About

The Hot Spatula is a recipe site written by a few people who cook for their families most nights and write down what worked.

It started with recipe cards: stained, scribbled on, and sometimes missing the one step that mattered. Most of what you'll find here began that way, then got cooked again until the card was right.

What's here

Weeknight dinners that don't take all evening. Casseroles and one-pan suppers. A pot of sauce that simmers while you do something else. Cakes, quick breads and cookies for the weekend. Now and then a longer project, like a batch of mead, that is worth clearing a Saturday for.

You won't need special equipment or a trip to a specialty shop. Where an ingredient is hard to find, the recipe says what to use instead.

How the recipes are written

Every recipe has notes underneath, the kind a friend would give you across the counter. Why a step matters, what you can change, and what to do if the batter looks wrong or the sauce tastes flat.

Amounts are listed in the order you'll use them. The servings buttons rescale a recipe, tapping an ingredient crosses it off, and cook mode keeps your phone from going dark while your hands are covered in flour.

Who writes the recipes

Five home cooks, each with their own habits:

  • Frank Dupont spent eleven years on the wok station of a Houston restaurant and still chops everything before the burner goes on. Fried rice, stir-fries and weeknight dinners.
  • Elliot Hessel teaches high school chemistry in Dayton, Ohio, and builds casseroles and copycat recipes from what's already in the pantry.
  • Mariah Cox learned to bake at her grandmother's counter in Asheville. Cakes, quick breads and holiday baking.
  • Ines Okafor trained as a pastry cook in Manchester, weighs everything in grams, and likes food that can be made ahead.
  • Devon Marsh cooked for wildland fire crews in Oregon and now feeds big tables from a grill, a smoker and a Dutch oven.

You can read more about each of them on the Our Cooks page.

Thanks for stopping by

Pick a recipe, turn on the burner, and taste as you go.