Online recipes are now part of everyday cooking and grocery planning. In Chicory’s 2024 State of Online Recipes Report, 91% of respondents said they use online recipes, and 60% said they use them more than a year earlier. Recipe generator statistics point to a growing but still early role for generative AI: 10% said they use ChatGPT or other generative AI tools to discover recipes online.
Contents
- Online recipe adoption
- How generations use recipe content
- Meal planning and grocery shopping
- Recipe discovery and product decisions
- Cooking at home during economic pressure
- Digital recipe audiences and platforms
Online recipe adoption
The strongest available usage figures come from Chicory surveys of American consumers. The 2024 report recorded 91.2% answering yes when asked whether they use online recipes. A separately reported headline figure from the same report rounded online recipe use to 91%.
The report describes online recipes broadly. Respondents used food blogs, lifestyle sites, brand sites, and social or video platforms, while 56% specifically used recipe websites and food blogs. This matters for anyone evaluating a recipe generator: people are already accustomed to discovering cooking ideas across several digital formats rather than relying on one destination.
The 2024 report also found that 60% of respondents were using online recipes more than they had a year earlier. That is a change-over-time finding from the report, not a forecast. It indicates increased reliance, while the 10% who used ChatGPT or other generative AI tools to discover recipes shows that AI-assisted discovery was present but not yet the dominant behavior in that survey.
Earlier Chicory research gives historical context, although these figures should not be treated as current measurements. Its 2022 Annual Recipe Usage Report found that 89% of respondents used digital recipes. The cited 2020 survey found 81% using digital recipes. These studies used different samples and dates, so the percentages show separate survey results rather than a single independently verified trend line.
How generations use recipe content
Chicory’s 2024 State of Online Recipes Report found online-recipe use across every listed generation:
| Generation | Share using online recipes |
|---|---|
| Millennials | 96% |
| Gen X | 92% |
| Gen Z | 87% |
| Boomers | 83% |
Millennials had the highest reported use at 96%, followed by Gen X at 92%, Gen Z at 87%, and Boomers at 83%. The figures describe respondents in the 2024 report and do not establish that one generation cooks more often than another; they measure reported use of online recipes.
The reasons for seeking recipes also differed by age group. In the same 2024 report, 43% of Gen Z respondents used online recipes for healthy or dietary-specific meals. Gen Z also showed a stronger stated interest in low-cost cooking: 43% sought budget-friendly meals in recipe content, compared with about 30% of Millennials and Gen X.
The older 2020 Chicory survey measured the composition of digital recipe users differently. Millennials and Gen Z together represented 48% of digital recipe users, while Gen X represented 34%. Baby boomers represented 18% and were the least likely age cohort in that survey. Because the 2020 figures describe shares of recipe users rather than the percentage of each generation using recipes, they should not be directly compared with the 2024 adoption table.
Meal planning and grocery shopping
Recipe content is closely connected to shopping decisions. Chicory’s 2024 report found that 47% of consumers often or always used online recipes to prepare for personal grocery shopping. The underlying response categories were 25.3% often, 21.4% always, 43.9% sometimes, and 9.3% never. Separately, 75% had looked at an online recipe on a mobile device while in a grocery store.
The 2020 Chicory survey reported similarly practical uses, but with different wording and a different sample. It found that 84% used recipes to prepare for shopping trips, 80% used them to create shopping lists, and 52% built their list weekly or more often. Special occasions drove list-making for 16% of shoppers. Among digital recipe users, 84% said they were the primary shopper and final household decision maker.
| Shopping-related behavior | Reported share | Source and period |
|---|---|---|
| Used online recipes to prepare for grocery shopping often or always | 47% | Chicory, 2024 State of Online Recipes Report |
| Viewed an online recipe on mobile in a grocery store | 75% | Chicory, 2024 State of Online Recipes Report |
| Used recipes to prepare for shopping trips | 84% | Chicory, 2020 survey |
| Used recipes to create shopping lists | 80% | Chicory, 2020 survey |
| Built a list weekly or more often | 52% | Chicory, 2020 survey |
These findings describe recipes as planning tools as well as sources of cooking instructions. A recipe generator that supports ingredient lists, meal planning, or grocery preparation would address behaviors measured in both the newer and older studies, while the dates and survey designs remain distinct.
