The Best Recipes of 2022 | Love and Olive Oil (2024)

What can I say about 2022? That it’s been a year? Because it has, despite the fact that it still sort of feels like 2020. (2020 version 3.0 if you will).

We did a little bit of traveling this year, visiting family in California, and taking a quick fun trip with siblings and friends to Portland, Maine that provided to be a much needed mental reset (I’d really forgotten just how much I love to travel), although the… ahem… souvenirs I brought home (and subsequent 14-day isolation) weren’t quite as pleasant. We’re still not quite ready to head overseas again… Maybe in 2023? We’ll see.

The trend of me sharing fewer, more in-depth recipes in this space continues, with fewer new posts published this year compared to last, about half as many as published in 2018, and a third as many as in 2015. Which seems shocking, although if you compared the sheer number of words written in 2018 vs 2022 my guess is I’ve probably written way more overall (I don’t know a good way to calculate such things otherwise I’d prove my theory). Quality over quantity, right?

Part of the quantity decrease is that I’m apparently no longer capable of posting a recipe with fewer than 3 rounds of testing, 42 photos or 2,000+ words of narration. To be frank, it takes a heck of a long time to publish one recipe, so doing more than one a week is no longer feasible for me as it was once. Even once a week becomes difficult at times. I did take a few more breaks (so if you noticed a few weeks passing without a new recipe, that’s just me giving myself permission to stop pushing myself and take a break. Which is a lot harder then it seems and something I’m still working on for sure.)

Luckily, there’s no shortage of recipes to tide you over, 15 years worth to be exact. That’s over 1,500 recipes that I’ve published, which is quite astonishing actually.

I’ve always said I’d leave my old content and photos as is, because I like having that visual timeline of my progress and growth as a photographer, writer, and recipe developer. But perhaps this sentiment is misplaced. Some of those old recipes are really, really good, and maybe aren’t getting the attention they deserve because of the outdated photos and sparse information. I still haven’t figured out how to reconcile my desire to preserve my old work for posterity’s sake with the need to update old content for SEO and whatnot, though it’s definitely on my to-do list.

I did update a few recipes this year, including the Tequila Watermelon Popsicles and Olive Oil Rice Krispie Treats. Maybe I’ll continue doing more of this in 2023, to bring some of those older recipes back into the spotlight.

Anyway. I’ve done a best of post every year for the past 13 years, and I’m not going to break that tradition any time soon. These posts are always interesting, particularly to see which recipes you all loved the most. I’m very proud of all this year’s recipes, and hope you’ve enjoyed cooking, baking, and eating them as much as we have!

Your Favorite Posts this Year

These were the top visited recipes published this year (out of a total of 39 published recipes). 2022 will now officially be known as the year of the Sour Cream Chocolate Cake, which received almost double the number of pageviews as the #2 recipe (I’m just so happy you all love it as much as I do).

1. Sour Cream Chocolate Cake / 2. Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake / 3. Chocolate Olive Oil Loaf Cake / 4. Homemade Sour Strawberry Gummies / 5. Gingerbread Amaretti Cookies / 6. Chocolate Raspberry S’Mores Tart / 7. Olive Oil Ice Cream / 8. Almond Bundt Cake with Amaretto Ganache / 9. Peppermint Bark Shortbread

All-Time Favorites

Sometimes recipes take a year or two to really gain traction; as a result, this group of favorites is often monopolized by the same handful of posts year after year. This year we welcome in the sour cream chocolate cake and blueberry coffee cake, everything else you probably recognize from last year’s roundup (and the year before that… and the year before that…)

1. Soy Sauce Noodles / 2. Strawberry Cake Roll / 3. Soft Amaretti Cookies/ 4. Sour Cream Chocolate Cake / 5.Shakshouka / 6. / 7. Homemade Limoncello / 8. Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake/ 9. Crispy Oven-Roasted Broccolini

Most Popular on Instagram

Instagram has gotten… a lot less fun of late. And my static photo posts are seen by a fraction of the people they used to be, which is disappointing. And the thing is, I just don’t want to do video, and hate that we’re basically being forced to do so.

Anyway, despite much lower overall reach, a few photos still stood above the rest when it comes to number of likes. The big winner of 2022 was clearly the Sour Cream Chocolate Cake, which took spots #1, #3, #4. Is it any surprise that there’s only 1 non-dessert post here (and even then it’s a sugar topped mountain of a muffin)? It shouldn’t be, my Instagram followers have always preferred sweet (and preferrably chocolate) over anything else.

1. Sour Cream Chocolate Cake / 2. Homemade Sour Strawberry Gummies / 3. Sour Cream Chocolate Cake / 4. Sour Cream Chocolate Cake/ 5. Salted Pistachio Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies / 6. Chocolate Pistachio Thumbprint Cookies/ 7. Confetti Amaretti Cookies / 8. Gingerbread Amaretti Cookies/ 9. Bolos de Arroz (Portuguese Rice Muffins)

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What’s in store for 2023? I honestly cannot say. But here’s hoping for something delicious, at the very least!

Now that I’ve shared my thoughts as this year comes to an end, I invite you to please share yours: what culinary-related goals have you set for yourself in the new year? What new recipes to you want to see (or what old recipes do you want to see updated)? Your opinions matter greatly to me, so I appreciate every last one of you who takes time to share. Seeing my recipes in the wild never gets old!

Happy New Year, everyone!