Filter recipes by ingredient (or scan your fridge)

How it works

1. On the Recipes tab, find the row of filter chips below the screen title.
2. Tap Ingredients. The Choose ingredients sheet opens.
3. Add ingredients three ways — pick any combination:
4. • Type — autocomplete suggests names already in your recipe library.
5. • Free-form — anything you type can be added as a chip, even if no recipe uses it (it just won't match anything).
6. • Scan — tap the camera button next to the search field. Snap photos of your fridge, pantry, or single items. 3–6 photos is plenty. Tap Identify; what we recognize drops straight into your chip set.
7. Remove any wrong chips by tapping the × on them.
8. Tap Apply. The recipe grid now shows only recipes that use every ingredient you selected, ranked by how completely your selection covers them.

How matching works

We match in layers, so vocabulary differences don't block useful results:

• Direct — pantry chicken matches recipe chicken thighs.
• Categories — pantry pasta matches recipe spaghetti (or penne, fettuccine, …). Same for cheese ↔ parmesan, fish ↔ salmon, noodle ↔ udon.
• Synonyms — courgette ↔ zucchini, coriander ↔ cilantro, scallion ↔ spring onion, mince ↔ ground beef, icing sugar ↔ powdered sugar, and more dialect pairs.
• Typos — small misspellings (1 character off) match on names ≥ 6 letters: *spagetti* ↔ spaghetti, *mozarella* ↔ mozzarella.

We also skip universal items (salt, oil, water, black pepper, butter) when scoring, so a recipe doesn't lose ranking just because it asks for salt you obviously have.

When your library is thin: web recipes show up automatically

If you've selected ingredients and your saved library has fewer than 8 matching recipes, we surface a grid of real web recipes that use the same ingredients — right below your library results, no extra tap. Tap any card to preview the recipe; tap Save to library to import it into your household.

Imports run in the background through the same pipeline as a Safari share, so you can save several at once and keep browsing. Read more about how that works in Find recipes from the web.

If you want options outside the app — YouTube, Instagram, ChatGPT, etc. — there's a Try other ways link at the bottom of the discover grid that opens the original outbound options menu.

Staples credit ranking

Your Staples (salt, oil, soy sauce, etc.) are credited to recipe coverage so the most cookable recipes float to the top of the filtered list. They don't gate the filter — selected ingredients still need to appear in the recipe — but they help break ties and surface dinner-tonight options.

Manage staples from Groceries → ⋯ → Staples.

Tips for better scans

• Mix angles — a wide shot of a shelf plus a close-up of that bunch of herbs both work. Combine them in one scan.
• Open the door fully — back shelves matter.
• Pull crisper / freezer drawers out if you want what's inside identified.
• Use the flash button (top-right of the camera) for dim shelves.
• Tap a thumbnail to remove a blurry photo before identifying.
• The camera is just one input — typing is faster for things you already know you have. Mix and match freely.

Why scan instead of maintaining a pantry list?

Most cooks open the fridge when they're planning a meal — they don't track inventory mentally between sessions. Scan when you're ready to cook, get the matches, done. If you want a typed list of always-available items, that's what Staples is for.