Recipes

A recipe is a meal you save: a title, a list of ingredients, optional servings and prep and cook times, and the steps. Once you have scanned a few receipts, each recipe shows what it costs to make at your own prices, and you can turn any recipe into a priced shopping list.

Recipes live on the budget More screen, next to Shopping Lists and Receipts. Open a budget, tap More in the bottom tabs, then tap Recipes. Everything on this page is free except scanning a recipe from a photo or PDF, which is covered at the end.

Creating a recipe

The Recipes screen lists the recipes in this budget, each with its title and how many ingredients it holds. Tap a recipe to open it. Tap the + button at the bottom right, or Create your first recipe on an empty screen, to add one.

The New recipe form asks for a Title and, optionally, Servings, Prep minutes, and Cook minutes. Below that is the Ingredients list, one ingredient per line. Type each ingredient the way you would say it, like “2 cups flour” or “1 lb ground beef”; the app reads the amount, the unit, and the product from the line. Tap Add ingredient for another line, the close icon to remove one, or drag the handle to reorder. Add the steps in Instructions, then tap Save.

Keep ingredients in everyday cooking measures. The app understands common amounts and units, so you do not need to convert anything to match how you buy it. Pricing handles the conversion for you, which is what makes the cost figure work (see How cost to make works).

Editing a recipe

Open a recipe and tap the edit button at the top to change anything: the title, servings, times, the ingredient lines, or the steps. The same form opens with everything filled in. To change a recipe straight from the list, swipe its row to the left and tap Edit, which opens the recipe so you can edit it.

Swiping a recipe row to the left also offers two more actions:

• Archive moves a recipe you are done with out of the way without deleting it. An archived recipe can be brought back with Restore. Once you have archived at least one recipe, an Active / Archived toggle appears at the top so you can switch between the two.
• Delete removes the recipe. Deleting from the list row is immediate, with no confirmation step.

Deleting a recipe from inside it asks first: a dialog reads “Delete “[recipe]”? This cannot be undone.” with a Delete recipe button. Either way, a deleted recipe is gone for good, so archive a recipe you might want later instead of deleting it.

Why archive instead of delete? A recipe you are not cooking this month is still worth keeping, and you can bring it back any time. Archiving tucks it behind the Archived tab so your list stays short, while keeping the recipe and its cost history intact. Deleting is permanent, so it is for recipes you truly do not want.

How cost to make works

A bar at the bottom of a recipe shows Cost to make: an estimate of what the ingredients cost at your own prices, taken from your receipts. When the recipe has servings, it also shows the cost per serving.

Each ingredient shows its own estimated price on the right, and where that estimate comes from:

• A plain price is your own: the typical price you have paid for that product.
• A price labeled est. with an area (nearby, your city, your state, or national) comes from what shoppers near you typically pay, used when you have not bought the ingredient yourself yet. This appears only if you take part in community prices (see Receipts).
• A price labeled approx. is a close estimate. It shows up when an ingredient is measured one way in the recipe (a cup) but you buy it another way (by weight), so the app uses a typical-package price rather than guessing an exact amount.
• Scan to see your price appears when the app has no price for an ingredient yet. Tapping it opens the scan flow so you can bring in a receipt with that product on it.

The cost bar tells you how complete the figure is: a count of ingredients not yet priced, and a count that are approximate. Both shrink as you scan more receipts, so the number gets sharper over time.

Why is cost to make an estimate, not an exact total? Recipes are written in cooking measures (cups, tablespoons), and you buy groceries in package sizes (a bag, a jar, by the pound). The app converts between measures of the same kind, like cups to tablespoons, exactly. When a recipe measures by volume but you buy by weight, there is no single right conversion, so the app uses a typical-package price and labels that ingredient approximate. The total is honest about which parts are exact and which are close.

Before you have scanned anything, the cost bar does not show a made-up zero. It reads “Scan a receipt to see what this costs to make.” with a Scan button, because a real estimate needs at least one price to work from.

