Neurodivergent-Focused Cooking Resources
- How to Feed Yourself by Jessica McCabe
- How to Get Comfortable in the Kitchen (ft. Hannah Hart) by Jessica McCabe
- 5 minute or less meals and snacks (vegan) by Grapes Lauren
ND Frndly’s Favorite Cooking Resources
- Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman: a range of recipes from weeknight dinners for selective eaters to gourmet, hours-long, project cooking.
- Budget Bytes: lots of affordable, quick, and convenient meals. Clear instructions for common cooking skills and tasks. Go-to basic recipes for classic meals.
- Chocolate for Basil by Jerelle Guy: sensorily exciting recipes drawing from a wide variety of cultures and culinary traditions.
- NYT Cooking (paywall restricts content): an enormous variety of recipes and diversity of recipe writers, with some extremely helpful comments to adapt recipes to your needs. (And also, some less helpful comments…)
- Individual recipe developers and food writers who work across a variety of publishers: Samin Nosrat, Alison Roman, Priya Krishna, Sohla El-Waylly
- Cookbook authors: all of the above, plus Abra Berens, Molly Baz
Neurodivergent & Disabled Perspectives
- “Cooking with ADHD was impossible. These 5 techniques helped me find joy in the kitchen” by Linda Yi for Today, 2022
- “How I (as an autistic & chronically ill person) make cooking + baking more accessible and more enjoyable” by Dani Shapira for RDs for Neurodiversity.
- “How Cooking Made Me See My ADHD as a Talent Instead of a Shame” by Isabelle O’Carroll in Bon Appetit, 2019.
- “In Defence of Garlic in a Jar: How Food Snobs Almost Ruined My Love of Cooking” by Gabrielle Drolet in The Walrus, 2023
References (Research, Theory, Background Information)
- Running research reference list (love a hyperfixation deep dive on research papers? Start here!)
- The Spoon Theory by Christine Miserando
- Autistic Self Advocacy Network or ASAN (resources and advocacy developed by autistic folks for autistic folks)
- Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or CHADD (resources and advocacy for ADHD folks)
- “Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People” by Shira Collings, MS, NCC (she/they) for RDs for Neurodiversity
IF YOU NEED SUPPORT: National Eating Disorder Association, SAMHSA National Helpline, The Trevor Project
Note: I am not a medical professional or registered dietician and none of the content on this site constitutes nutritional or medical advice. This site gives readers access to recipes, peer-reviewed research, and personal essays such that they can make their own decisions in consultation with their own care teams. Consult your doctor if you have specific nutrition, eating, or feeding questions, or if you plan to make any changes to your dietary regime.