Hi! There are a lot of new people here! If that’s you, WELCOME. (If you’re an old timer, stick around, I think I still might have a few things to teach you!) You’ve joined a community of people who:
love to eat delicious dinners
prefer to wash as few dishes as possible
want WHOLE-MEAL recipes (rather than having to piece together a main course and multiple sides)
like straightforward instructions and have zero spare time to google cheffy words like “braise” or “julienne”
never want to have to race to the store for one forgotten ingredient to finish a recipe again (we provide substitutions for EVERY ingredient!)
want cooking to be FUN… or, at the very least, not stressful
like recipes that are EASY TO FOLLOW (we bold and write the FULL ingredient amount in the directions… you’ll see what I mean once you start cooking WTC recipes, it’s kinda life-changing!)
I’ve also realized over the last few weeks that a ton of you longtime What to Cookers don’t know all the ways you can access and utilize your What To Cook subscription. And I get it: newsletters, posts, the app, the website, the chat — it’s a lot.
So, this week, I’m so into telling you how the heck to navigate Substack and get the most out of your subscription to What to Cook.
If you’re new here: What to Cook is a source for new and delicious whole-meal recipes that dirty minimal dishes, take (almost always!) under an hour to cook, use time-saving hacks whenever possible, and taste amazing. It’s a newsletter that’s written by me, Caroline Chambers — I’m a recipe developer, New York Times bestselling cookbook author (last year I published a cookbook with the same title as this newsletter!), and mom to three young boys.
I drop a new recipe here on What to Cook every Saturday morning. I also write midweek emails/posts called So Into That (you’re reading one right now!) that are diaristic updates on things the What to Cook team and I are into at the moment — what we’re reading, shopping for, cooking, pondering, etc. In these midweek emails we chat about things like motherhood, food, fashion, books. I’ll occasionally introduce you to people I admire — like fashion writers and other chefs I adore. Also in So Into That, you’ll find the popular “So Into The Recipe Archives” section, where we highlight the recipes that I shared this week over the past four years of What To Cook. Oh, and we do a lot of fun giveaways for paid subscribers!
What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking is an independent media source that I host on Substack. Substack is an online platform that allows writers to publish newsletters and build subscription-based communities.
Each What to Cook recipe/post is accessible three ways: 1) via email, 2) on the website, and 3) through the Substack app.
EMAIL: Every time I publish a post, you’ll receive it via email. These emails go to whichever email address you signed up with!
If you subscribed via the app — or recently downloaded it — and are not receiving emails, go into your app settings, click “notifications,” and scroll down and be sure that “both email and push” is selected.
Emails are great because you can forward them to a friend who you know would love the recipe! They’re also nice if you need to email your partner a recipe so they can shop for ingredients.
I’ve heard that some people have made a “WTC” label in their inbox to easily save and access these recipes!
WEBSITE: Did you know that What to Cook has a website?! It blew my mind when a longtime What To Cooker told me she had no clue this past week!! You can access whattocook.substack.com on a laptop, desktop, or your phone. If you’re a paid subscriber, be sure you’re logged in to access all recipes! (And if you’re a free subscriber, you’ll be able to access the first recipe of every month plus other non-paywalled posts.)
This is my favorite way to use What to Cook. (From Molly: Mine too!)
I love the way the website is formatted! The recipe index is front and center, and it’s really easy to browse new recipes on the website’s homepage, where the most frequently searched keywords populate (like chicken recipes, salmon recipes, salad recipes, etc.).
You can also hit the magnifying glass on the right side of the homepage to search and type in certain ingredients you want to find recipes for. Watch
’s video at the top of this email or see the image below for a visual of this!Every recipe post also has a PDF and a “link to printer version” just beneath the recipe — you can use those to save or print hard copies of the recipe. Many people have made DIY What To Cook cookbooks using these! PS, if you ever want to edit the printer version of a recipe (to add your own notes or subs straight to the recipe), copy and paste it into a new Google doc and edit away!