Recipe discovery and product decisions
In Chicory’s 2024 report, 86.6% of respondents said an online recipe had inspired them to cook a new meal or dish. The same report found that 80.4% had been inspired to purchase a new ingredient or product, and 68.8% to purchase a new or different brand. Online recipes were used for meal inspiration by 63% of respondents and for weekly meal prep by 49%.
The path from inspiration to purchase was also quantified. Some 65.2% had added grocery products to an online cart after seeing them in an online recipe, and 55% said they would be likely or very likely to make a grocery purchase directly from an online recipe if that option were available.
Chicory’s 2022 Annual Recipe Usage Report found that 60% of respondents had been inspired by a recipe callout to try a new grocery product. The older 2020 survey reported that digital recipes were 19% more likely to inspire a new-product trial than a recommendation from family or friends, 61% more likely than an item featured or on sale at a retailer, and 78% more likely than an influencer recommendation. Those are comparative findings from Chicory’s cited survey, not universal measures of every recipe platform.
Advertising receptiveness was mixed in the 2024 report. Overall, 55% said they were receptive to advertisements from relevant food and cooking brands while viewing online recipes. Within the response breakdown, 25% were somewhat receptive, 27% very receptive, 25% neutral, 14% somewhat unreceptive, and 9% very unreceptive.
Chicory reported an overall median iROAS of 3x for its in-recipe ads. Campaign-level figures varied: condiment campaigns recorded 1.7x, adult beverage campaigns 5.7x, and meat campaigns 4.5x. In the same campaign analysis, new and lapsed shoppers accounted for 47% of total sales. Campaigns gained 38 percentage points in category share against new shoppers, 35 percentage points against lapsed shoppers, and 16 percentage points against existing shoppers.
Cooking at home during economic pressure
Chicory’s 2025 Economic Sentiment Report found that 46% of respondents were cooking at home more often. Cost concerns were visible in the same report: 34% of Gen Z shoppers said they had cut their grocery budgets, compared with 29% of non-Gen Z shoppers. The report also said 72% of Gen Z used online recipes to plan low-cost meals.
Ingredient choices shifted as well. The 2025 report found that 77% of shoppers were buying less meat or switching to cheaper proteins such as tofu, beans, or less expensive cuts. Nearly half of consumers said they had traded down to save money. In addition, 71% of Gen Z respondents had tried to recreate favorite takeout dishes at home.
The report recorded a sharp seasonal search movement: Chicory saw a 450% spike in protein-based recipe searches in January versus December. This is a platform search observation for that comparison, not a forecast of annual demand. It shows why recipe generators may need to handle budget, protein, and takeout-style meal intents without assuming that one search pattern persists throughout the year.
Digital recipe audiences and platforms
The scale figures below come from Chicory and BigOven source pages and refer to their stated platform or service reach. Chicory’s 2025 report said its platform reached 150 million monthly unique shoppers, across 7,000-plus food-related publishers, and powered 70-plus retailers through direct integrations and retail media partnerships. Its 2022 report described 110 million high-intent grocery shoppers reached each month and contextual advertising or shoppable recipe solutions on more than 5,200 websites, including Taste of Home, The Kitchn, and LandOLakes.com. The 2020 Chicory network had over 1,500 recipe websites with a Get Ingredients button.
Chicory’s 2022 survey covered 2,126 American consumers ages 18 to 85. Of those, 1,890 qualified as digital recipe users, and the reported margin of error was plus or minus 2.3%. The 2020 Chicory survey sampled 600 digital recipe users. These sample details help define the scope of the percentages above.
BigOven’s Press Resource Center lists 13 million app downloads, more than 5 million registered users, and more than 1 million recipes in its catalog. It also lists over 250,000 processed RecipeScans, hundreds of thousands of reviews, and an average rating of 4.7. BigOven says it still welcomes thousands of new registered home cooks every week.
BigOven’s API page lists more than 1 million recipes and grocery lists, plus tens of thousands of images and ratings and reviews from cooks around the world. Its Windows software page lists a free basic membership and BigOven Pro at $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year. The same page says the old Windows desktop software was first released in 2003 and that BigOven moved fully to web and mobile as of January 1, 2016. These are service and company statements from the named BigOven pages, not independent market-size estimates.
Together, the available statistics describe a recipe ecosystem where digital use is widespread, shopping is a central use case, and AI-assisted discovery is emerging. The clearest quantified opportunity for a recipe generator is practical support: help people choose meals, adapt to budgets or dietary needs, prepare shopping lists, and move from inspiration to cooking.