What happens when you need to plan a meal and don’t have a library of cookbooks at your disposal? This has been my dilemma often in the past few weeks of travels.

A blind Google search is a minefield when it comes to recipes. You never know if you’ve found hidden treasure or fool’s gold. Here are some great places online to find oodles of free recipes.

Blogs

The New York Times online put together a great list of heavy hitters. While there are some of the usual big name players like Orangette, from author and Bon Appetit columnist Molly Wizenberg, there are also some real winners that usually fly more under the radar, like MattBites.

The bulk of their list is focused on general cooking sites though, so here are some regional focused experts to explore when you are looking for an exotic evening:

Indian: One Hot Stove; Mad Tea Party
Italian: Cream Puffs in Venice; Divina Cucina
French: David Lebovitz; Chocolate & Zucchini; A(nother) Year on the French Diet
South African: Cook Sister
Japanese/Southeast Asian: Rasa Malaysia; Chez Pim; Nordljus
Around the world: The Traveler’s Lunchbox

And for when you need a little dessert inspiration: Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy; Tartlette

Recipe Index Sites

Sometimes food blogs can be difficult to peruse. Most are set up in that journal style where you have to scroll alllllllllllllllllll the way down to get to the next recipe.

You don’t always have time for that kind of searching. Thankfully, two intrepid food bloggers, Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes and Kalyn Denny of Kalyn’s Kitchen, have developed a search engine that specific searches food blogs. Using Google custom search and two thousand hand-selected, high quality food blogs, you are guaranteed a killer recipe.

Foodista, which calls itself “a cooking encyclopedia everyone can edit”, is a massive compendium of recipes. It is community edited, so recipes are both rated and have additional preparation tips. And Epicurious is always around with a recipe for virtually anything.

Cookbooks

Did you know you can find a shocking number of cookbooks online for free? (Non cooking books too). I have never see it publicized, and I feel like it must be breaking the law somehow. But you should take advantage while it is still around.

I came upon this secret recipe source while trying to find Mireille Guiliano’s recipe for Georgia Gouda Gougères and discovered that almost the full text of French Women for All Seasons is available online. You can also find:

• Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking
• Thomas Keller’s Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide
• Julia Child’s The Way to Cook
• Linda Carucci’s Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks
• The Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health
• Magdaleen Van Wyk’s Traditional South African Cooking
• and that is just the beginning. Check it out.

With all of these great free places to find recipes, you can almost live without a cookbook collection!