Cooking is a valuable daily living skill, to whatever degree it is practiced. Whether you aspire to be a master chef or to save a little extra money on weeknights, you can work on your cooking skills in a way that reflects your needs.

But cooking guides aren’t always accessible to Autistic people. Sometimes they can be frustratingly nonspecific. Sometimes they don’t offer visuals of important steps. Sometimes they don’t clearly list all the equipment you’ll need to get started.

Visual recipes are all about making recipes clearer and more accessible through formatting that explains the steps as deliberately as possible with accompanying visuals. You can find visual recipes in lots of places, including our Autism Grown Up store.

The purpose of this post is to explain how visual recipes work and to highlight our own visual recipe collection.

You can check out individual recipes from our visual recipe library here or the full bundle below!

How can visual recipes help when compared to a standard recipe? Let’s take a closer look!

One issue with many recipes is the lack of specificity. What do stiff peaks look like exactly? How are you supposed to dice an onion? Visual recipes make sure to lay out each step of the recipe as clearly as possible, including specific instructions on how to perform the techniques in question. Recipes also make an effort to be as clear as possible on how you know a particular step is complete, so you can move forward.

One other frustrating aspect of recipes can be the lack of visual guidance! Many recipe books will show a completed process and maybe a few intermediary steps, but many rely on verbal descriptions or just count on you to know! Visual recipes make a point of visually outlining every step, even ones we might take for granted. If traditional recipes have previously felt inaccessible because they were too vague or unclear on exactly what to do, the visual accompaniments can be a major help!

Many recipe books can be quite advanced! Even if the skills are fairly simple for home cooks, those who have traditionally struggled with learning to cook may not appreciate recipes that require you to start everything from scratch. That is why we include recipes for all skill levels, from learning how to heat things up in the oven to full-blown meals.

Sometimes people’s cooking abilities are limited by the appliances available to them. That is why so many of our visual recipes are made for situations where the reader might not have access to an oven. That includes microwave recipes for dishes you might not expect and some fun fridge and freezer dishes! If you’ve ever felt limited in cooking by the equipment available to you, you can search for visual recipes that best fit your situation!

If you have ever felt frustrated by the process of learning to cook, either as a total beginner or someone who has learned to navigate the challenges, you might find a visual recipe that is a good fit for you! Check out our library, which includes free and paid options, and let us know what you think! If you want a visual recipe version of a dish that you don’t currently see available, then we would love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com, and we will do our best to make it happen!