It’s not always easy figuring out what to eat for dinner. My wife and I saved a handful of recipes we cook from week to week. Sometimes we want to try something different but aren’t sure what. Thankfully, Apple News on our iPhones has a Food section that can help us decide on a delicious meal and then give us an easy-to-follow recipe.
When Apple released iOS 18.4 in March, that update made it easy to find new recipes to try at home with the new Apple News section. The new section features recipes from publications like Good Housekeeping, Food & Wine and others. You can find other food- and restaurant-related stories there as well.
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Here’s what you need to know about Apple News Food.
What is Apple News Food?
Apple News Food is a section in the Apple News app that Apple made available with iOS 18.4. “With the new Food feature, users will be able to find stories curated by Apple News editors, as well as browse, search, and filter tens of thousands of recipes in the Recipe Catalog — with new recipes added every day,” Apple wrote in an email.
How do I access Apple News Food?
1. Open News.
2. Tap the magnifying glass in the bottom-right corner of your screen.
3. Tap Food.
You’ll see options for the Recipe Catalog and Saved Recipes near the top of the page, and you can scroll down to see other recipes and articles.
You can also tap the spoon and grid symbol in the top right corner of your iPhone screen to access the Recipe Catalog.
Once you’re in the Recipe Catalog, the fork and knife symbol will be replaced with a box symbol you can tap to access your Saved Recipes. To save recipes, tap a recipe you’re interested in and then tap Save. The recipe will be stored in your Saved Recipes.
How much does Apple News Food cost?
The Food section is free to everyone, but the free version only gives you access to a few stories and recipes each day. With the free version of this section, I could access recipes like million dollar sausage balls and this cucumber-avocado-tomato sandwich. I’m not a picky eater and will gladly try both of these, but I couldn’t access many other recipes I was interested in with the free version.
However, if you subscribe to Apple News Plus ($13 a month) or the premier tier of Apple One ($38 a month), you get full access to the Food section. That means you can browse a catalog of thousands of recipes and articles, save recipes in your own digital cookbook and access recipes offline. The recipe catalog makes it easy to find dinner ideas, vegetarian recipes and even cocktails.
What else does Apple News Food offer?
You can also access what Apple calls cook mode in Apple News Food, which shows step-by-step instructions in full screen on your device. You’ll see one step at a time but will have to swipe on your screen to go to the next step. I tried to ask Siri to move on to the next step, and the digital assistant ignored my pleas. This could be a problem if you’re cooking and your hands are covered in flour, grease or anything else you don’t want to get on your phone, but you still have to go to the next step.
This feature does prevent your iPhone from going to sleep or dimming the screen. Which is nice, because then you don’t have to unlock your phone every minute to make sure you’re following the directions (not that I’ve ever done that or anything).
Cook mode can also display the entire list of ingredients for each recipe by tapping Ingredients near the top of your screen, which means you don’t have to write down an entire list of ingredients the next time you head to the grocery store.
However, you can’t copy and paste these ingredients or directions from News into another app, like Notes. You can share a link to the recipe, or save it as a quick note, but if you want to ask your roommate or partner to pick up a few ingredients while they’re out, you can’t easily copy and paste those ingredients into a message. To access cook mode, tap a recipe in the app you want to try then tap Cook.
For more iOS news, here’s my review of iOS 26, as well as how to reduce the Liquid Glass effects and how to block spam calls in the update. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
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