NYT Cooking Tests an AI Tool for Modifying Recipes
The New York Times is testing an AI feature in its Cooking app that helps users modify recipes, and it is currently available to all Cooking subscribers on the iOS app. Genevieve Ko, a senior editor on the Food section and NYT Cooking, announced the feature. The Times published its announcement under the title 'How, and Why, We're Adding A.I. Tools to NYT Cooking' on October 23, 2026, and The Verge covered it on October 29.
According to the Times, the new AI features can help home cooks customize thousands of its recipes. The modification tool can recommend substitutions for both ingredients and cooking equipment, scale a recipe to any number of servings, and adapt a recipe for different pans and tools. A separate Times help page says the AI-powered feature can also adjust recipes to meet dietary needs. The Verge's example shows a user swapping baby spinach for kale, with advice to add the spinach at a later step because it wilts faster.
Customized recipes created with the feature are private. They cannot be published or shared through the app. Asked whether the AI feature could be disabled, Ko responded "No, not at this time," and said the feature is completely optional to use. The Times states that its human editors remain in charge of NYT Cooking despite the addition of AI tools.
The feature builds on earlier automation in the app. Two years ago, NYT Cooking used AI to convert imperial volume measurements, such as cups and tablespoons, into metric weight measurements. Last year, it added a feature that converts recipes to halve or double the original serving size. The new tool extends that work from arithmetic conversion into judgment about ingredients, equipment and technique.
In a post published October 28, Nieman Lab reported that Ko said she had naively assumed AI would not affect her work. Comments on The Verge's coverage of the announcement remained open for four days before being closed.
The broader context here is the nature of the task. A recipe is a constrained, checkable document: a substitution either works at the stove or it does not, and an editor can test the output in a kitchen. That makes cooking a useful proving ground for generative tools, meaning software that produces new text or content rather than only sorting or calculating, because errors become visible quickly. It also makes the editorial boundary important. The Times is positioning the tool as optional and its customized output as private, which keeps the house recipes and the editors' judgment at the center of the product. Whether home cooks find the substitution advice reliable across a wide range of recipes will be the practical test, and the Times has not yet shown results beyond its own examples.
In my view, the more useful outcome is the one the feature points toward: a cook who can adapt a tested recipe to the pantry, the pan and the number of guests they actually have, without losing the original method the editors wrote.
