Should TikTok Be Your Next Cookbook?

The secret to her success? Being authentic. “I guess I come across as someone who's approachable just by being who I am,” Costello says. 

Charisma is important, but so is real foodie knowledge when it comes to TikTok cooking content. Shereen Pavlides, 49, an experienced recipe developer and culinary school graduate, taps her culinary background for the from-scratch Italian dishes she serves up in her New Jersey home kitchen for her @cookingwithshereenTikTok account.

Shereen Pavlides

COURTESY OF SHEREEN PAVLIDES

Pavlides’ engaging personality, straightforward recipes and “cheffy tips” feel approachable — and like things some of her 3.7 million followers might not be intimidated to try. Pavlides launched her TikTok channel in late 2019 and says it took off during the pandemic. Her banana bread recipe was a pandemic TikTok hit.

"When everyone was home cooking, the young kids were telling their moms about my videos because they wanted their moms to cook what I was making or make it with them,” Pavlides says. “So my audience started aging up because of that.”

Her videos range from the informative (if using Morton kosher salt instead of Diamond Crystal, reduce amount by half, since the former is extra salty) to comfort food (patty melts anyone?) to the sweet (think profiteroles).

Most of Pavlides’ videos on TikTok are about 60 seconds long and show condensed versions and riffs on recipes in her cookbook, Cooking with Shereen From Scratch: Because you Can!

And they're popular. Pavlides’ video highlighting her Iced Lemon Loaf TikTok (see video below) — a simple take on a Starbucks favorite — has 10 basic ingredients viewers are likely to have at home and has been viewed over 10 million times.

A fun place to learn about new cuisines

Joanne Lee Molinaro

COURTESY GEOFF MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY

So what makes this platform a good place to get culinary inspiration?

“TikTok is fun, entertaining, and quick to the point,” says Patrick Moynihan, director of Social Media for Food52, a popular e-commerce and gourmet food website that crowdsources recipes from its audience. Food52 joined the platform to reach new viewers and introduce them to the brand in a fun “meet them where they are” kind of way, Moynihan says.

If you’re looking for new cooking hacks to improve your kitchen skills or make cooking easier, videos on Food52’s feed might serve as a reminder of something so simple you wish you’d thought of it yourself (rotating a lemon while zesting is a good one).

But TikTok can also introduce cooks of all experience levels to new cuisines and techniques in an unintimidating way.

For example, Joanne Lee Molinaro’s @thekoreanvegan account has more than 2.6 million followers. The lawyer-turned-TikToker, who launched her account in July 2020, shares personal stories from her life along with her cooking videos,

“My stories were designed to provide footholds in the hearts of those who might be unfamiliar with the immigrant story here in the United States,” says Molinaro, 42.

Instead of focusing on “chaotic recipe instructions in less than 60 seconds,” Molinaro says, she decided to emphasize storytelling with her content on TikTok — all while cooking, of course.

In a video where Molinaro cooks Kimchi cheese fries she talks about her parents’ objections to her first marriage, which ultimately ended in divorce. As she chops and mixes ingredients, she describes her parents’ concerns about the relationship and Molinaro’s insistence that she was in love. “Naturally, I thought I knew better,” she says, while onions and scallions sizzle.

Molinaro’s cookbook, The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen, comes out in October. The recipes are inspired by the food that shaped her family history and are “an extended version of my TikTok,” Molinaro says.

Still convinced TikTok is only for a younger generation? Costello, of @brunchwithbabs, says it’s for everyone.

“If you have a minute,” she says, “you can learn something new."

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