If you’ve ever followed a Serious Eats recipe and marveled at how well it turned out—how that roast chicken was as crisp as promised, or how your cookies didn’t mysteriously spread into flat discs—it’s not just luck. It’s the result of serious behind-the-scenes work from a group of people you likely haven’t heard of: the cross-testers.
Serious Eats has come a long way since its scrappy blog days in 2006, when posts often went up with minimal editing and even less testing. Back then, it was the Wild West of online food media—less polished, more passionate, and with the occasional culinary misfire. Today, things look a little different. Every new recipe is tested, then cross-tested by someone else. Old favorites are revisited and reworked. Some recipes are retired. Some get reborn. All of it is done with one goal in mind: making sure the food that comes out of your kitchen is as good as what came out of ours.
It’s meticulous work. Often invisible. But it’s the beating heart of what keeps Serious Eats, well, serious about cooking.
Why Cross-Testing Matters
Recipe cross-testing is like the quality control of the culinary world. It means a second (or third, or fourth) set of hands replicating a dish in a totally different kitchen, often with different brands of ingredients, different altitudes, even different pans. If a recipe can survive all of that and still shine, then it’s ready for your kitchen.
This matters more than most readers realize. A dish might turn out perfectly in a test kitchen where the team knows the exact quirks of their oven and the precise sharpness of their knives. But what happens when a home cook—maybe new to the technique, maybe juggling a toddler on one hip—tries to make the same dish? Cross-testers help make sure it still works.
They’re the ones flagging confusing instructions, recommending temperature adjustments, and making sure your cookies actually bake in the time listed. They ask the tough questions: What if someone uses a different brand of soy sauce? Will this dough still rise in a colder kitchen? Can we scale this for four or for forty? These are the kinds of invisible edits that separate a decent recipe from a great one.
A Team You’ve Never Met—But You’ve Definitely Tasted
The Serious Eats culinary team is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, but the network of trusted freelance cross-testers stretches far beyond. These are cooks with sharp palates and even sharper attention to detail—people who care just as much about the texture of your rice pudding as they do about the grammar in the headnote.
And they’re not just working on the shiny new releases. A huge part of their job is combing through the existing archive—hundreds of recipes that span nearly two decades—and making sure they still hold up. Some classics get a small tweak; others are completely reworked from the ground up. The commitment is relentless and ongoing.
And yet, it’s rarely the work you see. It happens off-camera, without fanfare. The ingredient swaps, the side-by-side comparisons, the third round of testing to get that caramel sauce just right—they’re all done so that you never have to think about them. You just get to enjoy the results.
The Recipes They Loved Most in 2023
Every now and then, though, the cross-testers get to gush a little. In 2023, they cooked and re-cooked a mountain of Serious Eats dishes—and a few stood out as favorites. Some were brand-new additions to the site; others were beloved old-timers given a new lease on life.
From perfectly chewy chocolate chip cookies to crisp-skinned chicken thighs, from deeply savory mushroom risottos to flawless homemade dumplings, these are the recipes that brought joy not just to readers, but to the people fine-tuning them behind the curtain.
Their notes helped shape better instructions. Their experiments with timing, heat, and hydration levels saved you from potential culinary heartbreak. And their taste tests? They ensured every dish wasn’t just passable—it was delicious.
The Work Never Ends (and That’s a Good Thing)
The internet changes. Algorithms shift. Tastes evolve. But one thing remains constant at Serious Eats: the relentless commitment to good food that works.
That’s why cross-testing isn’t just a phase or a trend—it’s baked into the culture. Every week, someone’s frying, roasting, baking, or fermenting to make sure the next recipe you read will meet the mark. And while that work often happens quietly in the background, it deserves its moment in the spotlight.
So the next time you whip up a perfect batch of gnocchi or master the art of braising short ribs, remember the hands you never saw—the testers who made sure your dinner didn’t just work, but wowed.
Here’s to the cross-testers, the recipe whisperers, and the unsung stewards of culinary accuracy. They may be behind the scenes, but their impact is front and center—on every plate.
