The YouTube Guide to Cooking

Happy (early) birthday, YouTube. To celebrate the site’s 20th anniversary, we present: The InsideHook Guide to YouTube, a series of creator profiles, channel recommendations and deep dives about the viral, controversial, unstoppable video-sharing giant.

I’ve always been a cookbook person. I like a physical copy of a recipe, printed on real paper so I can make notes in the margins. But during the pandemic, something started happening, and I know it was just in my world — I started watching a lot more recipe videos. Sure, it was a way to pass the hours at home, but with so much free time for cooking projects, I was hungry for every single outlet I could find.

Life is back to normal, and while I don’t watch a ton of recipe video content anymore, a few channels stuck. Below are my absolute favorite cooking channels on YouTube. May they inspire your own culinary adventures, whether you’re an advanced cook or just bought your first real knife.

Cooking Instruction and Recipes

Best Channel: Brian Lagerstrom

Brian Lagerstrom is serious about cooking. He took to YouTube to keep busy during the pandemic, and his channel has grown to 1.46 million subscribers in the four years since, making it one of the biggest on the platform. As a pro chef, Lagerstrom knows a thing or two about technique and recipe development, so you’re in good hands when you tune into his content. Maybe you want to make your own chicken nuggets with gourmet dipping sauces or perfect your egg salad. Or perhaps you’d like to master pizza-making at home with Lagerstrom as your guide — he made the pies professionally, after all. Maybe, like me, you someday want to make a sourdough loaf that isn’t a complete disgrace. Lagerstrom can help you there, too.

Start With: “Pan Pizza in 1 Hour (No Mixer)”

Brian’s Favorite Channel: “I like Sip and Feast. It’s an Italian American cooking channel, and this guy Jim cooks with his family. It’s a different style format from my videos, more of a hosted style. He really knows what he’s doing. He’s a cool dude and it’s very cozy. It’s more of a traditional cooking show but very personal.”

Brian Lagerstrom Doesn’t Give a Damn About the Algorithm

The chef, who has 1.5 million subscribers on his namesake YouTube channel, still finds success (and joy) in long-form cooking videos

The Science of Cooking

Best Channel: J. Kenji López-Alt

I’m a big fan of J. Kenji López-Alt. His Serious Eats recipes are the best, and his cookbook The Wok: Recipes and Techniques was one of my favorite releases in 2022 (and I continue to use it religiously). His James Beard Award-winning cookbook The Food Lab is all about how to become a better home cook using science, and I like to think of this YouTube channel as that for people who prefer to watch recipes rather than read them. For example, he might explain to you why you should start with cold water when boiling spuds for mashed potatoes and how to use math to figure out how to perfectly cut an onion. Whatever recipe or technique you’re looking to refine, Kenji’s the guy to show you.

Start With: “How to Roast the Best Potatoes of Your Life”

To Achieve Your Dreams of Being a Nonna in the Kitchen

Best Channel: Not Another Cooking Show

Modern Grandma. That’s the perfect two-word phrase that Stephen Cusato uses to describe his YouTube channel Not Another Cooking Show. And I gotta say, he nailed it. Cusato cooks mostly Italian and Italian American cuisine, sometimes classic recipes and other times dishes from famous establishments — like the mortadella, pistachio and stracciatella sandwich from All’Antico Vinaio. Watching his channel, I also learned a trick to make the most tender meatballs and how to layer an eggplant parm sandwich so it doesn’t fall apart. If my Nonna was around to watch Cusato, I think she’d like the guy, and that says a lot.

Start With: “How to Make Real Cacio e Pepe Like They Do in Rome”

Cooking History

Best Channel: Tasting History With Max Miller

Culinary history is fascinating to me. If I could get a masters degree in the subject without racking up an insane amount of debt, I would. But that doesn’t mean I can’t continually learn about it, which is why I’m so into Tasting History With Max Miller. Watching his channel, you might learn something about the origins of everyone’s favorite dessert — the brownie — or how to make clotted cream from the 17th century. I even learned that the same guy who invented Corn Flakes — John Harvey Kellogg — also tried to “cure” people with yogurt enemas. The more you know!

