What are Recipe Contests?

Recipe contests allow amateur or professional chefs to submit their original recipes in exchange for a chance to win a prize, such as gift certificates, a supply of food, getting the recipe published, or kitchen gadgets. A food business, cooking magazine, or kitchen accessory company might sponsor a recipe contest to find the best recipe that includes their new ingredient, uses their cooking supplies, or otherwise promotes their company. In exchange, they honor the winning recipe by featuring it alongside their products or using it in advertising.

Anyone with a love of baking or cooking can experiment in the kitchen and enter a recipe contest. Some contests are limited to children, amateur, or professional cooks. Others might specify that someone can make the recipe in a certain amount of time to qualify it as 'fast and simple.' Usually, the contest is limited to a certain kind of food, like a stew or a cake, or a recipe that uses a specific brand's ingredient, such as vegetable broth or all-purpose unbleached flour. A contest might advise you to use this key ingredient in an innovative or unusual way, like walnut quiche, or to find the "best" recipe for an old standard, like chocolate chip cookies.

Winning entries to a recipe contest should follow all the basic requirements of the rules. It goes without saying that the recipe should be clear to follow, with fairly common ingredients, and tested several times to make sure measurements, cooking times, and final touches are perfect. The recipe should yield an attractive finished dish, in case the sponsoring business wants to photograph it in a feature. It's very important that you decide on an appealing, original name that's exciting yet descriptive to make a good first impression.

If you succeed in winning a recipe contest, you might find your recipe featured on a website, magazine, or even printed on the back of a box of raisins or package of butter. You might be rewarded with cash, gift certificates, or coupons for a certain product. The sponsoring organization might ship you more food to keep you cooking, like whole bean coffee, or items you use in your kitchen, like a food processor or ravioli press.