SUBSTACK APP: If you signed up via email or the website, you can download the Substack app, log in with your info, and access all past recipes and posts there too.
On the app, you can also join in our group chat and read notes from me and other Substack writers (notes are tweet-like).
If you tried the app a while ago and got frustrated by its lack of searchability, I’m happy to report that it’s improved a lot!! You just have to make sure you’re on the What to Cook page within the app rather than on your homepage. If you try to search for “Good Soup” in your app’s homepage, it’ll search ALL of Substack rather than just within What to Cook. There’s a visual of this below too!
If you haven’t downloaded the app yet… here’s a peek:
What I love about Substack is that there’s something for everyone. If you like social media, you’ll like the app. If you hate social media, you’ll appreciate that these posts come to your email. If it’s most convenient for you to use your phone to follow a recipe, use the app or pull up the recipe via email while you cook. If you despise following recipes on your phone, pull up the recipe through the site on your computer, or print it out via the PDF or “printer version” link available for every single recipe!
If you’re a paid subscriber to What to Cook, you’ll not only receive every new recipe I send going forward — you can also access all 200+ recipes from the archives! There are a few ways to browse and/or search for past recipes:
The recipe index! In it, all WTC recipes are categorized by mood, season, protein, and more. You can access the index via the site and app — it’s also linked at the bottom of every new recipe email.
The website’s homepage. There you’ll find the recipe index pinned to the top, plus a bunch of recipes that fall within a few frequently-searched-for categories.
You can search for specific recipes on both the website and app. You can also search for specific words like “broccoli” or “cabbage” should you have a particular ingredient you want to use up!
Finally, if you just want to browse posts in chronological order, click “recent posts” or “archive” on the website, or “posts” within the app.
And that concludes our Tour de What to Cook! Do you have any questions we didn’t cover?! If so…
In last week’s So Into That, we ran an amazing giveaway thanks to our friends at 831 Stories, who generously agreed to give away three subscriptions to The Ones, their new super-fan membership. I read their newest release, Comedic Timing, on a flight on Sunday, and absolutely loved it. Raw, real romance. There was a What To Cooker (hi, Kelly!) sitting right behind me so I gave her my copy, and she gave me the book she had just finished (The Three Lives of Cate Kat — she really enjoyed it, I’m excited to read it!).
Congrats to the lucky winners: Natalie M., Johanna, and JR! Check your Substack DMs for a note from Molly!
What to Cook launched in December 2020, which means there are more than 200 recipes in the archives. To help you cook through them, let’s revisit what we cooked this week over the last few years.
1. rosemary garlic pork shoulder with sweet potato puree, 2024
A one-pot winter feast! Pork shoulder and sweet potatoes are slow roasted together in the same dish until the pork is perfectly sliceable. Then we’ll throw the sweet potatoes into the blender with a splash of pork drippings and blend them up into a savory sweet potato purée! Add a simple herby sauce on top and it’s a slam dunk. Warning: This one does break the What To Cook bylaws — the recipe will not be complete in under an hour. But it’s worth it, I promise!
2. coq au vin, kinda, 2023
A weeknight-friendly version of this classic French dish. You’ll feel like Julia Child serving this one to your fam.
3. sheet-pan chicken tagine, 2022
A super simple but insanely flavorful sheet-pan chicken meal! With minimal effort, it’ll feel — or at least, taste — like you traveled to Morocco for dinner.
4. one-pan roasted chicken, cauliflower, and potatoes with a ridiculously tasty green sauce, 2021
WTC’s OG sheet-pan chicken meal. As the name conveys: the pesto-inspired green sauce you’ll make with this is absolutely addicting. Use it for dinner, then save the leftovers of the green sauce to use in place of this sauce, or to stir it into this wintery sheet-pan gnocchi meal. This is a really popular, classic WTC recipe.
Editor: Molly Ramsey
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