When it comes to plugins, more isn't better. These are the seven best free and paid WordPress plugins a food blog should have to run as lean and efficiently as possible!
What is a WordPress plugin?
A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that adds specific functionality to a website built on WordPress.
There are free plugins and paid plugins, and there are many plugins that have a free version with the option to upgrade to their paid version for additional functionality and features.
Why do I need WordPress plugins?
Technically you don't need WordPress plugins. But you would be hard-pressed to have a successful food blog that can be monetized without having any plugins at all!
Some plugins provide essential functions like speed increases and security measures. And others are just for fun, just embedding your Instagram photo feed onto the page or complementing your design aesthetic.
Think of plugins like apps on your phone. Each app has a different purpose, and you're increasing the capabilities your phone has with each of them.
WordPress and your phone both work out of the box, but they might be a little boring unless you add some cool new features.
Best plugins for a WordPress food blog
Recipe card plugin
What is the purpose of a recipe card?
As a food blogger, the recipe card is arguably the most important thing in your posts! It will contain the ingredients and instructions for your recipe, and depending on the recipe card could also include images, videos, nutritional information, and other useful content.
Required features of a recipe card plugin:
- User friendly
- Responsive
- Includes schema markup
- Supports Pinterest rich pins
- Supports nutritional information
- Jump to recipe button support
- Optional: Recipe roundup functionality
- Optional: Unit conversion
- Optional: Recipe scaling
- Optional: Showcase star ratings from users
- Optional: Hands-free cook mode
Tasty Recipes – $99 annually
Pros:
- This was the first recipe card I used back in the day, and I still highly recommend it
- It has beautiful templates
- Great customer support
- User friendly
- Responsive
- Includes schema markup (for recipes only)
- Supports Pinterest rich pins
- Jump to recipe button support
- Unit conversion
- Recipe scaling
- Showcase star ratings from users
- Hands-free cook mode
Cons:
- Nutritional information isn't included. You'd have to purchase the Nutrifox plugin ($89 annually) to embed nutritional information into the recipe card.
- Roundup functionality isn't included. You'd have to purchase the Tasty Roundups plugin ($99 annually).
WPRM – $49+ annually
Pros:
- Extremely customizable
- Great customer support
- Responsive
- Includes schema markup (for recipes and “how to”)
- Supports Pinterest rich pins
- Supports nutritional information
- Includes the functionality to create recipe roundups
- Jump to recipe button support
- Unit conversion
- Recipe scaling
- Showcase star ratings from users
- Hands-free cook mode
Cons:
- It's not terribly user-friendly. Because it is so customizable, there are a million different places to look for things. I've been using it for years so I'm used to it and still love it, but it does have quite a learning curve.
Create by Mediavine – Free
Pros:
- It's 100% free
- While it was developed by Mediavine, it's available to anyone
- Great customer support
- Nice designs to choose from
- User friendly
- Responsive
- Includes schema markup (for recipes and “how to”)
- Supports Pinterest rich pins
- Supports nutritional information
- Includes the functionality to create recipe roundups
- Jump to recipe button support
- Unit conversion
- Recipe scaling
- Showcase star ratings from users
- Hands-free cook mode
Cons:
- I don't find the nutritional information to be super accurate. Create auto-calculates nutritional values with Nutritionix and I frequently found myself manually correcting what was appearing for the values.
Recipe card plugins comparison chart
| Tasty Recipes | WPRM | Create by MV | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (annually) | $99 | $49+ | Free |
| User friendly | ✅ | ✘ | ✅ |
| Responsive | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Includes schema markup | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Supports Pinterest rich pins | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Jump to recipe button support | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Supports nutritional information | ✘ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Great customer support | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Recipe roundup functionality | ✘ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unit conversion | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Recipe scaling | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Showcase star ratings from users | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Hands-free cook mode | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Get Tasty Recipes | Get WPRM | Get Create by MV |
Spam filtering plugin
How do I protect my WordPress site from spam?
Antispam plugins detect automated spam comments and prevent them from posting to your site's comment section. And my requirement for spam filtering is pretty simple: filter the spam!
Akismet – “Pay what you can”
I used Akismet for many years (and donated money as much as I was able, but it is technically free), and it did just fine! Sometimes spam slipped through, but the tactics that spammers use are always evolving so I don't blame the plugin.
Antispam Bee – Free
I started using Antispam Bee quite honestly just out of curiosity! There was nothing wrong with Akismet, I just wanted to try something new. This has worked well, too – so really, you can't go wrong with either plugin.
