During graduate school, I started watching a lot of cooking videos on YouTube just for fun, and cooking has now become one of my main hobbies. These are some of my favorite channels and why I like them.
- Babish was the first cooking channel I ever started watching and is arguably the reason I started learning to cook. His film and TV food videos are super fun to watch, and his Basics series has given me countless practical recipes that I’ve made. It’s been great seeing his channel grow from a popular food channel with a handful of viral videos and few tens of thousand subscribers to a burgeoning food media empire today. He also has one of the best narration voices you’ll ever hear.
- People have (derisively) called his recipe videos “cooking for tired adults,” and much respect but that’s exactly what it is and I am 100% for it. Adam has the best cooking channel on YouTube and that’s an opinion I will stand by. His recipes are easy, straightforward, and something you’ll actually make. His food science videos are also well-researched and informative; his background in journalism really shines through. He gets accused of taking too many shortcuts, but I’m not a French chef and I don’t have six hours to make a solid weeknight dinner, so I’ll take the janky shortcut coq au vin please and thank you. Out of every channel here, his is the one I have made the most recipes from by far. He also teaches enough food science and cooking basics along the way that you understand why the recipe works and how to modify it depending on who you’re cooking for. If you want to be a good home cook, learn from a guy who doesn’t claim to be anything beyond an experienced and enthusiastic home cook. And yes, he’s the “why I season my cutting board and not my steak” guy.
Sous Vide Everything and Guga Foods
- Guga is probably the second biggest influence on my learning to cook. His original sous vide videos taught me a ton about using sous vide to painlessly cook great meat dishes, especially since sous vide is very scientific and systematic. His second channel has lots of fun recipe ideas, especially for grilling. On a more personal note, I discovered Guga’s videos when I was going through a very rough patch in grad school, and watching his videos and trying out some of his recipes were one of my main escapes during that really tough time.
- His videos are basically like learning to cook from your friend’s dad. I’m not sure if I’ve ever directly cooked any of his recipes, but he’s awesome for learning intuition of how flavors go together and how to just cook something with what you have. If I’ve learned anything from Sam it’s that your cooking doesn’t have to be perfect and it’s okay to use premade or store-bought components (because who has time to grate their own hash browns?). In the end what matters is that you’re actually in the kitchen cooking something, learning, and having fun.
- Chef John is the king of cooking YouTube. Admittedly it took me a long time to get used to his cadence and rhymes and puns, but eventually I learned to love it. Food Wishes has a near-limitless collection of recipes that show how to make nearly anything you can imagine. Chef John explains things so clearly that it’s almost impossible to screw up his recipes, and he’s never afraid to show ways he messed up so you can learn. He’s a truly great teacher and deserves his place in cooking YouTube royalty.
- Kenji is the king of home cooking food science. His YouTube videos can sometimes be kind of long, but he’s so knowledgeable that they’re always worth watching. Kenji is the best at breaking down the food science of what’s going on while also teaching practical cooking techniques and ideas. Alton Brown walked so Kenji could run.
- His channel is great for learning how to apply more formal cooking techniques to the home kitchen. The recipes he gives are also good for learning about more exotic ingredients, though he admittedly can be a bit purist/pretentious about the exact ingredients to use or making everything from scratch. Honestly I wish he’d lay off the editing or trying to make meme clips in his newer videos. His older videos are brilliant and absolutely worth watching.
- My newest discovery, Brian’s channel is the best of all worlds of everyone listed above. He was a chef at a wide range of bakeries and restaurants for over a decade before starting his channel, and his experience really shines through. He shows you the proper chef-y way to make things, the hacky weeknight ways, and gives great, approachable, and detailed descriptions of the processes and techniques involved. It’s great seeing his channel take off because he has some of the best videos out there right now.
- Finally hopped on the bandwagon with this channel. Ethan has great videos on making practical, healthy, and/or restaurant-quality food at home. His channel is meta in a sense, since a lot of what he discusses is taken from people like Kenji, but he explains it the way a fan of Kenji’s would understand and explain it. I think of his videos of rewrapping information in Kenji’s and similar videos in a cleaner, easier-to-understand format. If you’re interested in food science or want practical weekday/weeknight recipes, his channel is a must-watch.
- Before the meltdown, BA Test Kitchen videos were awesome for learning practical home cooking recipes from trained chefs. I think the biggest part of their videos was exposing you to different flavor profiles in an approachable way and showing practical methods for cooking things like tortillas or cakes where you’d normally rely on premade or boxed mixes.
- This is mostly a Chinese language cooking channel covering mostly Chinese and other East Asian food. They’re like the Chinese equivalent to Tasty, but in all honesty I enjoy Taste Show ten times more. Taste Show’s Chef John has impecable knife skills and absolute command over his wok. The channel provides clear recipes and high production value that lets a foreigner like me easily learn about the flavors and techniques behind Chinese cooking. I haven’t made very much from this channel, but someday when I have my own kitchen (i.e. when I’m not competing with my parents for shelf space), Taste Show’s recipes are going to be a top priority to try.
- The host Malcolm Reed is one of those people who can instantly make you smile when he talks. I can’t say I’ve ever cooked anything from this channel since I don’t own a charcoal grill or drum smoker, but the videos are fun to watch, the food looks delicious, and Malcolm’s “use what you’ve got” attitude towards flavors and seasonings is a great lesson for all of us.
- Another channel that I probably haven’t made anything from, but is truly fun to watch. Pai has an infectious energy when she cooks and is passionate about teaching you to cook authentic Thai and other Southeast Asian food. Even though her recipes require a lot of ingredients that someone like me usually won’t have, she does a great job suggesting substitutions and explaining how the flavors interact. There’s a lot to learn from the different flavors and ingredients and a lot of new food to discover if you’re new to East Asian cooking.
- Byron has arguably the highest production value cooking videos on YouTube. His videos are some of the few that I actually find relaxing to watch late at night. His recipes tend to be relatively simple or straightforward, although there are a few really interesting ones that can teach you about new flavor combinations. While you might not learn a ton of new techniques compared with some of the other channels here, his channel is truly enjoyable to watch. I only wish he would make videos more often.