For food bloggers, you highly need a good plugin that will help you sum up your recipe review in a clear, and more convenient way. Review plugins play a significant role in review sites.
It is highly recommended to get a theme with a built-in review system. But don’t worry if your website theme does not support that – you can still use review plugins available on the market. In this article, we are going to look at the two review plugins (WP Tasty and WP Recipe maker). We will highlight all the various functions and features offered by the two plugins to help you choose the best.
Summary
WP Recipe Maker and WP Tasty are handy plugins for food review bloggers. In this article, we have gone through all the various functionalities offered by the two. Spoiler alert, WP Recipe Maker, is our winner in this recipe plugin review. WP recipe provides more functionality for free. Leave alone the premium version – the free plan is generous enough to be a good alternative for starters. WP Recipe maker free plan is baked in with Comment Ratings, Fallback Recipe, Full Text Search, Google AMP Compatible, Mobile Friendly Templates, Pin Recipe Image, Print Recipes, Clickable Images for Lightbox as well as Recipe Metadata for SEO and more.
Features
WP Recipe Maker
Here are the important features you will find on WP Recipe Maker plugin;
Comment Ratings
On the WP Recipe maker plugin, it allows your community to add their thoughts and reviews on the recipes as well. Your visitors will as well vote on your recipes, and most importantly, the rating results will be added to the recipe metadata and will show up in Google’s rich snippets – which is good for your blog.
Fallback Recipe
This works as a backup plan in case your website has some problems rendering the installed plugins unfunctional. The fallback recipe system feature will ensure that your recipes will still be visible so new visitors won’t miss a thing.
Full-Text Search
In addition to the already mentioned features, the WP recipe maker also supports the WordPress full-text search feature. That means your visitors will be able to search recipes created using the recipe maker plugin. With full-text search support, your visitors will be able to search through your recipe description, notes, as well as a specific ingredient within a recipe.
Google AMP Compatible
AMP, also know as Accelerated Mobile Pages, is a new feature in Google that enables faster loading of websites on mobile. This feature is not only advantageous for enabling quick page load speeds on mobile but is also adds your site additional points for SEO.
Mobile-Friendly Templates
In addition to AMP support, WP recipe maker also ships with mobile-friendly templates. These templates are nice looking and optimized for viewing from any platform including desktop, tablet as well as mobile.
Pin Recipe Image
You’ve probably heard about Pinterest and how some websites amass massive traffic from the platform. Well, WP recipe maker makes it easy for your visitors to share your recipes on Pinterest, as well. With the Pin recipe image feature, your visitors can easily pin the recipe image.
Print Recipes
WP Recipe maker plugin also includes a print recipe feature. Your visitors can easily print your recipes by tapping on the “print” button that will be placed alongside the recipe.
Clickable Images for Lightbox
With lightbox plugin compatibility, you can make the recipe images clickable. This image will still be a full link URL to that recipe page.
Recipe Metadata for SEO
WP Recipe Maker plugin automatically includes all the recipe instructions inside the recipe metadata. And from your SEO classes, we assume you already know how important that is for your blog SEO. This plugin uses JSON-LD metadata; the Google recommended format. With this, your recipes will show up on Google with rich snippets and rich cards; hence will help your page rank higher.
Recipe Roundup Metadata
You also get a recipe roundup metadata in this plugin. This is suited for those round up recipe posts. All the recipe roundup posts will automatically output in the Item List metadata, which is used by Google to display recipes in a Carousel. This roundup recipe posts can even include external links, and you have the freedom to customize how you want them to look.
Recipe Snippets
Snippets, as you already know, are quick links to specific positions on a page or article. This plugin also includes recipe snippets that a visitor can leverage to jump to particular places of interest within a recipe – there is no tiresome scrolling with this.
Recipe Video
WP Recipe Maker also supports the addition of videos inside recipes. You will also be provided with a shortcode that you can use to embed the video at any location inside a recipe post. Videos inside a recipe will also be shown under the rich snippets feature.
Template Editor
What good can WP recipe maker templates be if you can’t edit them by yourself? Well, the WP recipe major also includes a template editor that you can rely on to create your custom templates. Using the template editor, you can change labels and colors, add blocks, text, and icons to match your website theme and style. You can also add a Call to Action button in your recipe as well.
Author Links
You can as well add author links in your recipes to credit the source of your recipe and appreciate your amazing team of contributors. Although this does not count as a big feature, it is quite handy for websites that have a massive number of contributors and writers.
Kitchen Timer
With recipes, you have to go through the various steps, with instructions involving time-based instructions. And with this plugin, you can add a timer so that your visitors can easily track time that is needed to accomplish a specific task while making their home food. It works on any device, so you don’t have to worry about that.
Equipment Links
This feature is handy for affiliate marketing. You can add all the tools needed for preparing a specific recipe and link them to your affiliate programs.
Nutrition Label
With chefs and those who love to cook conscious about what they eat, the WP recipe maker plugin allows you to state the nutrition facts about the recipe clearly. You can add the calories alongside each ingredient, and the plugin will even calculate for you the calculate these figures for you.
List Checkboxes
List checkboxes are perfect for your visitors while shopping for the required ingredients needed to prepare a given recipe. Your visitors will be able to check the boxes for recipes while shopping for them to ensure they have all that is required to prepare a given recipe.
