If you run a food blog, you already know the questions. “Can I use Greek yogurt instead of sour cream?” “How would I make this for two?” “Can I freeze it?” They show up in your comments, in your inbox, and in your DMs, usually hours after the reader needed the answer.
Most readers don’t wait for you, though. They open a new tab and ask Google or ChatGPT. The answer they get has nothing to do with your recipe, and more often than not, they don’t come back.
That’s why we built the AI Cooking Assistant into Recipe Card Blocks. It adds an Ask about this recipe button to every recipe card. Readers click it, ask their question, and get an answer based on the recipe they’re reading, right on your page.
In this post, I’ll show you what it does, how it works under the hood, and how to set it up in about two minutes. It works in both the free and the Pro version of the plugin.
What the AI Cooking Assistant does
Once it’s on, every recipe card gets an Ask about this recipe button, just above the ingredients. Clicking it opens a chat that already knows the recipe: its ingredients, steps, cooking times, servings and nutrition.
Your readers can ask the questions they’d normally leave in the comments:
- Scaling. “How would I halve this for 2 people?” Every ingredient is recalculated from your recipe’s servings.
- Substitutions. “I don’t have honey, what can I use?” The answer gives a swap with an amount, and says so when the swap hasn’t been tested for your recipe.
- Conversions. Cups to grams, °F to °C, and “how much is a stick of butter?”
- Timing and technique. “Can I make it ahead?”, “How long does it keep in the fridge?”, “Can I bake it instead?”
The chat is powered by Yamidoo, an AI support chat we built at WPZOOM, the same team behind Recipe Card Blocks. We use it on our own sites, and we set it up specifically for food blogs.
Why it matters for your food blog
There are three reasons we think every recipe should have one:
- Readers stay on your recipe. When the answer is right there, nobody needs to open a new tab. That means more time on your page and more chances for readers to come back to your blog.
- The answer matches your recipe. A generic AI answer doesn’t know your quantities, your oven temperature or your pan size. The assistant quotes your recipe, so the reader cooks your version, not someone else’s.
- You learn what your readers want to know. Every question is saved in your Yamidoo dashboard. If ten people ask whether a recipe freezes well, that’s a note to add to the recipe, or your next blog post.
How it works
Recipe Card Blocks already adds recipe structured data (schema.org Recipe) to every recipe card, so Google can show your recipes as rich results. The assistant reads that same data from the page the reader is on. There’s nothing to copy, sync or re-enter, and when you edit a recipe, the next question uses the new version.
When you connect Yamidoo, it also learns the rest of your site: your other recipes, your posts and your pages. So when a reader asks what to serve with the chicken, the assistant can point them to a side dish from your own blog.
A few rules keep the answers honest:
- The recipe comes first. Quantities, times and temperatures are quoted from your recipe card exactly.
- General advice is labeled. If a question goes beyond the recipe, like an oven method for a skillet recipe, the answer says it’s general guidance and not part of your recipe.
- You can step in. When a reader asks for a person, the conversation comes to you, and you can reply live from the Yamidoo inbox.
How to add the AI Cooking Assistant to your recipes
You’ll need Recipe Card Blocks 3.6.0 or newer, or Recipe Card Blocks Pro 7.3.0 or newer. The whole setup takes a couple of minutes.
Step 1: Install Yamidoo in one click
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to Recipe Cards → Settings → AI Assistant.
- Click Install & activate.
Recipe Card Blocks installs the free Yamidoo plugin from WordPress.org, activates it, and switches on the recipe card button for you.
Step 2: Connect your site
Click Connect Yamidoo and follow the steps. This creates your free Yamidoo account and starts learning your recipes and posts. It takes about a minute, and you don’t need a credit card. When it’s done, the AI Assistant tab shows Connected.
Step 3: Try it on one of your recipes
Open any post with a recipe card and click Ask about this recipe. The chat opens with “I have a question about the … recipe.” already in the message box, so you only need to type the rest. Try asking it to halve the recipe, or to suggest a swap for one of the ingredients.
