Kenji Lopez-Alt

https://www.youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt/videos

The GoPro format is great, you can see what he does with his hands and you see all of the cooking, with practically zero cuts in the video. All the while he explains why he’s doing the things you see.

Foodwishes is the OG YouTube cooking show: https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/ has over a decade of content. Recipes vary in complexity but always does a good job of breaking down the steps & explaining the what and why.

America’s Test Kitchen and Bon Appetit both have channels with a lot of content, but are geared towards getting you to subscribe to their paid content.

There’s also a ton of old TV content available. E.g. Good Eats has a number of episodes posted (or maybe just parts of episodes, but enough to learn).

Kenji Lopez Alt is also a major content creator. He has several first person view videos with commentary while he cooks. This is a good format to see the cooking skills in action and help learn / improve techniques.

Beyond these big ones, there are many good channels with focus on specific culinary styles.

You Suck At Cooking has a lot of meals in a fun format, Adam Ragusea? I think that’s how you spell it, is pretty good too, longer videos and less on the meals themselves and more learning about food in general.

I found myself the same many years ago and need something entertaining but look delicious. Some can be intimidating but i e replicated several of my four regular channels around this subject.

Binging with Babish https://youtube.com/@babishculinaryuniverse

Matty Matheson https://youtube.com/@mattymatheson

Brian Lagerstrom https://youtube.com/@BrianLagerstrom

Ethan Chlbowski https://youtube.com/@EthanChlebowski

Honorable mention if you want to try your hand at any desserts/sweets for Claire Saffitz https://youtube.com/@CSaffitz

I’m a huge fan of Adam Ragusea. He takes a science, history, and home-cook approach to everything which makes uniquely tasty yet simple recipes. He optimizes for the fewest dishes and simpler techniques that aren’t impossible for a home cook to do.

I’m a bit obsessed with watching cooking shows on YouTube. Here are a few of my favorites in no particular order.

• Anti-chef: Guy is on a journey to learn how to cook. Blew up when he started working through Julia Child’s cookbooks. He also has a series where he is trying to make something from every country in the world.

• Barry Lewis - British guy who tries a lot of Tiktok foods, hacks, and has compares ingredients based on price

• Beryl Shereshewsky - cooks foods from around the world based on a shared theme/ingredient

• Pasta Grammer - Italian woman teaches her American husband about traditional Italian foods

• Claire Saffitz - incredible baker

• Chef John - he’s an excellent teacher

• Sorted food - their older videos had a lot of battles and educational content. My favorite series they do is recipe relays.

• J Kenji Lopez alt - I actually can’t watch his channel because the POV makes me motion sick. However, he’s a fantastic chef and you should watch him if the camera angle doesn’t bother you.

• Glen and friends cooking - he tries a lot of recipes from old community cookbooks

• Tasting History with Max Miller - tries ancient recipes and teaches you the history of that food

• Pro home cooks - I don’t watch this channel as much anymore, but it used to be 2 brothers who taught viewers basic cooking techniques to throw together basic meals. Now it’s run by just one of the brothers and he sometimes makes more complicated items, but still has a lot of simple recipes.

• NYT Cooking - specifically the Mystery Menu series with Sohla and Ham. Won’t necessarily teach you to cook but is fun to watch them come up with ridiculous seeming menus.

Kenji Lopez-Alt

https://youtube.com/@JKenjiLopezAlt

Internet Shaquille is something that hasn’t been mentioned yet that I think really resonates with what you’re looking for. All of his videos are short, focused, and aimed at helping regular people in the kitchen (with the exception of his April Fools videos, which satirize clickbait videos). There is some humor, but the information density of his videos reflects his ethos of not wanting to waste your time. To this end, sponsor reads appear at the end of the video (if they’re sponsored at all), so you can completely skip them.

Can’t believe noone said Binging with Babish yet. Has a great series called Basics with Babish which is exactly what it sounds like.

Glen and Friends https://youtube.com/@GlenAndFriendsCooking

It’s not nearly as popular as many of the others mentioned. He’s been doing this for a long time, and his recipes are all over the place. He has a couple different series of videos. For instance one is about making cocktails, and my favorite is the old cookbook show.

Glen has an insane collection of old cookbooks and is really knowledgeable about the history of cooking. He offers information you can’t find anywhere else.

He also often does “method” recipes. He likes to say this a ton, “it’s not a recipe, it’s a method.” What he means is that while you can follow his recipe directly, you can use different ingredients as long as you follow the method. He does a lot of “pantry cleaning recipes” like this and it’s all about just using what you have to make something which is an incredibly useful skill to learn and practice.

I want to promote Ann Reardon from her How to Cook That channel.

She doesn’t typically do recipes, but goes into things like the chemistry and about what’s happening when you deal with certain recipe combinations. She also debunks cooking videos and “hacks” regularly, while also educating on potential safety issues. Example was the flash boiling liquids you can do in a microwave and wood burning risks (although that was not necessarily cooking related).

https://youtube.com/@HowToCookThat

Food Wishes is the GOAT.

Binging with Babish is very cool. He makes food fro TV shows and movies. And he has really sexy arms.

I just so happen to have a good friend that has been working on his own cooking show for years. It’s definitely a passion project of his and I’d love it for him to get more exposure. Caveman Cooking is the name and it’s definitely worth checking out!

https://youtu.be/3N2Oa8BhfFw

You suck at cooking is a great option, he also has a recipe book. Binging with banish is another good one. For entertainment purposes Epic Meal Time is an oldie but goodie not sure how their new stuff is but years ago they were the shit!