Maybe a bit of inspiration is what you need to make mealtimes enjoyable again – that’s where Yazio comes in.
Yazio is a recipe app that gives you ideas for weekly meals, whether you’re unsure what to cook for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
I decided to give it a go and cooked three meals for £22.31 – here’s what I cooked and what I thought about the app, including its level of usefulness, best features and the bits I didn’t use.
The overall price doesn’t include salt and pepper as I already had it in my cupboard but you can expect to pay around 65p for salt (Morrisons) and £1.25 for pepper (Morrisons). This would make the total cost for the three meals £24.21.
I cooked 3 meals with Yazio and this is what I thought
Protein Breakfast Muffins
The first recipe I attempted was a breakfast snack called Protein Breakfast Muffins – this recipe is described as being “easy” to make and it was!
I decided to try these because I thought they’d be a quick breakfast that I could make the night before and eat them during my break at work so that’s what I did.
The Protein Breakfast Muffins were easy to make and had lots of flavour (Image: Newsquest) The recipe was easy and only used a few ingredients – tomatoes, spring onions, fresh basil, eggs, egg whites, salt and pepper.
The breakfast muffins were tasty and I can imagine them being ideal for those who commute or eat their breakfast on the go.
Bell Pepper & Cream Cheese Rolls
Next up, I tried making a lunch option from the Yazio app.
I love having different things for my lunch including wraps so when I saw this recipe, I thought it would be good to try a different twist on my usual wraps.
This recipe was easy to follow but eating the rolls was difficult and I’m not sure how anyone could look elegant while eating them as they did start to break up and unroll.
The Bell Pepper & Cream Cheese Rolls were tasty but a little on the messy side (Image: Newsquest) I enjoyed the flavour but I think the rolls would’ve held together better if I used more than one cocktail stick but I’m not sure how that would affect my ability to eat it – dodging two cocktail sticks would probably be a bit tricky.
The sauce was a nice addition but I struggled to make it into a puree like the recipe says so it was a bit on the watery side, adding to the messiness.
I think I’d make these again and try to perfect the technique because they are an easy lunch idea.
Chickpea Coconut Curry with Rice
For my tea, I made the Chickpea Coconut Curry with Rice which is quite different to the curry I’d usually make at home.
This one was meat-free so I was curious to see how it was because I would always put chicken in my curry. Of course, you could add meat into this curry if you wanted to but I stuck to the recipe and went without.
Cooking this curry didn’t take too long and the best part is, you can add as much or as little spice as you like with the recipe advising you add the spices to suit your taste.
The Chickpea Coconut Curry with Rice was tasty and could be adapted by adding meat to it (Image: Newsquest) I liked the overall flavour of the curry and was surprised at how much I liked the chickpeas as they’re not something I usually include in my diet.
My favourite features of the Yazio app
For me, one of the best features of the Yazio app is the organisation of it. Recipes are split into categories including breakfast, lunch, dinner, vegan, high protein, low fat, low calorie etc, making it easy to find a recipe that suits you and what you want to achieve.
There is also a ‘get inspired’ section which rounds up a few recipes under categories such as Fish Friday, Favourite Curry Recipes, Comforting Dinners etc.
This changes each day so it’s worth having a look through and adding any you’d like to make to your favourites so they’re saved for your next meals.
I also like that you can pick your method so if you want to cook with few ingredients or you need an easy recipe or one that suits you on the go, you can scroll through the different sections until you find something you like.
The Around the World section allows you to discover foods you might not have tried otherwise while the Special Occasions section provides inspiration for hosting.
Recipes on the Yazio app are simple and spread out nicely with the ingredients listed separate from the method. I like that you can change your serving portions and the recipe adapts so you can cook for more people or make an extra portion to save for later.
One of the features I didn’t make use of on the Yazio app was the diary section because I preferred to favourite the recipes I wanted to try instead of filling out the days.
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However, I can imagine this could be very useful if you’re busy and want to create a meal plan for the whole week so you know what you’re cooking and when. I just prefer to write my own list after planning meals.
I tried to change the measurements of ingredients within the recipes from ounces to grams but couldn’t find an option to do it so I spent a bit of time converting them myself. This was a bit frustrating but not the end of the world.
The app also helps you track your nutrition such as how much water you drink in a day and how much carbs, protein and fat you eat.
You can also track your number of steps and measurements including your weight. Users can learn about intermittent fasting and track their progress – these are things I didn’t do but they are interesting features.
Overall, using the app opened my eyes to some new and different recipes and it made food shopping more structured. I looked forward to trying new things at each mealtime.