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 It's surrealist storylines with cooking!
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.
Alex does mostly simple recipes, but he's interesting because he doesn't just try once but keeps remaking the recipe until he gets it perfect and explains the whole process and all the details.
ANTI-CHEF does very fancy recipes from a beginner's perspective. He shows off a lot of techniques that a more professional chef might gloss over as obvious.
Speaking as someone that started with little experience, I love Adam Ragusea and Pro Home Cooks. Both explain things you never thought to ask about cooking and concepts that you can apply across lots of different dishes. I've learned things that I still continue to think about long after watching whenever I'm making up some food :)
I think the channel "You Suck at Cooking" is a great channel. It's funny, has a nice wide variety, and he usually tries to keep the recipies practical enough that people can do them at home.
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.
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.
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
J. Kenji LΓ³pez-Alt is fantastic. Professional chef who shows a lot of the how and why in his videos. How to do something in the recipe, and why it's done. Professional chef with a bunch of other paid resources if you end up liking his style
Can't believe noone said Binging with Babish yet. Has a great series called Basics with Babish which is exactly what it sounds like.
Here are a few great channels from my Youtube subscriptions!
Tasting History with Max Miller hits a perfect cross-section of my interest in cooking and my interest in history. Max goes through a historical recipe each episode and pauses part of the way through to explain the history of the dish.
Minute Food has lots of short (sometimes under a minute!) videos about the science behind cooking.
Chinese Cooking Demystified is a husband-and-wife duo living in China that goes over traditional Chinese recipes, I especially like how in the voice-over they frequently list substitutions for ingredients that may be difficult to find outside of China.
Atomic Shrimp does far more than just cooking, but the cooking videos on his channel always give a neat insight into the everyday meals an older British IT Specialist makes.
Brian Langerstrom has a wide variety of recipes and I feel like he tests them enough only to put out the best:
https://youtube.com/@BrianLagerstrom
Also love Smoking and Grilling with AB. He says himself he's trying to "demystify" cooking. Delicious recipes that build on flavors, I've made a few and they come just as he tells you:
https://youtube.com/@SmokinandGrillinwithAB
Lastly, but not my least favorite, Ethan Chlebowski. When he gets real technical about the best ingredients it's very informative:
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.
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).
Natβs What I Reckon if you want a sweary Australian delivering recipes with a good amount of comedy!
I just so happen to have a good friend that has been working on his own cooking show for years. Itβs definitely a passion project of his and Iβd love it for him to get more exposure. Caveman Cooking is the name and itβs definitely worth checking out!
Binging with Babish is very cool. He makes food fro TV shows and movies. And he has really sexy arms.
Food Wishes is the GOAT.
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.
Food wishes for pure recipes and puns, sorted food for some fun and to further learning
A lot of great recommendations in here. One I haven't seen mentioned yet is Molly Baz
This vegan sour cream is really nice, super easy also: https://youtu.be/8ILzKYAZWGY?list=PLxWGB-fhb7NXHzQPI5dn6kM_8cGxarJKl
Same channel, lasagna with no tomato, for those that can't eat nightshades. https://youtu.be/WES5UFjgvQk?list=PLxWGB-fhb7NXHzQPI5dn6kM_8cGxarJKl
Cooking with a dog, Nats what I reckon are both fun to watch and easy to follow
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!
Definitely Babish Culinary Universe.
Middle Eats and Nadia Gilbert are both great.
My wife and I love watching Chef Pierre
If you want to get into baking John Kirkwood videos are really good. https://www.youtube.com/@JohnKirkwoodProFoodHomemade
His Sandwich bread made easy at home is one of my favorits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWpSbYV96_c
I have also followed a few videos from Natashas Kitchen that have turned out well. https://www.youtube.com/@Natashaskitchen/videos
And on a more funny note multi-millionare twitch streamer Asmongold demonstrates how to cook a $2 stake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETgbsF5yY8
For Chinese cooking, I like these three:
https://youtube.com/@ChineseCookingDemystified https://youtube.com/@chefwang https://youtube.com/@sheephoho
This is my go to site and YouTube channel: https://mealprepmanual.com/
https://youtube.com/@TheMealPrepManual
You can meal prep for the week and if you count calories and the macros, you find that too.
I recommend Pick Up Limes. Great (vegan) recipes and tips along the way.
I donβt care much for her mindfulness and lifestyle videos but those are easily skippable. And she did unfortunately release an app recently, so of course she will try to get you to download that.
The whole series is great.
It has had it's rise and fall, but Bon AppΓ©tit has a ton of great videos, both for instructions and entertainment.
https://youtube.com/@bonappetit
A few years ago, a lot of the chefs came together in some sort of union against the leadership with pretty ugly claims, resulting in most of the chefs leaving Bon AppΓ©tit. I'm not sure what the current situation is, maybe we're morally supposed to stay away from the channel?
Anyways, I love the old videos with Brad Leone, Molly Baz, Claire Saffiz and several others. The videos beyond the major resignation has a completely different feel to it, so I haven't been following the channel a lot since that.
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