What’s the recipe for the best food Instagram account?

Juicy cheeseburgers sandwiched between sourdough buns. Crispy waffle cones piled high with ice cream. Our favorite foods aren’t just delicious to eat – their colors and textures are delicious to look at, making food one of the most Instagrammable subjects out there.

It’s no secret that mouthwatering food pics have the power to bring chefs, restaurateurs, influencers and recipe developers career-altering attention. The question isn’t whether or not you should post food on Instagram – it’s how to make those posts stand out. If you want to make the best food Instagram account possible, it’s time to learn how to make your food pics pop.

How to make the best Instagram food posts

You’ve become a master of flavor. You’re passionate about plating. Now you just have to find the formula for food pics that’ll keep Instagram followers coming back for more. No matter what kind of cuisine you’re photographing, keep these tips in mind:

• Create a handle: Put some thought into your username when creating an Instagram account. Are sweets your specialty? Are vegan tapas your thing? Choose a handle that reflects who you are and what you cook so users will know what to expect when they see your name.
• Use calls-to-action (CTAs): Ask fans to like, share and comment on your content to widen your reach and increase engagement. If you have TikToks, blog posts, YouTube cooking videos or other external content to share, drop a link in your bio so viewers will know where to find it. Instagram has a one-link limit for bios, so use a Linktree URL to point followers to all your profiles and content.
• Stick to your niche: Cookbooks and food magazines don’t attempt to cover every type of dish from every corner of the world. They curate foods and recipes based on a niche or common theme. The best cooking Instagram profiles follow the same philosophy. If you’re both a comfort-food creator and an amateur mixologist, consider making two separate accounts so you can keep the content for each on theme. You’re competing with a lot of other food content, so get as specific with your niche as possible.
• Use different media types: Don’t limit yourself to still snapshots of the finished product. Tap into every visual resource available to get your content varied. Make a fast-motion food prep video to inspire followers to try their hand at making your dish. Capture candids at the farmer’s market where you source the veggies for your plant-based recipes. Put your bloopers in a Reel, or give a cooking demo on Instagram Live. Mix up your media to keep the content fresh.
• Get creative with captions: What do successful food bloggers and cookbook writers have in common? They craft engaging recipe intros that explain where the dish comes from and what makes it great. Unleash your inner food writer with irresistible descriptions, entertaining personal stories and educational tidbits about your food’s historical or cultural background.

What are the best food hashtags for Instagram?

This one’s too important to bury in a list of tips: If you want to run a successful Instagram account, load your posts with relevant hashtags. There’s something special about food that’s grown organically, and the same is true for social media – with the right hashtags, anyone who’s interested in the type of food you’re featuring will find their way to your account.

Choose hashtags related to the content you’re posting, and tack them on at the end of that creative caption we touched on earlier. Avoid looking spammy by sticking to a limit of five to eight.

You can look to the hashtags other cooks in your content area are using for inspiration, but here are some ideas to get you started:

General:

#Foodie

#Instafood

#FoodLover

#Recipe

#FoodOfTheDay

Specific:

#HealthyFood

#VeganFood

#BrunchParty

#BrunchTime

#FoodTruck

#BakingVideo

Put your best photo forward

Good food photography can make even the blandest meal beautiful. But pics that miss the aesthetic mark can turn stomachs – and we’re guessing that’s not the effect you’re going for. So when your dish is ready for its close-up, put on your food stylist hat and follow these tips:

• Watch your color composition: Curate the colors in your photo so the background doesn't drown out the food. You can play with complementary colors, such as ripe sweet corn on a blue background, or give your composition a chic neutral look. Remove items like cooking tools or condiment containers that might throw off the color balance or make the image look busy.
• Choose the right background: The food should take center stage, so keep backgrounds simple and understated. White plates on a wood-grain table or countertop are usually a safe bet – just make sure they’re clean before going in for the shot.
• It’s hip to be a square: Instagram grids are composed of squares. Even rectangular photos will get reduced to squares in grid view. So center the dish’s focal point to ensure the best part isn’t cut off when viewers look at your grid.
• Use natural light: It’s not impossible to get a great shot of an extraordinary dessert in a dimly lit café. But artificial light tends to warp colors and decrease a photo’s overall quality, so avoid it when you can.
• Get the best angle: Snap photos from whatever angle works best for each individual dish. Overhead shots are trendy, but if you're photographing flat items such as tortillas or waffles, you’ll want to come in at a slight angle to give the food some dimension.
• When’s the best time to post?

Algorithms grow more complex by the day, so it’s not as easy as it used to be to calculate the best time to post a photo. A lot of variables influence when posts show up for followers, but as a general rule, these are ideal times for tapping “Share”:

• On weekends when people are scrolling for brunch inspiration or dinner ideas.
• At lunchtime when many followers are awake and thinking about their midday meal.
• On Friday afternoons when people are making weekend reservations.