Food & Drink · by The New York Times Company
NYT Cooking Meta Ads & Creative Strategy
Every long-running ad NYT Cooking runs on Facebook & Instagram — pulled from the public Meta Ad Library, x-rayed by the same system that runs ad accounts autonomously.
Active ads
158
Winning set
53
30+ days live
Longest live
178d
App rating
4.91★
545K ratings
Brand palette
The short version
Key facts
- As of September 14, 2026, NYT Cooking runs 158 active ads in Meta's Ad Library across Facebook and Instagram; 53 of them have survived 30 or more days of continuous delivery.
- Its longest-running ad has been live for 178 days.
- The winning set splits 58% video, 38% static, 4% carousel.
- The most common message angle is value proposition, carried by 32% of the winning set.
- All winning copy runs in English.
- In App Store reviews, the loudest praise goes to recipe quality (29% of mentions) and the loudest complaint is ios18 lockout (16%).
- The App Store listing holds 4.91 stars across 545,487 ratings.
The winning set
Live Meta ads gallery
53 ads have survived 30+ days of continuous delivery, out of 158 currently active. Below: 30 creatives picked to span every angle and buyer the account runs; the ×N badge counts the ads running each one. Tap any card for its Meta Ad Library record. Sorted by longest live: the account's most proven creatives lead, podium first.
178d image EN
A top-down, high-quality food photography shot of Manti dumplings served with yogurt and tomato sauce.
178d image EN
A vibrant, high-angle overhead shot of a freshly baked feta pasta tray bake.
178d image EN
A top-down, high-quality food photography shot of a salmon rice bowl.
144d video ×2 ads EN
This crispy halloumi with tomatoes and white beans ticks all the boxes.
136d video EN
This creamy yuzu and raspberry tart is the perfect combination of buttery short crusts with a delicious tangy citrusy filling and some beautiful raspberries aro
136d dco EN
Hungry (and feeling the heat)? Best Gazpacho Recipe
136d dco EN
A high-angle, close-up shot of a pot filled with braised pork belly and eggs, garnished with sliced green onions.
136d image ×2 ads EN
A high-angle, close-up shot of a pot filled with braised pork belly and eggs, garnished with sliced green onions.
136d image EN
A high-angle, top-down shot of a vibrant, healthy bowl of kitchari topped with fresh cucumber, red onion, cilantro, and soft-boiled eggs.
135d image EN
Top-down view of four bowls of tomato soup with olive oil drizzles.
134d image EN
Hungry (and feeling the heat)? Best Gazpacho Recipe
123d video EN
This is my take on "Marry Me Chicken," but make it salmon.
123d video EN
Here is my hojicha latte pie.
117d video EN
This Dubai chocolate cake is inspired by the irresistible combination of chocolate, pistachio and buttery toasted kataifi.
94d video EN
Have you ever wanted to have a jelly doughnut but you've also wanted to have a piece of cake?
94d video EN
69d image EN
69d image EN
66d video ×2 ads EN
66d video ×2 ads EN
60d video EN
52d video EN
52d image EN
43d image EN
43d image EN
37d image EN
37d image EN
37d image EN
37d image EN
37d image EN
+17 more winning creatives in the full set, with every hook and persona call — free with a Google account.
The x-ray — every winner analyzed frame by frame
What the winning set is actually doing
Language distribution — where the winning set actually runs
Share of the winning set per copy language. Translation is a deliberate spend decision: a language earning survivors is a market the money already believes in.
English
100% · 53 ads
Format split — statics vs video in the winning set
What survives 30+ days by medium.
video 31 ads · 58%
static 20 ads · 38%
carousel 2 ads · 4%
Angle mix — what the money says works
Every winner tagged with the message angle it leads with, and the languages it runs in — longevity under spend is the only public vote that counts.
value proposition
32% · 17 ads
unclassified
23% · 12 ads
price promo offer
11% · 6 ads
problem callout
9% · 5 ads
social proof
8% · 4 ads
comparison superiority claim
4% · 2 ads
hype discovery hook
4% · 2 ads
personal life use cases
4% · 2 ads
time freedom workload
2% · 1 ads
star power
2% · 1 ads
product positioning brand
2% · 1 ads
The winning set, read from the creatives themselves — the top 15 analyzed winners, hook by hook.
| Days live | Ads | Lang | Angle | Persona | Opening hook | On-screen headline | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 144d | ×1 | en | — | — | This crispy halloumi with tomatoes and white beans ticks all the boxes. | 25s | |
| 136d | ×1 | en | price promo offer | home_cook | This creamy yuzu and raspberry tart is the perfect combination of buttery short crusts with a delicious tangy citrusy filling and some beautiful raspberries aro | 25s | |
| 123d | ×1 | en | — | — | This is my take on "Marry Me Chicken," but make it salmon. | 13s | |
| 123d | ×1 | en | — | — | Here is my hojicha latte pie. | 24s | |
| 117d | ×1 | en | price promo offer | home_cook | This Dubai chocolate cake is inspired by the irresistible combination of chocolate, pistachio and buttery toasted kataifi. | Dubai Chocolate Cake | 26s |
| 94d | ×1 | en | value proposition | home_cook | Have you ever wanted to have a jelly doughnut but you've also wanted to have a piece of cake? | This cake is essentially a giant jelly doughnut | 35s |
+32 more winners, hook by hook, with per-ad angle and persona calls — free with a Google account. Browse the full set ↗ or claim the workspace
Creative strategy
The dissection
173 ads are live now, and 56 survive past 30 days, nearly triple the prior edition's 20% survival rate. Food porn appeal, a static image with zero people, still owns the longevity record at 136 days. But the persona map flipped: Healthy Weeknight Cook now carries 27 of 56 winners, more than Show-Stopping Dessert Baker's 15, a reversal from last read.
