The No. 1 Problem With Following TikTok Recipes, According to a Professional Chef

Think what you will of TikTok, there are some incredible recipes, hacks, and cooking tips to learn from the platform—especially as a beginner. In fact, Instagram and TikTok are full of so much recipe inspiration, they can basically serve as a new-age digital cookbook, ready to help you experiment with any dish you can dream up.

While many seasoned cooks love that these social networks are getting people excited about cooking, some professionals have found reasons to be wary of the TikTok format as the foundation of your culinary education. They claim there's a reason to take these recipes with a grain of salt, if you will (not to mention all the dangerous cooking myths circulating on the platform as well).

One professional chef took to Reddit to share the most common “mistake” they see with viral cooking content, how to recognize it, and why it could do more harm to your culinary curiosity than good.

Why Pro Chefs Don't Recommend Following TikTok Recipes

In a Reddit thread about online cooking content, one user expressed his disapproval of social media-style cooking videos as a way to actually teach new home cooks to make food. It can be pretty much summarized by this thought: “You don’t have to take the most time-consuming steps to make great authentic food,” they said.

Basically, they’re seeing TikTok chefs make unnecessary work for themselves for the sake of the video. The “pointless extra steps” as they call them—think over-meticulous mise en place or using a mortar and pestle over a spice grinder—are just done to make sure “purists don’t rage in the comments section,” the commenter said.

In actuality, lots of chefs rely on store-bought convenience items (like cream of mushroom soups, frozen veggies, and pre-made broths) to create meal masterpieces and feed people fast—especially if these staples are just ingredients going into a finished dish, and aren’t the finished dishes in and of themselves. 

Now, there is a reason why TikTok and YouTube chefs produce cooking content the way that they do. At the end of the day, these social media platforms are income sources for creators, and the longer, more enticing, and more satisfying they make their content, the more money they can make. 

Technically speaking, all the instructions are correct. “It’s just not honest home cooking,” the chef asserts. 

The Problem with TikTok Recipes

What’s so wrong with that? Well, it might deter you from actually cooking at all. When you realize a simple dinner will take over two hours and a multi-page grocery list, you’ll probably opt for takeout instead. These cooking shows can make cooking “seem less approachable,” and that seems a little ironic to us.

In contrast, some Reddit commenters pointed out how much they love Chef John’s simple, approachable, and honest cooking style. “He's not afraid to make something from scratch but also not afraid to take a lazy step and he's also comfortable admitting (even pointing out) things that went wrong.” 

Another referenced Gordon Ramsay’s famous Beef Wellington recipe, in which he urges YouTube viewers to just use store-bought puff pastry.

With the right easy recipes (nudge, nudge—we have plenty) cooking can be convenient, cheap, and even fun. So, consider this your full permission to use those shortcuts when they’re convenient, and don’t sweat doing things the “wrong way.” And, don’t worry, you can still make that cozy Chicken Cobbler or the Copycat Flying Dutchman you saw trending last week. Just do yourself a favor and make it like a professional would—simply.