Recipe Taxonomies
WP recipe maker also includes recipe taxonomies. You can add many as you wish under the premium version of the plugin.
Adjustable Servings
No need for your visitors to beat themselves up, trying to figure out how to balance the ingredients needed for multiple servings. With WP Recipe Maker, the plugin includes an adjustable servings feature that lets your visitors adjust the number of people they need to make food for. All the other ingredients will be adaptable as well, so there is no need for rigorous calculations at all.
WP Tasty Features
WP Tasty has three different products for recipe review – WP Tasty recipes, WP Tasty Links, and WP Tasty Pins.
SEO optimized
WP Tasty, just like the WP recipe maker, adheres to all the structured-data guidelines set by Google for easy search recognition. The recipes will be rendered using the JSON-LD format, similar to what is in WP recipe maker to present your recipes in rich snippets.
For Pinterest, WP Tasty also allows you to create Recipe Rich Pins for your recipes.
Effortless Recipe Scaling
Recipe scaling feature allows you to create standard recipes then give your readers the freedom to adjust the number of servings as they like. The plugin handles all the hard work.
Video Integration
WP Tasty recipes also include video integration. The plugin supports video integration from Media Vine, Vimeo, YouTube, any other oEmbed provider, and even Ad Thrive video shortcodes. Information on the embedded videos will also be included in the structured data, which is a win situation on SEO.
Flexible Formatting
This plugin lets you format your recipes the way you like. Included is a free-form rich-text editor that will help you get the job done. Independent of how you format the recipes, WP Tasty Recipes plugin will take that information then include it in structured data, recipe scaling, and more.
Custom Styling Options
On top of the recipe cards that ship with WP Tasty Recipes, you also have an option to customize them. The recipe cards can be adjusted accordingly to fit your website theme. As a bonus, WP tasty recipes’ support team is available to help you help with “minor customizations” for free.
Nutrition Facts
Like in WP Recipe Maker, this plugin also has a nutrition fact segment alongside. You will be able to enter the nitty-gritty details about each recipe for your visitors. In addition to that, you will also be able to integrate the recipe cards with Nutrifox, a handy tool for creation and customization recipe nutrition labels.
Customer Star Ratings
It works similar to what is available on the WP Recipe Maker. It gives your visitors a chance to provide a rating to your recipe and a comment. These ratings are aggregated and will show up in Google search under rich snippets.
Small Comparison Table
Who is this for?
The two recipe plugins, WP Recipe Maker, and WP Tasty Recipes – are built for food bloggers. They perfectly fit in the industry with their various functionality. If you intend to fire up your food blog, you should consider using any of the two plugins.
Pros and Cons
WP Recipe Maker Pros
- Generous free plan
- Packs a ton of features
- Cheaper
WP Recipe Maker Cons
We haven’t seen any cons to list for WP recipe maker
WP Tasty Pros
- Easy switching from several food review plugins
- Good for SEO
- Custom options included – free minor customs included too
WP Tasty Cons
- Limited functionality
Pricing
WP Recipe Maker
WP Recipe Maker plugin has three different paid plans – fortunately, there is a free plan here. For premium membership, you have to choose between the Premium, Elite, and Pro bundle. The cheapest plan here is the Premium Bundle, which will cost you $49.
The free plan includes the following features:
- Comment Ratings
- Fallback Recipe
- Full Text Search
- Google AMP Compatible
- Mobile-Friendly Templates
- Pin Recipe Image
- Print Recipes
- Clickable Images for Lightbox
- Recipe Metadata for SEO
- Metadata for How-to Instructions
- Recipe Roundup Metadata
- Recipe Snippets
- Recipe Video
- Template Editor
Premium Bundle:
Price: $49 for one site, $199 for a 20 site license
Includes the following features;
- All features in the free plan
- Premium Recipe Templates
- Premium Snippet Templates
Pro Bundle:
Price: $99 for one site, $399 for a 20 site license
Includes the following features;
- All in the Premium Bundles
- Unit Conversion
- Custom Recipe Fields
Elite Bundle:
Price: $149 for one site, $599 for a 20-site license
Includes the following features;
- All in the Pro bundle
- Recipe Collections
- Saved Recipe Collection
- Add to Recipe Collection Button
- Recipe Submission
WP Tasty Recipes
For WP Tasty Recipes, there is no free plan, unfortunately. It, however, costs $79 a year – there is only one plan here.
User-Friendliness
WP Recipe Maker and WP Tasty Recipes are both easy to use. The plugins include premade templates or cards – as WP tasty calls them, which are all ready to be filled. So, whether you already know your ways around WordPress or you are merely at the start, this will be no hurdle for you to get used to.
Customer Support
WP Tasty Recipes offer support solely via email. The platform has a bot on the website that will help you with some commonly asked questions included in the support page. WP Recipe Maker, on the other hand, offers customer support via email, as well. The team has a bot, too, that will help you find answers quickly – if they exist in the knowledge base.
The Verdict
WP Recipe Maker and WP Tasty Recipes are baked in with excellent features as review plugins. But putting the two together, it is not hard to notice that WP Recipe Maker offers more functionality. Talking about the price, WP Recipe Maker is a bang for your buck. WP Recipe Maker’s free plan is generous and can still be an excellent value for those who are starting. The premium plan is also cheaper than what is offered with the WP Tasty Recipe premium.
WP Recipe Maker is the winner.
