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r/Cooking

r/Cooking is a safe-for-work Reddit community for cooking with 6,327,811 members (#125 in our Top 1000) and about 77 new posts a day.

Trying Vietnamese foodApple clipMochi mishapLiving in Thailand on a budgetMore short videos ›
Rank (SFW Top 1000)#125
Subscribers6.3M
Growth since Oct 19+7.4K
Posts per day77
Posts all time541.6K
CreatedJan 2008
Visit r/Cooking on Reddit ↗

About r/Cooking

The community was created on Jan 25, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 19, 2026, it has gained 7,435 subscribers (+0.12%). Among the 18 communities on our cooking list it is the largest.

What sets r/Cooking apart

Compared with other large communities, r/Cooking leans heavily on text posts (100% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 17%). For its size it is unusually busy: about 12.2 new posts a day per million members, more than 84% of the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 0.44% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 93% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (15:00 UTC) sees about 7.0× as many posts as the quietest (07:00 UTC).

Subscriber growth

6.33M6.30MSep 19Oct 29, 2026

Between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026, r/Cooking climbed from 6,299,856 to 6,327,811 subscribers (+28K, +0.44%). That is about 699 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (8 so far), so it gets longer every week.

Top posts on r/Cooking this week

The most upvoted posts of the past seven days, in the order Reddit ranks them (collected Oct 30, 2026).

  1. Why does restaurant fried rice taste different from homemade fried rice, even when I use the same ingredients?u/transfemme_x · Oct 28 · text post
  2. Why does Jaimie Oliver have an obsession with putting mango chutney in his curry dishes?u/MasterMonth5929 · Oct 28 · text post
  3. Eggsu/jessi_g9 · Oct 28 · text post
  4. 36” wide oven taking 1 hr to get to 450. Oven guy says that’s normal. Is it??u/That-Leg-925 · Oct 27 · text post
  5. Anyone else mainly in the kitchen making delicious bullshit?u/bnny_ears · Oct 24 · text post
  6. What dip recipe could you could eat an entire pint of in one sitting?u/copperpumpkin · Oct 26 · text post
  7. Oh I don't knowu/teddybearlike702 · Oct 25 · text post
  8. Where are the FLAT freezer storage bags?u/cynzthin · Oct 25 · text post
  9. I want a left handed wok (it has a twist off handle that I think loosens when I use it because I'm left handed)u/dumbest-smartguy · Oct 27 · text post
  10. What are your favorite broke until payday meals?u/Guilty-Jaguar6433 · Oct 28 · text post

All-time top posts

The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/Cooking, from 2017 to 2024, ranked by Reddit.

  1. I have about a year+/- left. I made an offline browsable archive of my website which is a lifetime of my favorite recipes..u/TerrysApplianceSvc · Dec 12, 2024 · text post
  2. Yesterday I found out that coriander is the same thing as cilantro. I'm so embarrassed, and my mind is blown.u/annamagda · Feb 12, 2021 · text post
  3. What’s your stupidest cooking opinion so we can all fight about it?u/rawlingstones · May 18, 2020 · text post
  4. My mother: "I don't use salt in my cooking, I don't like how it tastes" My mother when I cook: "Wow OP! This tastes so good, what's your secret?"u/RohannaFem · Mar 18, 2022 · 21,452 points · 1,345 comments · text post
  5. RIP Anthony Bourdainu/MacGuyver247 · Jun 8, 2018 · 20,562 points · 1,014 comments · text post
  6. I’m cooking one meal from every state in the United States , what meal best represents your state?u/emilou09 · Jul 22, 2019 · 19,389 points · 25,032 comments · text post
  7. Why are the "chili never should have beans in it" people so insufferable?u/Christopher_Powell · Nov 27, 2019 · 19,382 points · 4,177 comments · text post
  8. So, after I made a post on r/eatcheapandhealthy yesterday, I realised I'm not the only depressed person struggling to eat properly. So, I've started a blog of super cheap, healthy meals that require …Oct 19, 2017 · 18,890 points · 705 comments · text post
  9. A kind reminder: don’t shame people for not being able to get better ingredientsu/kitt-cat · Jan 15, 2021 · text post
  10. Get your turkey out to thaw if it's 200lbs or more! This is your 200 lb warning!!!u/quietmasturdebater · Nov 2, 2017 · 17,603 points · 763 comments · text post

What r/Cooking talks about

Looking at the titles of 544 recent posts (Oct 21–Oct 28), the words that come up most are “chicken”, “recipe”, “food”, “recipes” and “cook”. Other frequent themes are help, beef, good, rice, chili and cooker. Recurring phrases include “rice cooker”, “chicken thighs”, “slow cooker” and “meal prep”. By format, 100% are text posts.

  • chicken 45
  • recipe 36
  • food 26
  • recipes 24
  • cook 20
  • help 19
  • beef 19
  • good 19
  • rice 15
  • chili 14
  • cooker 13
  • pan 13
  • cheese 12
  • sauce 12
  • soup 11
  • looking 11
  • ideas 11
  • favorite 11

Activity and best time to post

r/Cooking gets about 77 new posts a day. The public archive holds 541,625 posts and 12,666,841 comments in total, about 23.4 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Monday (90 posts) and the quietest was Tuesday (72). Posting peaks around 15:00 UTC and is lowest around 07:00 UTC.

00: 250001: 2402: 2703: 120304: 1005: 806: 70607: 608: 1509: 230910: 1811: 2612: 231213: 3814: 2915: 421516: 2117: 2418: 221819: 3520: 3221: 382122: 2423: 26
Posts per hour of the day, UTC, Oct 22, 2026 – Oct 28, 2026
Text posts 100%

Rules of r/Cooking

The moderators of r/Cooking list 5 rules. In short:

  1. On topic
  2. Include recipes
  3. No Memes or Trolling
  4. Limit Promotion/Self-Promotion
  5. Be respectful

How to join

Open reddit.com/r/Cooking and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.

Frequently asked questions

How many subscribers does r/Cooking have?

r/Cooking has 6,327,811 subscribers, which makes it the #125 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 27,955 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026.

How old is r/Cooking?

r/Cooking was created on Jan 25, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years. The oldest post in the public archive is from Jan 26, 2008.

How active is r/Cooking?

Very active: r/Cooking gets about 77 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 541,625 posts and 12,666,841 comments. In a sample of 544 recent posts we counted 501 different authors.

When is r/Cooking most active?

Based on post counts from Oct 22, 2026 to Oct 28, 2026, the busiest day was Monday and the quietest Tuesday, and most posts arrive around 15:00 UTC, with the fewest around 07:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.

What is r/Cooking about?

The community describes itself as: “Cooking” Recent post titles often mention chicken, recipe, food, recipes and cook. Most posts are text posts (100%).

Is r/Cooking safe for work?

Yes. Reddit does not mark r/Cooking as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.

How do I post on r/Cooking?

Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/Cooking accepts text posts only, with galleries enabled. It has 5 posted rules, starting with: “On topic”; “Include recipes”; “No Memes or Trolling”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.

Which communities are like r/Cooking?

Communities with similar topics include r/grilling (2.6M), r/slowcooking (4.8M), r/EatCheapAndHealthy (11.5M), r/food (24.6M) and r/movies (37.7M).

Stats from public data (data updated Oct 29, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Oct 30, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/Cooking.