The Recipe Rebel

Over the years, Ashley Fehr has taught countless readers about the ins and outs of home cooking on her blog The Recipe Rebel. But before turning to blogging in 2014, she taught a different audience entirely: high school English students.

“Actually, I loved teaching,” says Ashley. “I think a lot of people pivot careers because something's not working out, but that wasn't the case for me.”

Instead, Ashley turned to blogging because she was looking to venture out on her own and try something new. While she left teaching with a heavy heart, Ashley was eager to combine two things she loved: cooking and photography.

“I love to kind of try different things, make something a little bit more unusual or take something and put my own twist on it,” says Ashley. “I've never really been very good at following recipes, so that's where the name ‘Recipe Rebel’ came from.”

Ashley immediately took the blog seriously as a business. Once she had about 10 recipes up on the site, she started telling people about the project. While anyone could benefit from the recipes on The Recipe Rebel, Ashley was especially attuned to the needs of busy families like her own — who don’t have time to labor over a gourmet meal.

“I do a lot of one pot meals — slow cooker, air fryer, instant pot, just those things that aren’t fussy,” says Ashley. “If I can find a quicker way of doing something that doesn't sacrifice flavor, I'll give it a try.”

After over a decade of hard work, Ashley now sees three to five million site visits per month. Her audience largely consists of families — those busy parents who have three or four mouths to feed on a nightly basis. Most popular are her slow cooker meals, which give home cooks a way to whip up hearty meals without lots of active cooking.

“I try to include new slow cooker recipes quite often,” says Ashley. “Because I know that's what many people come to me for.”

Even after years and years of food blogging, Ashley still gets a thrill whenever she rolls up her sleeves and gets creative in the kitchen.

“I love testing recipes, even if it’s just tweaking something small,” says Ashley. “I'm gonna do it again and again to just hone in on that perfect recipe.”

Ashley then relishes the reaction to these recipes from her community of readers. She frequently receives emails and comments from readers — from parents grateful for time-saving recipes, to folks who’ve used her recipes to finally satisfy their family’s pickiest eater.

When it comes to the future of her site, Ashley tries to stay in the moment and not get ahead of herself. In the next year or two, she hopes to publish a cookbook, which readers have been asking for for years. But in the meantime, she hopes to continue running her site on her terms.

“I love the flexibility to decide what I want to create, engage with my readers, and figure out what they want to see,” says Ashley. “Ideally, this will be a business for us for many years to come.”