Start With: “Dining First Class on the RMS Titanic”

The Queen of Korean Cuisine

Best Channel: Maangchi

You can’t talk about cooking YouTube without including Maangchi, who is undoubtedly the queen of Korean cuisine and one of the most beloved creators on the platform — a whopping 6.24 million subscribers can’t be wrong! She’s my personal favorite YouTuber because she’s charismatic, a really good teacher and her recipes bring the most delicious Korean food into the kitchen. She has a whole section for kimchi and pickles, where you can learn to make everything from a traditional cabbage version to fermented squid. Popular Korean recipes like japchae, bulgogi and tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) are always on the menu, and she has a whole section for vegetarian food with dishes like a kimchi pancake and spicy braised tofu. If you love Korean food and want to try it at home, Maangchi is your girl.

Start With: “Traditional Kimchi Recipe”

The Hilarious Celebrity

Best Channel: Matty Matheson

I can’t get enough of this guy, whether I’m enjoying his hysterical portrayal of Neil Fak on The Bear, digging into one of his engaging cookbooks or watching his YouTube channel of the same name. Matheson doesn’t take cooking too seriously, even though he’s a serious cook, so often you’re going to have a really good time while you also learn something. For example, in his BLT video, I couldn’t stop laughing because he repeatedly bleeped out the word “Hellman’s,” but I also learned a clever new technique for cooking bacon. In his video about Cincinnati chili, he reminded me that beef chuck is less expensive than short ribs but just as good, which I’ll duly remember the next time I’m staring into the butcher case. Watching Matheson makes life a little more joyful.

Start With: “World’s Greatest Chicken Soup”

Baking

Best Channel: Bake It Up a Notch! From Food 52

Food52 has a lot of great cooking content on their channel, but where I think they really excel in the YouTube-verse is baking. Erin Jeanne McDowell offers science-backed yet engaging baking instruction that can even help a woeful baking amateur like me improve my skills. Maybe you think making macarons looks absolutely impossible, but after watching McDowell’s charming video on the subject, you might feel empowered to try them. She starts her “how to make dinner rolls” video by throwing one at a person off screen to mimic a restaurant in Missouri that actually does that. She’s simply a joy to watch, and your baking will improve significantly with her instruction.

Start With: “How to Make Easy Cakes”

BBQ and Live Fire Cooking

Best Channel: Chuds BBQ

Bradley Robinson, the host of Chuds BBQ, has been smoking meat professionally for 10 years. He brings that expertise to his YouTube channel that covers everything from recipes, pit building and even butchery. Not only is he super engaging, but he also uses a lot of quick cuts, which is gold for someone with a short video-watching attention span like myself. I almost threw my computer out the window after seeing him make brisket boudin-stuffed quail because I was so mad I couldn’t eat some right at that moment. The next time I smoke something in my backyard, it’s definitely going to be his fermented garlic honey pork ribs. And now I finally know what to do with the venison roasts that have been sitting lonely in my freezer for the last few months.

Start With: “Texas Pitmaster Reveals All Brisket Secrets”

Fast Food Favorites

Best Channel: Joshua Weissman

Sure, you could simply head to Burger King for a Whopper, or you could make one at home. I know that sounds ambitious, but as someone who gave up fast food meat a long time ago, sometimes I still want a messy fast food burger without the murky protein origins. Joshua Weissman offers this in spades within the “But Better” section of his channel. Maybe you love Chick-fil-A but hate how their owner never actually stopped donating to anti-LGTBQ organizations? Well, now you can enjoy a succulent spicy chicken sandwich that’s a little healthier and tastes way better anyway. Cheez-Its a little too dry and boring for your palate? Weissman’s are way better. Yes, it’s more work, but the payoff is so worth it.

Start With: “Making The Popeyes Chicken Sandwich At Home, But Better”

Themed Collections

Best Channel: Sam the Cooking Guy

One thing I don’t love about some YouTube channels is how the videos aren’t organized, and if they are organized, they probably aren’t organized enough. But that’s what I do love about Sam the Cooking Guy’s channel — he categorizes his videos into themed collections that make finding a recipe a breeze. We’ve all scrambled at 4:45 p.m. for something to make for dinner, so his “Easy Dinner Recipes” are a godsend. As if football season couldn’t get any better, his game day recipes like Korean BBQ chicken and lobster tacos will feed you all fall long. He even has a “munchies” section that will satisfy your appetite after a solid blaze session.

Start With: “The Best Burger I’ve Ever Made”

Sam’s Favorite Channel: “I don’t watch much cooking on YouTube, but when I do, I like to watch things I normally wouldn’t make. Cooking With Dog has an unnamed Japanese chef who cooks with her poodle Francis sitting on a stool beside her (Francis also presumably narrates the videos). It’s all just charming AF. And even though Francis passed away some years ago, she is still there on a monitor in the background. If you haven’t seen it, find an old one with Francis to watch first.”