Collaboration

The Weeknight Plate is built around real dinners for real weeknights — slow cooker suppers, sheet pan meals, quick pastas, and the occasional dessert or drink that makes a weekday feel a little more special. If you make or sell something that fits into that kitchen, we would genuinely love to hear from you. This page explains what kinds of collaborations we welcome, how we handle sponsored content and disclosure, and the easiest way to get a proposal in front of us.

Who We Work With

We partner with a range of brands, agencies, and fellow creators whose products or services show up naturally in a home cook's routine. That includes:

• Kitchen appliance brands — slow cookers, Instant Pots, sheet pans, stand mixers, and similar tools we already use in our recipes
• Pantry, spice, and specialty food brands — sauces, broths, cheeses, and pantry staples that fit dinner, baking, or appetizer content
• Grocery delivery services, meal kits, and food subscription boxes
• Cookware, bakeware, and food storage companies
• Beverage brands, for our Drinks category
• Other food bloggers or creators interested in recipe swaps, link exchanges, or seasonal collaborations

We are more selective about supplements, weight-loss products, and anything unrelated to home cooking, since those don't match what our readers come here for. If you're unsure whether your brand is a fit, just ask — a short email is enough for us to give you an honest answer.

What a Collaboration Can Look Like

We keep collaborations flexible because not every partnership needs the same format. Depending on the brand and the goal, we typically offer:

• A dedicated recipe post built around your product, written in the same practical, no-fuss style readers expect from titles like our Crock Pot Chicken Pot Pie or Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
• Product mentions or call-outs woven into existing or upcoming recipes where they genuinely make sense
• Sponsored roundups or seasonal features (holiday dinners, back-to-school breakfasts, summer salads)
• Social media support tied to a published post
• Simple affiliate arrangements for tools or ingredients we already recommend

We're also open to smaller, informal collaborations — like sample exchanges or feedback partnerships with newer brands — as long as expectations are clear from the start.

Content Standards We Won't Compromise On

Every recipe on this site, sponsored or not, has to actually work in a real kitchen on a weeknight. That means we test recipes, use realistic ingredient lists, and write instructions the way we'd want them written ourselves. When we collaborate with a brand, the recipe still has to meet that bar — we won't publish something just because it's paid for. You can read more about how we approach recipe testing, sourcing, and accuracy on our Editorial Policy page.

We're also upfront with readers about the nature of any partnership. Sponsored posts, gifted products, and affiliate links are clearly identified, in line with our Disclosure and Affiliate Disclaimer pages. If a collaboration involves Pinterest promotion specifically, that's covered separately in our Pinterest Disclaimer. Transparency isn't just a legal box to check for us — it's part of why readers trust the recipes here in the first place, and we're not willing to trade that trust for a paycheck.

Before You Reach Out

A few quick things that help us evaluate a proposal faster:

• Take a look at our About Us page so you know who's behind the site and what our approach to weeknight cooking actually looks like
• Have a clear idea of the product or service and how it fits one of our categories — Dinner, Breakfast, Desserts, Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Baking, Drinks, or Seasonal
• Know your general budget or compensation structure, if applicable, so we can tell you quickly whether it's workable
• Include any relevant media kit, product info, or past collaboration examples

We read every email ourselves, so there's no need to follow up more than once within the first week or so — we'll get back to you.

How to Send a Proposal

The best way to reach us is by email. Send your pitch, product details, and any relevant links to [email protected], and include "Collaboration" in the subject line so it doesn't get lost. If you'd rather use a form or have a general question first, our Contact page has additional details on getting in touch. We try to respond to every serious inquiry within a few business days, even if the answer is simply that the timing or fit isn't right at the moment.

A Few Ground Rules

To keep things fair and consistent, we ask that any collaborating brand or creator review our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines before finalizing a partnership, since these outline how content, comments, and shared material are handled on the site. If your collaboration involves images you'd like us to use or credit, our Image Credits page explains how we attribute outside photography and product shots. We're easy to work with, but we do expect the same respect for our readers' time and trust that we bring to every recipe we publish.

If that sounds like a good match, we'd love to hear what you have in mind.