The 5 Best Recipes of 2023

For Allrecipes' inaugural Best Recipes contest, we tasked our readers, editors, and a panel of expert judges to name the best recipes of the year.

The internet at large likes to throw around the word "best" a lot. This is the best cheeseburger; this is the best way to store blueberries; this is the best way to cut an onion. We get the appeal! When you're deciding between multiple recipes or techniques, why wouldn't you want the best?

But there's just one problem: Who, exactly, gets to decide what qualifies as the best? Who gets to say what recipe is better than another? This year, for the first time ever, we're letting our editors, readers, and a panel of expert judges make the call. For Allrecipes' inaugural Best Recipes competition, we pitted 50 recipes against each other to find the "best" recipe in five different categories: bacon, cheese, chicken, potatoes, and chocolate. We whittled down the list, we consulted our readers (almost 20,000 members of our community weighed in!), we ate our way through plates of chicken Parmesan and rich chocolate pie, and we found our champions.

The five winning recipes below are the result of many months of research culminating in a cook-off at our test kitchen in Birmingham. When we say these recipes are "the best" for 2023, you can rest assured that it's true.

How We Decided the Best Recipes of 2023

We took a three-prong approach to finding our best recipes for 2023. In the first phase, our editors determined the five ingredient-based categories, and then chose 10 recipes per category that we felt represented what our community is making right now on Allrecipes—whether that’s something highly rated, brimming with comments on Instagram, or very much in the zeitgeist in 2023. It didn't matter when the recipes were published.

In the second phase, we kicked off a month-long campaign where we asked our readers to vote for their favorite recipes in each category. We had an incredible 111,554 votes from 17,255 voters (with a $1000 cash prize for voting).

The top two recipes in each category went to a cook-off in our test kitchen in Birmingham, Alabama where our panel of judges—Carrie Boyd, Elizabeth Heiskell, and Dakari Akored—tried all 10 recipes, gave their notes, deliberated amongst themselves, and declared one winner per category.

Meet the Judges

For our cook-off in Birmingham, we brought in three top-tier judges to make the final call on the best recipes of 2023. Let's meet the team!

• Elizabeth Heiskell: Heiskell is a The Today Show Food Contributor and has appeared on both The Kitchen and Chopped. She's also the best-selling cookbook author of What Can I Bring, The Southern Living Party Cookbook, and Come On Over. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi where she runs her catering company, Elizabeth Heiskell Catering.
  
  

• Dakari Akorede: Akorede is an Allrecipes' Allstar, a football fan, and a BBQ expert. He lives in Atlanta and works as a private chef and teacher.
  
  

• Carrie Boyd: Boyd is the Editorial Director for Allrecipes magazine. She has more than a decade of experience in national food and lifestyle media and content creation. In another life, she created custom, branded content for national brands; and worked in various FOH and BOH jobs in the hospitality industry. She lives in Iowa.

The Best Recipes 2023 Cook-Off

When it comes to the vibe of our cook-off in Birmingham on July 26, think: Top Chef meets the home cook. In typical TV fashion, our judges sat on a long table, with fork and pen in hand, ready to eat and take notes. Our test kitchen chefs made and served our judges each recipe while telling them a little bit about the history of the dish on the site. Allrecipes is built on the recipes from our contributors, so it was a joy to hear about the cook behind the dish, and when it was published on our site (a couple were from 1999!). The judges in turn tried each recipe, gave their notes, and voted on the ultimate winner. Here's how the whole thing shook out.

Bacon: Not Just a Morning Hero

The Contenders: Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeño Poppers vs. Tater Tot and Bacon Breakfast Casserole

Our test kitchen chefs, Jasmine Smith and Julia Levy, made and served both of these recipes to our judges. The poppers had thick-cut bacon wrapped around the outside of the pepper, while the casserole has bacon throughout and on top of the dish. The judges swooned over the poppers, and Akorede said the recipe was "savory, salty, with just a small twinge of heat". But ultimately, the casserole reigned supreme. Boyd described it as “the perfect marriage" of an egg casserole and a hot dish. “I have no notes here,” she said, "10/10."

Read more about both recipes and what the judges had to say.

Potatoes: The Queen of Comfort

The Contenders: Ultimate Twice-Baked Potatoes vs. Creamy au Gratin Potatoes

For our potato category, our test kitchen pros Amanda Stanfield and Catherine Jesse made and served our judges. The baked potatoes were a twice-baked potato filled with bacon, cheddar, sour cream, and green onions. The gratin potatoes used thinly-sliced potatoes as the base. The judges thought that the potatoes in the gratin were perfectly cooked, but Akorede thought the "onions were too sharp." The baked potato stole the show. "This [recipe] makes me think about home," Akorede said.

Read more about both recipes and what the judges had to say.

Cheese: The Secret to Making Everything Better

The Contenders: VELVEETA Down-Home Macaroni and Cheese vs. Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Stanfield and Jesse came back to make and serve the recipes for the cheese category to our judges. The macaroni and cheese used two kinds of cheeses for superior creaminess—VELVEETA and cheddar. And the Red Lobster copycat biscuits used grated cheddar to impart cheesiness throughout. While the judges thought the biscuits were "light and savory" they also thought they were a tad bit dry. The macaroni and cheese, on the other hand, was "creamy and delicious" according to Heiskell, making it our #1 cheese recipe of 2023.

Read more about both recipes and what the judges had to say.

Chicken: A Kitchen Bedrock

The Contenders: Chicken Parmesan vs. Juicy Roast Chicken

Our test kitchen chefs, Nicole Hopper and Tricia Stuedeman, made and served our judges for the chicken category. The roast chicken is a fuss-free recipe with superior results, and the chicken Parmesan uses a mixture of panko and Parmesan for ultimate crispiness. Heiskell thought the roast chicken was incredibly juicy. "It's easy to hide behind a dry wing or thigh, but you can't do that with the breast," she said. But Boyd and Akorede preferred the chicken Parmesan, making it our winner. Akorede said it was a "great dish" and that the chicken was "perfectly fried."

Read more about both recipes and what the judges had to say.

Chocolate: The Sweetest Way to End the Day

The Contenders: Rich Chocolate Truffle Pie vs. One Bowl Chocolate Cake

Stuedeman and Hopper also made and served the chocolate recipes to our judges. The cake uses unsweetened cocoa powder, while the pie utilized semisweet chocolate chips and a chocolate cookie crumb crust. Heiskell thought the cake was a "lovely rich and moist cake," but it didn't hold a candle to the pie. Akorede's eyes rolled to the back of his head while declaring that the pie was "absolutely phenomenal."

Read more about both recipes and what the judges had to say.

Read the original article on All Recipes.