Hey you!
I'm Maja (ma-ya) Ilic, a home chef, recipe developer and content creator behind Maja's Recipes.
I'm 24, based in Canada, and I've spent the last few years turning my love for cooking into a community of over 2 million people across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. We now have 296 tested recipes on this site and counting!
But honestly, none of that is where the story starts.
Let's Start From the Beginning...
I grew up in a home where cooking from scratch wasn't a hobby, it was just what you did.
My mom cooked traditional Balkan meals every single day and I was always right there beside her asking questions and trying to help. That's where my love for food was born, in a kitchen that always smelled like something good.
When I hit high school I started cooking more on my own. I was proud of it too, because it meant my mom didn't have to make every meal. But I was absolutely not a natural.
My first attempt at a creamy pasta sauce? I didn't have heavy cream so I used half and half and it curdled completely and destroyed the whole sauce. Total rookie mistake. Another time I made peanut butter cookies, put way too much peanut butter in the dough, didn't let it chill in the fridge overnight and the whole batch just melted flat in the oven. It was a lot of trial and error before anything actually worked.
That's why I always say, mistakes are how you learn. The best way to get good at cooking is to just cook. A lot. And mess up. A lot.
The Years That Changed Everything...
When the pandemic hit and school moved online, my family picked up and moved to Europe to take care of my grandpa, who lived on a small farm in Bratunac, Bosnia. That time meant everything to us and to him.
My grandma had passed away before we got there, and with her went so much of the life that had existed in that little town. My uncle's restaurant, named after my brother Marko, had been one of the most popular spots in Bratunac. His Serbian gulaš, a rich, paprika-spiced meat stew slow-cooked with onions until thick and deeply savory, was the dish everyone came for. My mom's dentist office sat right next door and the parking lot was always full. By the time we arrived, it was all quiet.
But in that farmhouse kitchen, my grandma's recipes were still very much alive. She had taught me and my sister how to make burek from scratch, rolling the filo dough by hand, filling it with meat and onions or spinach and cheese or just cheese, and baking it until the smell filled every room. I still think about that smell.
Living on that farm, cooking with ingredients straight from the garden, completely changed how I thought about food. Fresh ingredients taste different. The whole process feels different. Something clicked for me there that I've never lost.
And Then, Maja's Recipes Was Born...
In the summer of 2022, I married my husband Ogi (short for Ognjen) and we moved into a tiny apartment in Belgrade, always working, always studying, always finding time to make a real meal anyway. We weren't meal preppers at all. We liked making something fresh every single day, which in hindsight maybe wasn't the most efficient approach!
I still remember the first time I made him chicken and rice. He'd had a long day of uni and work, came home late, tried it, and was completely floored. He asked me to make it every week after that. I knew then I was onto something.
We had our disasters also. Once we tried to make homemade pizza from scratch with all these exciting toppings, got completely carried away, and then the dough came out so dry and dense we just ended up ordering a pizza and putting all our toppings on the one that got delivered. You really can't win them all.
Somewhere in between all of that, the requests started coming in. Friends, family, people close to us all wanted to know how I was making what I was making. There were so many asks that I figured I had to start documenting it properly somewhere. And since I'd spent half my teenage years making iMovies in my bedroom just for fun, picking up a camera and editing again felt like coming home.
That's how Maja's Recipes was born. What started as a way to share recipes with the people I loved turned into a community of over 2 million and a career I love more than I can explain. And honestly, we're just getting started.
What the Mistakes Taught Me...
Every recipe on this site gets tested at least 3 to 5 times before I post it. I know what it feels like to follow a recipe that just doesn't work, and I never want that to be yours.
Pasta is my thing. It's my most tested category, the one I've made every possible mistake in, and the one I care most about getting right for you. And now that I've been at this long enough, I see the same struggles come up again and again. Not enough sauce. Not knowing how to bring the sauce together when it's too thin. Too much pasta and not enough of everything else. Boiling the noodles and going straight into the sauce without rinsing them first to stop the cooking. Adding spices too early and wondering why the flavor isn't there.
These aren't failures, they're just things nobody told you yet. That's the gap I'm trying to fill with every recipe I post.
A Little More About Me...
I studied math and French and always thought I'd be a teacher. Turns out I am, just with recipes instead of textbooks. And I still use math every single day when I'm developing and scaling recipes!
Outside of cooking you can usually find me with my nephews Nole (2 years old) and his brother, the newest addition who just arrived, walking Medena, my german shepherd, playing tennis with Ogi, or even picking up my guitar. I travel whenever I can, though right now I'm happily buried in the kitchen for a very good reason.
I have a cookbook coming. I can't say too much yet but Serbian gulaš is going to be in it. Consider this your official heads up.
Thank you for being here.
This community means more to me than I know how to say. If you've ever had someone tell you that what you're doing isn't a good idea or that you're not capable, I want you to know that commitment to yourself is always the right call. It has been for me.
Now let's cook something good. Start here with my Creamier Carbonara or my Bang Bang Chicken Skewers and if you haven't already, come find me on Instagram and TikTok @majasrecipes.