We Just Launched a New Recipe Feature to Make Cooking Easier, and We’re So Excited

One day I was making crispy chicken cutlets. I had my standard breading station set up on my kitchen island—flour, egg, breadcrumbs—and was halfway through the process when I realized that I hadn’t turned the timer on for the veggies that were roasting in the oven. I went to look at the recipe on my tablet, which was positioned nearby, and noticed the screen had gone dark. Ugh! My hands were contaminated with raw chicken, so I needed to wash my hands before I woke it up again. 

Why didn’t I just turn off my auto-lock before I started cooking, you might ask? Because it’s an annoying step to have to turn it off and on again. I never remember to turn it back on again and then my device dies when I really don’t want it to.

So when I found out that we were rolling out cook mode on our recipes, I jumped for joy. What is “cook mode,” you may ask? Well, you simply toggle on the setting (find it just above the ingredient list on every recipe), and it keeps your screen awake until you close the tab. And this tool is now live on all of our recipes.

Here’s a screen recording of how it works:

I greatly appreciated being able to use the feature as I multi-tasked making Chocolate Zucchini Bread and Chickpea & Potato Curry last weekend. And I’m not the only one who’s excited.

“I cook from my phone practically every single night, and the worst situation to be in is when you’re working with raw meat or chopping veggies and the screen saver goes on and you can’t remember what to do next,” says EatingWell’s assistant general manager Penelope Wall. 

Our associate editor Dani DeAngelis agrees. “When I cook, I’m a multitasker. I have three pots going at once with my audiobook blasting in the background,” she shares. “So cook mode gives me one less thing to worry about. I can prop up my phone in the kitchen with the recipe displayed, and all I’ll need to do is quickly glance or scroll for the next steps.”

“When I’m baking, it’s such a pain when my computer goes to sleep right when my hands are covered in flour or raw cookie dough,” says news, trending and updates editor Abigail Demarest. “Yay for flour-free keyboards!”

So next time you try one of our recipes, be sure to check it out. We hope you appreciate it as much as we do!