Static Food Porn Wins The Feed
14 of 56 winning ads run food porn appeal: a single image, zero people, no app UI, just the plated dish in tight close-up. It's the largest angle in the set, ahead of recipe demo's 13 ads and seasonal relevance's 9, and it holds the account's longevity record at 136 days live, proving a plated Mont Blanc or lentil salad alone earns survival.
Female 25-34 Fronts Every Demo
Recipe demo (13 ads, 11 creatives) runs as ~28s video, and casting data confirms the formula: female 25-34 appears in 12 x-rayed creatives, dwarfing female 35-44 (2) and male 18-24 (1). Across the 22 timed videos, 14 land in the 15-30s window, none run past 60s, and the 'demo' hook mechanic itself only tags 4 creatives, so the presenter's face, not narration length, is what NYT Cooking leans on.
Weeknight Cook Overtakes Dessert Baker
Healthy Weeknight Cook now covers 27 of 56 winning ads, nearly double Show-Stopping Dessert Baker's 15 and more than double Creator-Inspired Global Foodie's 11. Vegan and Plant-Based Recipe Seeker holds just 3 ads, and Busy Professional Morning Fueler sits at zero, a clean gap in an account otherwise built on 'delicious' seasonal summer copy like the 6-ad 'Rich in flavor. Easy on budgets' body.
What The Ads Skip, Reviewers Flag
The app holds a 4.91-star lifetime rating across 1607 reviews, and recipe quality leads at 77 mentions, but 42 reviews cite iOS 18 lockout, 40 flag subscription pricing stacked on an NYT News subscription, and 9 complain 'ads still appear even for paying subscribers.' None of the 6 active angles (food porn, recipe demo, seasonal, celebrity banter, text-title, value prop) address the 39-mention metric conversion gap or the 10-mention cancellation friction.
56 Winners, 27 Added This Week
The winning set grew to 56 ads out of 173 active, with 27 new winners added and 8 retired since 2026-07-27. Unique primary texts sit at 32, and the top body, 'Rich in flavor. Easy on budgets. Subscribe for inspiring summer recipes...' now leads at 6 ads, edging out the former top line about whirlwind summer days (4 ads), a signal that budget-forward copy is pulling ahead of pure seasonal framing.
What we'd test next
- Static image hero shot (proven food porn appeal, 14 ads, zero people) paired with the winning 'Rich in flavor, easy on budgets' value-proposition copy, showcasing a 20-minute weeknight dish for Healthy Weeknight Cook, the account's largest persona at 27 ads.
- ~28s recipe demo video with the proven female 25-34 on-camera presenter (12 creatives) walking through a fully vegan lentil or bean dish, using the demo hook mechanic to grow Vegan and Plant-Based Recipe Seeker past its current 3-ad footprint.
- dco-format video (23% of the format mix, currently tied only to seasonal relevance's 9 ads) that screen-records the app's recipe search and filter tool with a value-proposition-headline hook (3 uses already), aimed at Creator-Inspired Global Foodie (11 ads) to sell recipe discovery, the review theme with 33 mentions.
- Text-based-title image ad (the underused 4-ad angle) built around a fast breakfast recipe, targeting Busy Professional Morning Fueler, the persona with zero ads in the current 56-ad winning set.
The HyperScale batch
New ad concepts, generated for NYT Cooking
HyperScale agents are producing an original round of ad concepts for NYT Cooking, built from the winning angles above, the brand's real App Store assets, and what reviewers actually say. This page updates when the batch drops.
This analysis lives in a ready-made HyperScale workspace. If you work on NYT Cooking, it's yours: we hand it over personally, usually within a day.
Customer voice — 1591 recent reviews analyzed
What reviewers actually say
Objections the ads must pre-empt
- App now requires iOS 18, locking out older iPad/iPhone users entirely
- Subscription pricing feels expensive, especially on top of NYT News subscription
- Cancellation process is tedious—requires phone calls or long chat sessions
- No reliable metric unit conversion despite global user base
- Ads still appear even for paying subscribers
Review-theme mix
Share of analyzed review mentions per theme — ＋ praise, − complaint, ~ mixed. Themes, not individual reviews.
