with a lot of the cooking terms that you come up against, then try the Knowledge Book Cooking app.  There’s a delightful lack of recipes on this app but plenty of useful information.  It’s a bit like a plain English dictionary, or glossary, which gives you access to esoteric terms that leave you normally feeling a bit daft.  One interesting feature is a conversion section that allows you to work out cooking temperatures and measurements if you’re cooking at an altitude.
• Once you’ve moved on from the basic arts of cookery, you’re bound to want to impress your friends rather than poison them.  The Kraft Foods Cooking School app is no doubt shameless and utterly see-through advertising, but it’s also not at all bad when it comes to creating professional recipes.  Whether it’s a romantic night in or a sophisticated dinner party for friends and family, the app will have your panic levels on green and amber, instead of red.
• I’m going to let you into a big secret: everyone has kitchen disasters. Nigella may make it look like it’s all about posturing seductively and leaving everyone else hot and flustered, but it’s not.  Off camera, I suspect she’s like the rest of us, tripping over cats and kids’ toys, swearing like a trooper and ending up covered in melted chocolate (and not in a fun way).  Surprisingly there are very few dishes that can’t be rescued, even if you do have to scrape them off the wall.  The Kitchen Disasters & Fixes app addresses the problem for the novice who hasn’t learned from years of bitter experience why open plan kitchens are a bad idea;  new cooks will love it and experienced one’s will probably have downloaded it at the start of this sentence.
• If you’re still really not sure what the room with taps but no bath is for then “Lost in the Kitchen” is for you. Described as being for those who are “greener than their veg boxes.”  The blurb on the app suggested it’s most suited to the recently divorced, the student or (it’s very honest) the recently widowed!   Most of this is no doubt true if slightly patronising and a bit offensive, but the app itself is presented in a friendly, humorous and (sorry about this) digestible way.  By the time you’ve finished with it the food you prepare should also be digestible.

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This post was contributed by Charlotte Rivington. Charlotte likes to blog about Fashion, Food & Drink covering everything from tasty foods to milk&more online grocery shopping. She loves eating healthily and exploring new places when she is free.