Finding a recipe

The Search recipes box at the top of the Recipes screen helps once a budget holds more than a handful. It searches by title and by ingredient, so typing “chicken” finds both a recipe named for it and any recipe that lists it. Search covers the recipes in this budget.

Importing a recipe from a link

You do not have to type a recipe out. If you have a link to a recipe page on the web, tap Import from a link at the top of the Recipes screen (or on the empty screen). Paste the address into the Recipe URL field and tap Save. The app reads the recipe and its ingredients from the page and adds it to this budget, priced at your prices. Importing from a link is free.

Most recipe sites work. If a page has no recipe the app can read, it tells you so and suggests entering the recipe by hand or scanning it instead. The app brings in the ingredients and the steps, not the writer’s story or photos.

Adding a recipe to a shopping list

A recipe can become a shopping list in a couple of taps, so a week of meals turns into one grocery run. You do this from the list, not from the recipe: open a shopping list, tap Add to list, and pick one or more recipes on the Recipes tab. Their ingredients are added and combined, so three recipes that each call for eggs become one egg line with the amounts added up, and the whole list prices itself. The full flow is on Shopping Lists.

Scanning a recipe (Premium)

When a recipe is only on paper, in a cookbook, or in a screenshot with no readable text behind it, you can scan it into the app. Tap Scan a recipe at the top of the Recipes screen, then choose Take Photo, Choose from Library, or Upload File or PDF. The app reads the title, ingredients, and steps and saves it as a new recipe, which opens so you can check it over.

Scanning a recipe is a Premium feature, because reading an image uses the app’s AI. It draws from the same monthly AI usage budget that receipt scanning and AI tools share, so there is no separate recipe-scan count: you can scan recipes as part of that monthly budget. If you are on the free plan, tapping Scan a recipe offers to upgrade. See Subscription for what Premium includes.

Why is scanning the one paid part of recipes? Writing a recipe out, importing one from a link, pricing it, and turning it into a list all run on your own data and cost nothing to do. Reading a photo or a PDF is the one step that uses AI, so it is the one step Premium covers. In a shared budget, a recipe a Premium member scanned is there for everyone on the budget to use.

If the app cannot make out a recipe in the image, it tells you so rather than saving a blank recipe. Try a clearer photo, or enter the recipe by hand.

Sharing recipes with your household

A recipe belongs to its budget, so it is shared the way the budget is. If you keep the budget to yourself, your recipes are yours. If you share the budget with your household (Sharing), everyone with access sees the same recipes, and each person sees the cost to make figured from their own receipts. Reading recipes needs view access to the budget; creating, editing, importing, scanning, and deleting need edit access.

You can also publish a recipe to a public link so anyone can open it and add it to their own budget, without sharing your prices. Tap the share button at the top of a recipe to start. Publishing, and importing a recipe someone shared, are covered on Publishing and importing lists and recipes.

Quick reference

If you want to	Do this
Open recipes	Open the budget, tap More, tap Recipes.
Create a recipe	Tap +, fill in the title and ingredients, tap Save.
Edit a recipe	Open it and tap the edit button, or swipe the row and tap Edit.
Archive or delete a recipe	Swipe the recipe row left, tap Archive or Delete.
Bring an archived recipe back	Switch to the Archived tab, swipe the recipe, tap Restore.
Search recipes	Type in the Search recipes box; it matches title and ingredients.
Import a recipe from the web	Tap Import from a link, paste the address, tap Save.
Turn a recipe into a list	On a shopping list, tap Add to list, choose the recipe.
Scan a recipe from a photo or PDF	Tap Scan a recipe, pick a capture source (Premium).
Share recipes	Share the budget they live in; see Sharing.

Related pages

• Shopping Lists: lists you check off as you shop, and adding a recipe’s ingredients to one.
• Receipts: scanning receipts, which is what fills in the prices behind cost to make.
• Publishing and importing lists and recipes: publishing a recipe to a public link and importing one someone shared.
• Sharing a Budget: sharing the budget a recipe lives in, and the view and edit access levels that decide who can change it.
• Subscription: what is free and what Premium adds. Everything here is free except scanning a recipe.