SEO plugin
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it's the process of iterating and improving upon a site's content to rank higher in search engines.
Do you need an SEO plugin for WordPress?
Technically, no. The SEO plugins themselves aren't necessarily doing anything to improve your site. But they are acting as a guide for you to improve your site's content!
SEO plugins will scan your content as you write to analyze it for keyword optimization, readability, and metadata. It can also provide feedback and recommendations to improve the content to give you the best chances to rank in Google search results.
Yoast – Free or $99 annually for Premium
Yoast has a free version and a paid version. I use the free version on one site and Premium on the more complex one, but for the purposes of someone just starting out the free version should fit the bill.
My only gripe about Yoast is that it has a tendency to “over-optimize” and encourage keyword stuffing, so you want to take its recommendations with a grain of salt.
Rank Math – Free or $69 annually for Pro
Rank Math also has a free version and paid version, and its free version has more features than Yoast's.
Lots of folks have strong feelings about one or the other – but from a technical aspect, you really can't go wrong with either one. But if you want a super thorough look at the two, Kinsta has a great post comparing them.
Image optimization plugin
What is image optimization?
Image optimization is the process of reducing the file size of images, but maintaining as much of the images' quality as possible. It's a huge factor in improving page load speed, which is one of Google's Core Web Vitals criteria.
For me, as long as the tool can do the job, it just comes down to pricing – so any of the below are a good choice.
ShortPixel – Free or $3.99+ for credit packages
ShortPixel has more features than most other image optimization plugins, and gives you 100 free optimization credits per month.
Smush – Free or $7.50+ per month
I consider Smush to be the most user-friendly interface of image optimization plugins.
Imagify – Free or up to $99 annually
Imagify was created by the makers of WP Rocket, and is a solid image optimization plugin as well.
Site speed plugin
What is caching?
Caching is the process of storing copies of files temporarily in a storage location called a cache (pronounced “cash”) so that they can be accessed more quickly to improve application and system performance.
Do I need a caching plugin for WordPress?
If you don't have caching enabled, your site visitors have to download each of the pages they visit which is slow and inefficient.
A caching plugin helps to improve the performance of your WordPress site and reduces the load on your host's servers by making your website run faster.
WP Rocket – $59 annually
While WP Rocket is known as a caching plugin, it also decreases your site's loading time to optimize your Core Web Vitals scores. Some hosting platforms and WordPress support teams include WP Rocket in their services toolkit as their caching plugin of choice.
WP-Optimize – Free or $49 annually
If you're looking for something at a lower price point (you know… free) to get you started, WP-Optimize is a solid option. The only true downside is that it doesn't support integration with a third-party CDN. And I'm sure your eyes have glazed over reading this, so let your hosting provider worry about that for you.
Backup plugin
What is a WordPress backup?
A WordPress backup is a copy of your site that is stored either in the cloud or locally (or both!) so that if anything goes wrong with your site, you can roll back and restore that backed-up version.
Many web hosts include nightly backups as part of their packages, but if yours doesn't (or you'd just like peace of mind that you have a backup for your backup), there are WordPress plugins you can utilize as well.
Updraft Plus – Free or $70 annually
There are other backup plugins out there, but I personally only recommend Updraft Plus. I've been using it for years and it doesn't exactly what I need it to do – back up my site and let me restore it as needed.
It's great for when I'm making changes to my site and want to create a quick manual backup before I start to ensure I have a good copy of the site in case things go south.
Social sharing plugin
What is a social sharing plugin?
A social sharing plugin adds sharing buttons to your site to allow visitors to easily share your content with others in their various social media networks (Facebook, Pinterest, etc.).
Grow Social – Free or $34 annually
There are plenty of social sharing plugin options out there, but I really only recommend one: Grow Social. It's quick, it's customizable, it integrates with Google Analytics, and the Pro version offers up some great features like setting custom images and descriptions for each individual social network.
WordPress Plugin FAQs
What is the difference between a WordPress plugin and a theme?
What is the difference between a WordPress plugin and a widget?
What happens if a plugin is removed from the wordpress.org repository?
Why do plugins disappear?
How to report an issue with a plugin?
NOT SURE WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Don't worry – we've got resources for you to dig into to help you get the ball rolling! Check out some of these articles:
Save this for later
🔖 Bookmark this page
📌 Pin the below image
