Adding a recipe

Getting to the right place

1. Go to mealie.adamtibbetts.com and sign in.
2. Press the three stacked lines in the top-left corner to open the menu.
3. Near the top of that panel is a rounded Create button with a + beside it. Press it.
4. A short list drops down. It has Import, usually Create from Images, and Create. Those three are the whole of this guide — one section each, below.

From a website link

Much the fastest way. Mealie reads the page and fills everything in for you.

1. On the recipe’s own web page, copy the address. On a phone, press and hold the address at the very top of the screen and choose Copy. On a computer, click the address once so it turns blue, then press Ctrl and C together.
2. In Mealie, open the menu and press Create, then Import.
3. The page is headed Scrape Recipe. Paste the address into the wide box labelled Recipe URL — press and hold in the box and choose Paste, or press Ctrl and V.
4. Ignore the four tick boxes underneath. The way they come is fine.
5. Press the green Create button at the bottom and wait a few seconds.
6. The finished recipe opens on screen. It is already saved.

If the link doesn’t work

You may get a red message reading Looks Like We Couldn’t Find Anything. That means the website is one Mealie can’t read, which is common on blogs and newspaper sites. Nothing is broken and you haven’t done it wrong.

Take a photo of the recipe instead, or type it in by hand. Both are below.

From a photo

For a cookbook page, a magazine clipping, or a recipe card in someone’s handwriting. Mealie reads the picture and turns it into a proper recipe.

1. Photograph the recipe first, using your phone’s normal camera. Get the whole thing in, keep it flat, and take a second photo if the recipe runs onto another page.
2. In Mealie, open the menu and press Create, then Create from Images.
3. Press Upload images and pick your photos.
4. Each photo appears with a frame around it. Drag the corners in so only the recipe text is inside the frame, and straighten it if it came out crooked. This is worth the trouble — it is what makes the difference between a good result and a muddled one.
5. Two tick boxes appear underneath. Leave them as they are unless the recipe is in another language, in which case Translate the recipe into my language is the one you want.
6. Press the green Create button.
7. Wait. It says Please wait, the image is processing and it means it — half a minute or more is normal. Don’t press it twice and don’t leave the page.

Several photos of the same recipe make one recipe, not several. The first photo becomes the picture at the top; if you would rather use a different one, press Set as recipe cover image underneath it before you press Create.

Typing one in yourself

For family recipes, or anything that isn’t written down.

1. Open the menu, press Create, then Create again in the list that drops down.
2. Give it a name and press the green button.
3. An empty recipe opens, ready to fill in. Put each ingredient on its own line and each step on its own line.
4. Press Save when you’re done.

Next: shopping lists →