Some of us get used to cooking from a very young age, while some start cooking because they have to. Might be their rent is due. Might be their bills are unpaid. So, they can’t afford to go out to eat.
Whatever the reason is, once you start cooking and your cooking skills starts to improve, you get hooked into it.
Personally, I started cooking when I was just 8 years old. My mom would arrive home late and tired from work, and I was the oldest of my siblings. So, I started cooking some basic stuff like instant noodles, tea, eggs, and more.
Because of that, whenever I have time, I prefer to cook something myself rather than to order something from outside—no matter how tired I am.
Cooking your own meal gives that satisfaction that nothing else does. No matter how good or bad the food tastes, you never complain and finish it without leaving a single drop on your plate.
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So, if you’re someone who loves cooking and can cook somehow good, then here are 14 ways to make money with your cooking skills. You don’t have to be insanely good at cooking or be able to cook every kind of meal to make money cooking. You just need to be passionate about it. That’s it!
1. Sell Home-Cooked Meals
This idea is really popping out at the moment. People are tired of those ultra-processed foods and overpriced takeout. So, they want something that feels homemade, comforting, and good for their health.
Some sell lunch boxes to office workers. Some sell weekend family meals, while some sell a certain type of dish throughout the week, like steaks, homemade pizzas, pastas, etc.
To start selling meals this way, you don’t have to be good at everything. You can choose a meal that you can cook really well and start selling that. Like, if you can cook pasta really well, start selling it. If you can cook fried chicken really well, start selling it.
You don’t always need a massive menu to get sales. In case of home-cooked meals, having fewer dishes works better.
The key is starting small and legal. Check local food laws in your area, get permissions if needed, and focus on quality over quantity.
Most people start by selling their meals to neighbors, friends, and friends of their friends. It will start off slow, but if your meal tastes amazing, that small group of people you sell to will start telling about your meals to their friends, family, and more, which will help you to grow your business.
2. Get Paid to Test Recipes for Food Brands
Most people don’t know this, but food brands pay regular cooks (people like you and me who can cook) to test recipes. They do it because they want honest feedback on their recipes. Does the recipe make sense? Does it taste good? Are the instructions confusing? and more..
They will send you the recipe. Then, you can cook it at your own place following their instructions. After that, you need to taste it and share if it’s good, bad, or if something needs to be improved.
Sometimes you might need to take photos or share a short video of yourself sharing your opinions on the recipe. Don’t worry! Your video won’t be shown publicly. It will only be seen by their review team to know your opinions about the recipe.
This type of opportunity might not always be available and may not pay a big amount, but you’re getting paid to cook and taste something new.
Some companies find such testers through food blogs, social media, or recipe platforms, while others work with freelancers directly. So, this can be a great way to make money cooking if you can cook following instructions and can give genuine feedback on the recipe.
3. Start a Food Blog and Monetize It
Starting a food blog to share your recipes could be one of the easiest and most reliable way to make money cooking. Yes, it does take time to grow a food blog, but once it does, it can give you a stable income for a long-long time.
By starting a food blog, all you do is try new recipes, share them, talk about what worked and what didn’t, and share some photos of your cooking. That’s it!
If you’re a stay-at-home parent or work remotely, then you can take out just 30 minutes to 1 hour every day and try new recipes. Every recipe might not work, but 1 out of 2 or 3 will surely work, and you can share it through your blog.
Pinterest is filled with people who browse it to find new ideas and recipes. So, it could be the best place to promote your food blog to get traffic. Within just a few months, you can start getting a good amount of traffic to your blog from Pinterest.
Here are 14 different Sites to Promote Your Blog Posts to Get Traffic. Make sure to check it out.
Once you start getting traffic, you can monetize your blog with ads, affiliate links, sponsorships, or by selling your own products like recipe books, homemade spices/pickles/herbs, etc.
Here are 6 different ways to Make Money with Your Blog. Make sure to check it out.
What matters most isn’t fancy photography or perfect writing. It’s honesty. With the rise of AI, most recipes on the internet are AI-generated. So people love something original that has been tried and tested by an actual human.