+ recipe quality
29% · 77
− ios18 lockout
16% · 42
− pricing & subscription
15% · 40
− metric conversion
15% · 39
+ recipe variety & discovery
12% · 33
+ comments & community
7% · 18
− cancellation friction
4% · 10
− ads with paid subscription
3% · 9
“We have prepared at least 16 recipes and all but 1 was fantastic, easy ingredients but the combos taste complex”
“We have prepared at least 16 recipes and all but 1 was fantastic, easy ingredients but the combos taste complex”
“I have had 100% excellent success rate with the recipes I have prepared”
“if you find a 5 Star reviewed recipe that has been on the site for several years with thousands of votes, you can guarantee it will be good”
“the recipes are practically guaranteed to be great”
“the recipes are practically guaranteed to be great”
“if you find a 5 Star reviewed recipe that has been on the site for several years with thousands of votes, you can guarantee it will be good”
“I have had 100% excellent success rate with the recipes I have prepared”
“The recipes are delicious, generally easy to make and I love the variety”
“NYY cooking app provides excellent recipes with clear directions”
“The NYT Cooking app allows me to find interesting, easy and delicious recipes! It's by far the best app for cooking”
“This app has the best recipes collection I have ever seen. I cook all my meals using this app, and I may have had 1-2 "failures" over more than 5 years of daily use”
“Endless showstopping recipes and easier weeknight meals”
“If I ever need an idea for brekkie, lunch or dinner, I immediately open this app”
“Inspiration for every day cooking, dinner party masterpieces and even recipes my 12-year-old son can handle”
“The hardest part about cooking for me is choosing what to cook but this app takes care of that!”
“I have found my 'go to'in NYT cookery. Tested through 2 years of lock down this site was a source of inspiration, fun and mostly wonderful meals.”
“Inspiration for every day cooking, dinner party masterpieces and even recipes my 12-year-old son can handle”
“ditch your cookbooks all together, cause you won't need them anymore.”
“It is like having great chefs and recipes right at your fingertips”
“I always read the first 10-15 helpful comments and make appropriate adjustments”
“All my cooking books, cherised over the last 30 years, stay on the shelve since using your app”
“ditch your cookbooks all together, cause you won't need them anymore.”
“The comments are pretty much the best part- being part mind hive and entertaining.”
“The comments are pretty much the best part- being part mind hive and entertaining.”
“a culinary community that can't be matched.”
“the little microcosm of the comments makes me smile.”
“it should have metric quantities, come on, 99% of the world cooks in metric”
“I always read the first 10-15 helpful comments and make appropriate adjustments”
“the app does not use metric. So this app is pointless for the 90% of the world that doesn't used pounds and ounces”
“metric measures, the ability to adjust the number of servings, and adjustable font weights”
“No metric units. What's a cup? How hot is 250 F?”
“I appreciate the auto conversion to metric measurements”
“Happy with the added metric system, that makes my life way simpler!”
“it should have metric quantities, come on, 99% of the world cooks in metric!”
“it no longer works. The iPad Pro 10.5 can't use iOS 18 which is now required for NYT Cooking.”
“No metric units. What's a cup? How hot is 250 F?”
“I have an older IPad and can no longer use the app on it because it can't update to IOS 18.”
“it no longer works. The iPad Pro 10.5 can't use iOS 18 which is now required for NYT Cooking.”
“My iPad Pro is still very functional hardware!”
“No reason not to support functional hardware. Can't get iOS 18, so app is blocked”
“Now I have to pay 7.00 (US) a month for it??. Deleted. Boom gone.”
“Please keep the NYC Cooking app available for older iPads (<IOS18)”
“Noch nichtmal kostenfrei auszuprobieren. 44€ im Jahr für - da Abo - geliehene Rezepte?”
“It's impossible to cancel and I've just been charged $50 for I don't know what????”
“Why am I getting ads if I pay a montoise fee already?”
“The cancellation process is so tedious - you have to call or go through a 15 minute online chat.”
“The cancellation process is so tedious - you have to call or go through a 15 minute online chat”
“the whole thing gives you a runaround and makes it impossible to cancel”
“Why am I paying $25 annually, and you still post advertisement in the goddamn app”
“Something happened to the app that now makes it use an insane amount of data—like 4.7 Gb in 24h”
“$7.00 a month is expensive when you already pay for a basic nytimes subscription”
“After I opened it once after buying the app, it doesn't not let me login on any of my devices”
“Epicurious was my go to, but this is better and it's free”
“Epicurious was my go to, but this is better and it's free”
“compared to other app this app is a garbage”
The market around it
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Quick answers
FAQ
How many Meta ads is NYT Cooking running, and how many are winners?
173 ads are active in Meta Ad Library right now, and 56 have survived past the 30-day winning threshold, with 27 new winners added and 8 retired since 2026-07-27.
What's the top-performing angle for NYT Cooking?
Food porn appeal leads with 14 of 56 winning ads: a static image, no people, no app UI, just the plated dish. It's also home to the account's longest-running ad at 136 days.
What languages and formats do the ads use?
All 56 x-rayed winners run in English. Format splits video 39%, image 38%, dco 23% across FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, MESSENGER and THREADS, and only 21% of creatives use an on-camera presenter.
What do reviewers say the ads don't address?
Reviewers flag iOS 18 lockout (42 mentions), subscription pricing stacked on an NYT News subscription (40), missing metric conversion (39), and ads persisting for paying subscribers (9), none touched by the current 6 ad angles.