How often do you eat “made up” recipes?

29 comments

1. Um, every time I eat. Somebody made up the recipe, it just isn’t me most of the time.

2. Probably not often? Your “Grandmas Secret Recipe” almost always came from a magazine or the back of a soup can.

   I will say I ad-lib a meal/recipe on the regular. Or read a couple recipes for what I want to make and once I feel like I have the gist, I make it how I want.

3. All the time.

4. I did it last night. I combined what I had and made a pretty good dish.

5. If you’re getting it from another source, it’s not made up. Many of us have our own recipes or ways of doing food that we crafted on our own, or learned from someone else. Also, most of these secret or special recipes family members or friends have are really nothing secretive or unique. They just happened to be the only one in their circle who makes the said item.

   When you say “made up,” most of us will probably think: “I’m broke and/or don’t have a lot to eat in the house, what can I throw together that has a chance of sounding/tasting good?”

6. What makes Mexican cheesy salsa chicken casserole any more made up then anything else?

7. If you mean just putting things together instead of following a recipe or a “standard” combination, that’s my normal mode. It helps that I’m only cooking for myself and don’t have to deal with anyone else’s tastes and expectations.

8. I’ve made so many that my kids demanded a cookbook-King’s family recipes cookbook so they could have them after I’m worm food

9. I almost always cook to a recipe but I like to add my own improvisations too

10. All recipes are made up.

11. I make shit all the time that isn’t some type of real dish with a name. It’s usually just me looking at what I have in the fridge and pantry and making something up. Like, I made some pork loin with gochujang, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, garlic, ginger, and onions. Then I sliced up the loin and served it with the sauce over rice. I have no clue what it was, but it tasted pretty good.

12. Quite often. It’s generally a handed down variation of some other recipe that’s otherwise well known, some ‘variation on a theme’. Then many families also have some sort of *”Grandma’s mint beef rollups”* or whatever recipe that’s otherwise unknown.

    Then also; IMHO putting a few things together in a way you’ve never been exposed to to make a meal is the essence of a ‘made up recipe’.

13. I never follow recipes and if I try, I always change it up.

    So I suppose I use a made up recipe every time I cook.

14. All recipes are “made up”.

15. I tend not to follow recipes as far as spices go, so if that counts, any time I cook.

16. I just made rice and realized I had no sauce, so I put olive oil, rosemary, and salt on it because I thought it sounded good. It was.

17. Almost everything I make is literally me making it up then and there or changing a recipe in some way, I hardly ever cook strictly from a recipe even if it’s something I’ve never made before.

    Now for doing a recipe from a family member or someone like that versus say Food Network I guess I do that more often as most of what I cook is inspired by dishes someone has made for me before.

18. I’d say a lot of my meals are “made up” based on whatever I have on hand.

19. I’ve never created a recipe completely from scratch, but I usually end up modifying recipes pretty heavily until they’re almost unrecognizable. There’s a Townsends video on Youtube where he made a very simple soup out of water, cheddar cheese, and stale breadcrumbs. [I ended up turning it into this.](https://imgur.com/a/uutG7Qy)

20. My fiancée never makes chili or tacos the same way twice, so two or three times a month.

21. All recipes are made up.

    I don’t care as long as it’s delicious. The snobbishness of “authenticity” is idiotic.

22. I make up new recipes all the time. Once you’ve got a solid understanding of how the ingredients behave, it isn’t that hard. I eat something that is a recipe that either I or one of my roommates came up with almost every day.

23. If you mean like something that isn’t a defined dish. I’m a single man and have to cook for myself. I am also lazy. I used to regularly cool ground beef in tomato sauce and just add canned carrots, potatoes, peas, and celery to it, and eat with with tortillas and hot sauce. I have no idea what you would call that.

24. Most of the stuff I cook for myself is made up I guess. I don’t follow recipes by the book unless it’s something more complex than I’m used to.

25. Do my own recipes count? I make stuff up all the time based on whatever I have.

26. I made one up that I cook fairly frequently. I finally looked for it online one day and found things very, very similar. So it already existed, basically, but I invented my version myself with no help.

27. Making up recipes is literally my career.

28. How many of others born and raised in the deep South make dishes from the “Church Recipe Book”?

29. Every recipe is made up, I suppose.

    If you’re talking about improvising in the kitchen — often. I ate pasta all the time when I was in college and med school. It’s about $1/pound or $2/kilo, so it’s a staple for poor people. I had to get imaginative with it. Not just Italian.

    My son, who’s grade school age, really enjoys my “pad thai.” Which is noodles, hoisin sauce, soy, peanut butter, crushed peanuts, lime juice, and some sliced carrots. Fried up in a little bit of sesame oil. I put sriracha on it for myself.