NYT Cooking AI assistant review: good at swaps, wrong on butter

The Verge's reviewer spent a few days with the new AI assistant in the NYT Cooking app, which is available to subscribers on iOS only at launch. The assistant appears as a small text box on the recipe page with the prompt 'Customize this recipe…'. Users type anything from 'What can I substitute for this ingredient?' to 'Scale this recipe to feed seven people, and make it vegan and gluten-free.' The New York Times has also said the feature can suggest substitutions for cooking equipment and convert measurements; the reviewer notes the conversion option has been in the app for a couple of years. According to the reviewer, the assistant was trained on user comments, among other things, and it does not change the existing recipe: it leaves the original as is and creates a new one.

The main test was a One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger recipe by Yasmin Fahr. The reviewer had chicken tenders instead of thighs and no chard, cilantro or scallions, but did have green beans and red onions. Within seconds the assistant produced a new version titled One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger and Green Beans. It suggested a shorter browning time for the tenders, cooking the red onion alongside the chicken, and steaming the green beans on top of the rice for the last eight minutes instead of the chard. Every change was highlighted under a Your Version tab, and the original was one tap away. It had not adjusted for the missing cilantro, calling it optional; when asked about Thai basil, it agreed and explained how that would change the flavor. The dish took the same time to cook as the original and was, in the reviewer's words, delicious. It differed a lot from Fahr's recipe, which the reviewer admits is the purists' point, but was easier to follow than improvising swaps from the comments section.

Over the weekend the reviewer tried more cases. For a Thai red curry, it said grated lime zest could replace makrut lime leaf, but 'it misses the deeper floral, herbal aroma'. The reviewer asked about half-and-half instead of cream in a caramel apple Dutch baby, and Castelvetrano olives and smoked paprika in place of kalamata and chile pepper in a roasted halibut dish. The app converted the Dutch baby's metric weights to US measurements without trouble. Curveballs: it warned that cayenne instead of chile 'brings significant, sharp heat', and when asked whether minced beef could replace ladyfingers in a trifle, it answered: 'Minced beef cannot be used in place of the ladyfingers or anywhere in this sweet dessert trifle.' NYT Cooking editors say it has been trained not to comply with requests that will taste bad.

The reviewer also compared it with Alexa Plus, Amazon's generative-AI voice assistant, on an Echo Show 11. Alexa, which pulls some recipes from the NYT app through a partnership, gave the same substitution guidance with slightly different cooking times. But it could not show the modified recipe on screen, only read out the changes while displaying the original, and when asked to walk through them it got confused and told the reviewer to cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, which was not in the modified recipe. The reviewer found the Cooking app more reliable, though messier, and wished for voice control in the app.

The baking test went worse. The reviewer asked the assistant to turn Genevieve Ko's Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake into muffins. Ko is an NYT Cooking editor who announced the AI feature. The assistant changed the cooking time from three hours to 50 minutes and split the batter across two 12-muffin tins, which would have made 24 muffins, too many. Asked to halve the recipe to get 12, it made sensible choices such as going from five eggs to three rather than two and a half. The reviewer bought a Bundt pan and baked the original too; both turned out great. The trouble came from switching between versions: a modified recipe cannot be saved separately, which caused confusion. Using voice typing, the reviewer asked how much butter was needed and the assistant gave the modified recipe's 6 tablespoons rather than the original's three-quarter cup, without saying which version it was using. The reviewer says 6 tablespoons would have made for a dry cake, and advises deleting your version to avoid this.

The verdict: for everyday problems like the wrong cut of chicken, no cilantro or no Bundt pan, it was genuinely helpful and saved a trip to the store. Like every AI tool the reviewer has used in the kitchen, it works as a sous chef, not the head chef, so amounts and times still need checking against the original. Purists can ignore it; the chat box cannot be turned off but is easy to scroll past.

Key facts

NYT Cooking's AI assistant launched for subscribers on iOS only; it was trained on user comments, among other things, and creates a new recipe version while leaving the original untouched.
In a chicken-and-rice test it swapped in green beans (steamed on the rice for the last eight minutes instead of chard) and the dish took the same time as the original.
Converting a Bundt cake to muffins, it cut the time from three hours to 50 minutes, split the batter across two 12-muffin tins, and halved five eggs to three when asked for 12 muffins.
Asked for the butter amount mid-bake, it gave the modified recipe's 6 tablespoons instead of the original's three-quarter cup, without saying which version; the reviewer says that would have made a dry cake.
The reviewer found the app more reliable than Alexa Plus for the modified recipe, but still double-checked amounts and times against the original.

Why it matters

NYT Cooking built its reputation on thousands of tested recipes from reputable sources, and the reviewer says she is not alone in being wary of an AI layer on top. This is a hands-on test of whether a first-party assistant can help without replacing those recipes. The design choice that stands out is that it leaves the original recipe alone and writes a separate Your Version, with each change highlighted.

Who it affects

Subscribers using NYT Cooking on iOS, the only platform at launch. It targets home cooks who hit a missing ingredient or the wrong equipment at dinner time and do not want to read hundreds of comments. Recipe purists are affected least: the chat box cannot be turned off, but it is easy to scroll past. Alexa Plus users who pull NYT recipes through the partnership also get a view of how the two compare.

How to use it

Open a recipe in the NYT Cooking app and type into the 'Customize this recipe…' box. Questions can be simple substitutions, scaling with dietary constraints, equipment swaps such as muffin tins for a Bundt pan, or unit conversion. Changes show under the Your Version tab, and you can flip back to the original. Check amounts and cooking times against the original, and delete your version once you are done so the assistant does not mix the two up. No price or other access detail beyond subscriber status and iOS is given.

How solid is it

This is one reviewer's anecdotal test over a few days, with a handful of recipes, not a systematic evaluation. No accuracy figures, user numbers or benchmarks are given. Claims about training on user comments and being trained not to comply with requests that will taste bad come from the reviewer and NYT Cooking editors respectively, not from independent verification. The model or vendor behind the assistant is not named.

Risks and caveats

The butter mix-up is the concrete failure: the assistant answered with the modified recipe's figure without saying which version it meant, and 6 tablespoons instead of three-quarter cup would have made a dry cake. A modified recipe cannot be saved separately, which added confusion. The reviewer still double-checked amounts and times against the original. Halving a recipe worked sensibly for eggs here, but the source does not report a final muffin baking time after halving. In the Alexa Plus comparison, the voice assistant improvised a step that was not in the modified recipe.

“Minced beef cannot be used in place of the ladyfingers or anywhere in this sweet dessert trifle.”

— NYT Cooking AI assistant, replying to the reviewer's trifle question