I’ve followed food bloggers who started with terrible photos and zero confidence. But with consistency, the quality of their photos improved, their writing improved, and they started to make good money sharing their recipes.
So, don’t expect perfection from your first blog post itself. Just start and keep improving. That will take you much further.
Check Out This Step-by-Step Beginners Guide to Start, Grow & Make Money with a Blog.
4. Create and Sell Your Own Recipe Ebooks
If you have a habit of trying new recipes by tweaking or changing some ingredients from the original recipe, then creating an eBook sharing those recipes could be a great way to make money. This could also work if you have a go-to meal recipe that you created yourself and actually tastes good.
If people around you constantly ask you for your recipes, then that could be a good sign.
To create a recipe book, you can either share a single but simple recipe that you created yourself. You can call it your signature dish, or you can group multiple recipes into different categories like quick dinners, budget meals, comfort foods, etc., and sell it.
You don’t need to be perfect to create and sell a recipe book; you just need clarity. Clear ingredients. Clear steps. Real explanations. And things people could expect while cooking the recipe. Because people don’t buy recipe books with complicated cooking methods and ingredients that are not commonly available. They want something simple and tasty.
You can sell your recipe book through platforms like Etsy, Amazon KDP, or through your own blog or website.
Here are 4 Best Sites to Sell Digital Products including recipe eBooks. Make sure to check it out.
5. Work as a Personal Chef
This is probably the most well-known way to make money cooking. As a personal chef, you cook meals for busy families, professionals, or people with specific diets who don’t know how to cook.
You don’t always have to be a professional chef to work as someone’s personal chef. You just need to be interested in trying and testing new things. Other than that, you should know the use of basic ingredients and spices. Cleanliness matters too.
You cook the meals in your client’s kitchen or maybe yours, depending on the situation. Some clients want you to create meals for the whole week on a single day, while others want you to cook for them every single day.
This can be a great way to get paid to cook if you’re trustworthy and genuinely enjoy cooking for others, not just for yourself.
6. Start a Cooking YouTube Channel
Cooking videos get millions of views on YouTube. Such videos help people to cook and try new recipes. So, you can start a YouTube channel and share your cooking tips and recipes through it.
You don’t need a studio kitchen or expensive camera to start. A phone that can take somewhat clear videos, decent lighting (light from windows or doors works too), and your cooking skills are more than enough.
Some creators focus on teaching the basics of cooking, like where/when/how a certain ingredient is used, while others focus on cooking a certain recipe from start to finish.
There are several sub-niches in cooking you can start your channel on, like cooking gadget reviews, baking, drying foods, canning, etc.
There are two things that will determine if you’ll succeed on YouTube or not. They are consistency and being authentic. If you’re consistent with posting content and if you can show your authentic self, then you’re guaranteed to succeed.
You can make money with ads, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing through your YouTube channel.
Check Out This Step-by-Step Guide to Start, Grow & Make Money with a YouTube Channel.
Here’s a fun fact that I learned from growing my own YouTube channel. The videos that perform the best are often the simplest ones. The ones that you created in a hurry and with simple edits because they come out to be more authentic. It clearly shows your mistakes and genuine reactions.
7. Teach Cooking Online
Just like for eBook, if people constantly ask you for recipes, then providing cooking classes could be a great option to make money.
You can start by charging a small amount to teach recipes. You can make good money even by charging less if you can get more people to enroll in your class. It can teach online using platforms like Zoom or Google Meet.
You don’t always have to teach just recipes. You can even teach the basics of cooking to complete newbies or even share your cooking tips and tricks through the online class.
People would be more than happy to pay for your class if you can provide them the value they want. The value isn’t just the recipe or tips and tricks; it’s also the confidence that you give someone to cook and try new recipes. So, keep that in mind.
I’ve seen cooks make solid income just by teaching one dish really well. They teach the same dish over and over again, but to a new group of people every time. So, if you can cook and explain well, then teaching about cooking could be the thing for you.
