The NYT Cooking app is testing an AI feature that lets subscribers adjust recipes to suit their ingredients, equipment, or desired serving count. The tool is designed to help a recipe fit the cook’s needs, but its arrival has also prompted questions from readers about AI’s impact and role in the app.
What the recipe tool can change
NYT Cooking senior editor Genevieve Ko announced the feature last Friday. It can recommend ingredient substitutions, account for different cooking equipment, and scale recipes to a requested number of servings.
One example involved swapping baby spinach for kale. The app advised adding the spinach later in the recipe because it wilts faster. That kind of adjustment goes beyond replacing one ingredient with another: it can also change when a cook adds it.
Ko said the tool can adapt recipes around different pans and tools, too. The aim is to make existing recipes work for the circumstances a cook has at hand, whether that means a different ingredient, a different piece of equipment, or a different serving size.
Customized versions stay private
Recipes modified with the feature are private. Users cannot publish or share their customized versions through the app, so the feature functions as a personal aid for adapting a recipe rather than a way to create a new public recipe entry.
The rollout is gradual as the New York Times monitors how the tool performs. It is currently available to all Cooking subscribers using the iOS app, with broader availability expected “soon.”
For now, access is limited by both subscription and platform. The article does not describe when the wider rollout will happen or which platforms it will include.
Readers raise questions about AI in the app
Some readers objected to the feature in the announcement’s comment section. Their concerns included the environmental impact of widespread AI adoption and the possibility that AI features could change the user experience of a service valued for its recipes and notes from different contributors.
One reader asked whether the AI feature could be disabled. Ko replied, “No, not at this time,” while noting that using it is “completely optional.” That means people can choose whether to use the recipe adjustments, though the article says there is no way to turn off the feature itself.
Another user described the change as “Unbelievably disappointing to see,” saying they had loved NYT Cooking and were pained by what they saw as an AI mandate entering a simple collection of recipes and notes.
A longer history of recipe adjustments
The new tool is not the app’s first use of AI, according to Ko. She said AI was used two years ago to convert imperial volume measurements to metric weight measurements in recipes. A feature added last year can halve or double a recipe’s original serving size.
Those earlier functions handled specific conversions or serving changes. The new feature expands the scope by letting users request a range of modifications, including ingredient substitutions and equipment changes. The source describes the intended capabilities and one example, but does not report a broad assessment of how reliably the tool handles every kind of request.
The announcement’s comments have since closed. A New York Times spokesperson, Jordan Cohen, told The Verge that comments had remained open for four days, with Cooking editors responding to questions and feedback. Cohen said closing comments on older articles is standard practice at The Times so moderators can focus on new discussions, and said many Cooking members were exploring the tool on iOS and reporting good results.
The feature therefore arrives with two parallel questions: whether its suggestions help people make a recipe work in their kitchen, and whether adding AI fits what readers want from the app. Its gradual rollout gives the Times a chance to monitor performance, while the optional nature of using modified recipes leaves that choice with subscribers.