Hi! Welcome to our Crowded Kitchen.
We're Beth and Lexi, a mother-daughter duo based in southeast Michigan, and the authors of the Crowded Kitchen cookbook.
The recipes you'll find here are inspired by seasonal ingredients, travel, and our family. You'll find a little something for everyone: simple appetizers, hearty dinners, refreshing cocktails, indulgent desserts, homemade versions of the snacks you grew up on, and so much more!
How we got started
In November 2017, we launched Crowded Kitchen after over two years of sharing our photography and plant-based recipes on Instagram. Since then it has grown into a full-time business that we're lucky enough to work on together, and into a community of more than 7 million people across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube.
Crowded Kitchen started in my (Lexi's) parents' kitchen, and with the whole family cooking at once, it got crowded fast. That's still what we're after with every recipe we share: cooking that's fun enough to pull everyone into the kitchen.
We strive to make our recipes inclusive to all diets, but still taste absolutely delicious! We never sacrifice flavor, and we very much believe in balance, moderation and quality when it comes to food. A salad in one hand and a cookie in the other is a perfectly good way to eat.
How we develop and test recipes
We work best as a team, and these days the team is four of us: Beth, Lexi, Brent (Lexi's husband) and Sarah (our resident baker, and the hands on the cover of our cookbook). Every recipe starts with one of us developing it, and then it gets tested 3 to 5 times before it makes it onto the blog or Instagram. Once a recipe passes, Lexi styles, photographs and writes it up here. We're all in southeast Michigan and spend several days a week together in the kitchen and studio, making a huge mess in the process.
Every test happens in a regular home kitchen with regular grocery store ingredients, so what works for us will work for you. The trickier recipes (looking at you, homemade Twizzlers) get made far more than five times before we're happy with them.
When something doesn't work, we tell you. If a technique that looks pretty on social media turns out to be fussy or unreliable in a real kitchen, you'll find the version that actually works in the recipe and the failed attempt in the notes. We name the specific brands we used when it matters, and we read and answer the comments on every recipe, which is where some of our best troubleshooting tips come from.
Some recipes on this site are sponsored by brands we work with. When that's the case, we say so clearly at the top of the post, and we only partner with products we actually use in our own kitchen.
Our cookbook
In February 2026, we published our debut cookbook, Crowded Kitchen: No-Fuss Drinks, Dinners, Desserts, and More for Every Type of Gathering (DK). It's over 100 recipes for the way we actually eat: weeknight dinners that work for a mixed-diet table, the homemade snacks from our Better Than Store-Bought series, and the cocktails and mocktails we make for every holiday. Every one of them was tested the same way as the recipes on this site.
More about the book, including a peek at what's inside, is over on the cookbook page.
As featured in
Our recipes and our story have been featured by The New York Times, Good Morning America, Forbes, Better Homes & Gardens, Midwest Living, Molly My Mag, NPR, CBC News, Fox News, Taste of Home, BuzzFeed, Fox 2 Detroit, Crain's Detroit Business, Hour Detroit and SEEN Magazine, and Lexi was on the cover of Thrive Magazine with a six-page recipe spread back in 2018. Lexi has also been a guest on the Food Blogger Pro, Food Empires and Eat Blog Talk podcasts.
A few of the recipes that got us there, if you'd like to start with the greatest hits: our Peanut Butter Easter Eggs (the ones that made the news during the 2025 egg shortage), 3-Ingredient Mango Sorbet, and the whole Better Than Store-Bought series.
The full list is on our press page. For interviews, podcasts or press requests, email us at lexi@crowdedkitchen.com.
We're so glad you're here! If you have questions about a recipe, ideas for an upcoming post, or just want to say hi, reach out on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or by email at any time.
Lifestyle photography: Nathaniel Smith