Got it working, had to format the LIKE statements like this:
//construct query dynamically using the array
$myDynamicQuery = "SELECT * FROM recipesTable WHERE recipetags LIKE '%%%s%%'";
$appendFormatIndicatorsWithLoop = ""; //empty the placeholder on every query
$i = 0; //for limiting the foreach loop to produce one less than the array has (because one like %s is already there by default)
foreach ($explodedTagsArray as $singleTag) {
$appendFormatIndicatorsWithLoop .= " AND recipetags LIKE '%%%s%%'"; //do this as many times we have tags in the array
if(++$i > (count($explodedTagsArray)-2)) break;
}