8. Become a Private Meal Prep Cook
Meal prep is a huge topic right now because people want healthy, consistent meals without needing to think about it much. So, as a private meal prep cook, you plan, cook, portion, and deliver meals to your clients.
To become a private meal prep cook, you should have some knowledge of calories and the amount of macronutrients (like Protein, Carbs, Fat, etc.) a certain food/ingredient has. Other than that, cooking skill is a must.
You don’t need to cook meals that look fancy. Instead, you need to cook something that tastes good and fulfills your client’s requirements. Making it look good is the least important part.
9. Work With Restaurants as a Recipe Developer
Many small restaurants want to add new items to their menu, but they don’t have time to test new recipes. So, you can help them to try and test new recipes.
Restaurants are ready to pay a good amount if you can help them in creating new items or in improving their current dishes. Your job is to try new recipes, tweak ingredients, and try different cooking methods, timing, etc. That’s it.
You can find such opportunities especially from networking. You need to approach restaurant owners and show them you’re capable for the job. Like most others, a good understanding of basic ingredients and spices is a must for this role.
You Might Also Like: Here’s How You Can Get Paid $10 Everytime to Take Photo of Your Food!
10. Cook for Events
Food is a must-have thing in events like birthdays, family gatherings, retreats, community events, etc. And to have food, someone needs to cook it.
Everyone can’t afford a proper catering service. Sometimes, there are not enough people to justify ordering a catering service. And that’s where you come in.
You can cook for such events and make money. Most times, you’ll get a menu from the event host. Then you need to cook the food accordingly and serve it at the event. Yes, serving and cleaning becomes your responsibility too. But once you realize how much it pays, you won’t regret.
11. Sell Food at Markets or Pop-Ups
Farmers markets and pop-ups could be two great places to turn your cooking skills into cash. You can cook something that you’re good at and start selling. This can also help you to build a loyal customer base for your food in the community.
The best part about it is, you don’t need a huge menu. You just need a single item that can bring back people over and over again. And people come back again and again for food they truly enjoyed.
If you’re not good at dealing with people, then it could be quite challenging; otherwise, it could be a good way to start your cooking business.
12. License Your Recipes to Brands
There are some brands that pay you to get the rights to your recipes. They want to use your recipe in either marketing, packaging, or campaigns.
But this is not something everyone can make money with. This usually happens when you already share your recipes publicly. It could be through your blog, social media accounts, YouTube channel, or through books and online courses. Brands notice your work and reach out to you for partnership opportunities.
You can either get paid once or every time someone buys a product/service that includes your recipe. This could be a great source of income if your recipes are accessible online.
13. Cook for Brands (UGC)
Many brands pay everyday cooks to make short cooking videos using their products. And you don’t need a big following to land such opportunities.
Mostly, kitchen appliance brands come up with such opportunities. Like, you could get asked to make fresh fruit juice using a certain brand’s juice-making machine where the brand’s logo is clearly seen. They use such videos for marketing their product.
In such roles, all you do is cook, film, and send the video. That’s it.
This space is growing fast, and more and more opportunities are coming up every single day. So, if you’re comfortable on camera, then it can be the easiest way to turn cooking into cash.
14. Start a Cooking Newsletter
This is a way to make money cooking that has been blowing up recently. It’s cooking newsletters.
You can start a cooking newsletter and share new recipes/cooking tips and tricks every week with your readers.
You can use platforms like Kit or Beehiiv to start a newsletter for free. You can monetize your newsletter with ads, sponsorships, affiliate links, or even sell your own products to make money.
Yes, it takes time and effort to grow a newsletter, but it does pay off in the long game.
Final Thoughts
So, these were 14 ways you can get paid to cook and try new recipes.
Yes, I get it. It’s not like you cook anything you want and someone will come pay for it. But these are the ways where you get paid to cook. Some ideas in this list can be done from your own home, while some need to be done outside your home.
Choose the one that suits and fits your schedule, then start working on it. It will take some time, improvement, and patience in the beginning. But once you start going, there’s no going back.
