One instruction, big enough to glance at.
No pinching around a long recipe page while a pan is hot. The current instruction gets the counter space it deserves.
02 / Cook mode
Flour on your hands. Keep cooking.
Cook mode turns a saved recipe into a calm counter companion: one readable step, its timer, and the ingredients that still need your attention.
Step by stepBuilt-in timersHands-busy friendly
9:41
Cooking · hand-crushed pasta
STEP 1 OF 5
Warm the olive oil and slip in the sliced garlic, keeping it gentle.
GARLIC · GENTLE
1:30
Garlic · 3 clovesSLICING
Olive oil · 3 tbspPOURING
San Marzano · 800 g–
Basil · 1 handful–
Sea salt · to taste–
say “next” · hands-free
At the stove
A recipe should know when to get out of the way.
Keep the simmer where you can see it.
Steps with timers put the countdown in front of you, with pause and resume ready when dinner takes a turn.
Mark the ingredients as they go in.
Oil poured, basil waiting, salt at the end. Small facts stay visible while the recipe moves forward.
Tonight's rhythm
Crush. Simmer. Taste. Serve.
Start from any recipe saved in Sugo. Cook mode keeps the dish in sequence while you move through prep, heat, and the final taste.
It is for weeknight pasta, Sunday sauce, and every recipe where reading should be easier than cleaning the screen.
What it actually does
Open any saved recipe and enter cook mode. The screen drops everything that is not the step you are on: no photo grid, no comment section, no jump back to the top of a long page. One instruction at a large size, the timer that belongs to it, and the ingredients that step needs.
Steps with a time in them get a real timer, not a note that says twenty minutes. Sugo reads the duration out of the instruction when it imports the recipe, so "simmer for 20 minutes" arrives as something you can start, pause, and glance at from across the kitchen. Several can run at once, because most dinners are three things finishing at different times.
Ingredients can be ticked off as they go in. This sounds trivial until you are four steps into a recipe holding a wet spoon, trying to remember whether the salt already went in.
Cooking without touching the screen
There are two hands-free routes, because kitchens differ. Say "Hey Sugo" and ask for the next step, and it will read it aloud and move on. That works when the room is quiet enough to talk over.
When it is not, and a loud extractor fan usually means it is not, you can wink to advance instead. Wink right for the next step, wink left to go back. The camera frame is analysed on your device and nothing about your face is uploaded or stored. It needs a TrueDepth-class front camera, so an older iPhone will not run it, and it is off until you turn it on.
Both are optional. Cook mode works perfectly well as a screen you tap.
What it does not do
It will not cook adaptively. Sugo does not know your oven runs hot or that your pan is smaller than the one the recipe assumed, so times and temperatures are the recipe's, not advice. Check food before you serve it.
It does not need an internet connection to move through a recipe you have already saved, but the voice assistant does, because the model that answers you is not on your phone.
And it will not keep your screen awake if your phone decides otherwise for battery reasons, so on a long braise it is worth plugging in.
Is hands-free cook mode free in Sugo?
Yes. Hands-free cook mode with voice steps is on Sugo's free plan, with no time limit and no card required. The real-time voice sous-chef, which holds a conversation while you cook rather than reading steps, is part of sugo+ at $7.99 a month.
How do I move to the next step without touching my phone?
Two ways. Say "Hey Sugo, next step" and it reads the next instruction aloud. Or turn on wink-to-advance and wink your right eye to go forward, your left to go back. Winking needs an iPhone with a TrueDepth front camera and is off unless you enable it.
Does Sugo record my face or my kitchen?
No. Wink detection analyses the camera frame entirely on your device. No face data, facial geometry, or camera imagery is uploaded or stored. The microphone is used while the assistant is listening, and short wake-word clips are only ever uploaded if you switch on the setting that helps improve "Hey Sugo".
Do recipe timers start automatically?
No, you start them. Sugo finds the duration inside a step when it imports the recipe and attaches a timer to it, so the countdown is one tap rather than something you set up yourself. Several timers can run at the same time.
Does cook mode work offline?
Moving through a recipe you have already saved works without a connection. The voice assistant does not, because the model answering you runs on a server rather than on the phone.
Which devices support hands-free cooking?
Sugo runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android, and in a browser at app.sugo.kitchen. Voice control works in the app. Wink-to-advance additionally needs a TrueDepth-class front camera, so it is an iPhone and iPad feature and rules out older handsets.
Read on
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Out now
Put one good dinner on the table.
Sugo is on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Mac, on Google Play for Android, and in any browser at app.sugo.kitchen. It is free to start, so start saving the recipes you actually cook.