It’s January, the time of New Year’s Resolutions, goals, and starting over. Have you been trying to decide on a good resolution? I’ve got you, friend. For real. This resolution is one that will have you excited about your year, and even if you’re a week behind, you can start anytime.
What is this challenge I’m talking about? It’s the 52 Weeks of Pinterest Recipes Challenge!
You may not have heard of this before. That’s okay because it’s something I started last year. In 2019, I made a goal to try 52 new recipes from Pinterest that I’d never made before. Before the year was done, I completed my goal and tried well over 52 new recipes by October! I do a lot of cooking at home, but if this seems daunting to you, you can think of it as trying one new recipe a week.
So let me tell you what made me start this challenge last year. When I joined Pinterest, way back when, I did what everyone does and began making different boards, including the ones Pinterest recommended, like a “Recipes to Try” board. And let me tell you, I filled that sucker up! Hundreds of recipes later, I looked at it and realized I’d only tried maybe a fraction of those recipes. Are you like me? Have you pinned all these amazing looking recipes but only tried a few here and there? Well, that’s exactly what inspired this challenge.
I decided to challenge myself to not only try 52 new recipes, but to also write them down and rate them according to what my family and I thought of them. (This mostly turned out to be my husband and I rating them because my kids can be pretty picky!)
The other part of my challenge was to stay as true to the recipes as possible. Do you ever read a recipe and check reviews only to find a dozen reviewers have added to or changed the recipe? I don’t trust a reviewer who tells me, “I loved this recipe! We didn’t have x, y, or z, so I added a half dozen other ingredients, changed the meat from pork to chicken, and put it in my Instant Pot!” At that point, you haven’t tried the recipe. You’ve simply made your own. So I made it a goal to only sub out things if I was missing an item. That way I could really rate the actual recipe rather than some modified version of it.
So, to boil it down, here’s the challenge as I wrote it down last January: Try 52 new recipes from Pinterest, write down each recipe title, and rate it over the course of a year.
If you take up this challenge, you could even do what I did and create a separate board for it. I created a board I titled “52 Weeks of Pinterest Recipes” and would move recipes into the board after making them. That way I could keep track of what I’d tried already.
I didn’t limit myself when choosing recipes. I tried everything from breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and appetizer recipes. It really challenged me to try new things and see what I could add to our normal meal rotation. And as I look over my list of recipes I tried, I’m realizing I can’t just choose a top ten because they were all so varied, but I will share a few of my favorites in different categories in case you want to try them, too!
Breakfasts:
Main Dishes:
- Portabella Egg Nests
- Ground Beef & Cabbage Stir Fry
- Sesame Noodle Bowls
- Layered Taco Casserole
- Pulled Tandoor Chicken
- Dill Pickle Chicken Salad
- Asian Sloppy Joes
Side Dishes:
Breads/Baked Goods:
Desserts:
All right, y’all, I could probably give you a dozen more great recipes from my experiment last year, but there’s not enough space to share. But I hope you feel inspired by this post! Are you interested in trying this challenge? Do you have some recipes you want to try? Let me know in the comments.