For the full walkthrough, including troubleshooting, see our documentation: How to Add the AI Cooking Assistant to Your Recipes.
Real answers from our demo recipe
Here’s what readers see on our Lemon Balsamic Chicken with Rosemary Sauce demo. These are real answers, only lightly shortened.
“I don’t have honey. What can I use instead?”
You can swap the 2 tbsp honey in the marinade for 2 tbsp maple syrup (similar sweetness, slightly different flavor) or 2 tbsp brown sugar dissolved into the liquid (a bit less glossy). Both are untested for this specific recipe, but honey’s main role here is sweetness to balance the tangy balsamic and lemon, so either swap should work fine.
“Can I bake the chicken in the oven instead of using a skillet?”
The recipe as written only gives skillet instructions, so I can’t quote exact oven times for this recipe. As general guidance (untested for this dish): sear the chicken briefly in the skillet for color, then finish in the oven at 375°F (190°C) for roughly 15–20 minutes, until cooked through (165°F/74°C). Make the sauce in the skillet afterward, as directed.
Notice how the second answer is clear about what comes from the recipe and what doesn’t. That’s on purpose. Your readers trust your recipe, and the assistant shouldn’t put words in your mouth.
Recommended settings for food blogs
The assistant works out of the box, but two settings in the Yamidoo dashboard make it noticeably better for recipes. Open your project and go to Settings → Behavior:
- Set Business type to Food blog / recipes. This turns on the cooking rules: exact quotes from the recipe, swaps with amounts, and full ingredient lists when scaling.
- Under Custom instructions / rules, choose the Cooking assistant preset. It adds a friendly, practical tone and lets the assistant suggest your other recipes when they fit.
On the Widget tab, it’s also worth adding a few suggested questions, like “Can I make this ahead?” or “Can I freeze it?”. They give readers an idea of what they can ask. The full list of recommendations is in the Yamidoo guide for food blogs.
What it costs
The Ask about this recipe button and the one-click setup are included in both the free and the Pro version of Recipe Card Blocks.
Yamidoo has a free plan with 50 conversations a month and up to 100 indexed pages, which is plenty to try it on a smaller blog. If your blog gets more questions than that, paid plans start at $29 a month. You can see all plans on the Yamidoo pricing page.
FAQ
Do I need Recipe Card Blocks Pro?
No. The AI Cooking Assistant works in the free version (3.6.0 or newer) and in Pro (7.3.0 or newer).
Will it slow down my recipe pages?
The chat loads after your page, so it doesn’t hold up your content. The button also stays hidden until the chat is ready, so readers never click a button that does nothing.
Can the assistant get things wrong?
Like any AI, it can. That’s why it answers from your recipe first and labels anything that isn’t in the recipe as general advice. If you spot a weak answer in your dashboard, you can fix it by improving the recipe notes or adding a Q&A in Yamidoo.
Does it work with my theme?
Yes. The button is part of the recipe card, so it works with any WordPress theme that displays Recipe Card Blocks.
Can I turn the button off?
Yes. Go to Recipe Cards → Settings → AI Assistant and uncheck Show “Ask about this recipe”. The chat stays available in the corner of your site. To remove it completely, deactivate the Yamidoo plugin.
Who makes Yamidoo?
We do. Yamidoo is built by WPZOOM, the team behind Recipe Card Blocks, and it’s the same chat we use for support on our own websites. Why we built it.
Give your readers a cooking assistant
Your recipes already have everything a reader needs to cook them. The AI Cooking Assistant just makes that information easy to ask for, at the moment the reader needs it, without leaving your page.
Update Recipe Card Blocks, open the AI Assistant tab, and click Install & activate. If you’d like to see it first, ask your own question on our demo recipe, or read more on the AI Cooking Assistant page.
