How to import recipes into your kitchen app
When the only copy of the house recipes is in the head chef's notebook, one bad week or one resignation puts the whole menu at risk.
Years of recipes usually live on handwritten cards, in cookbooks, spreadsheets and bookmarked websites. Importing moves them into one place without retyping everything, so costing, scaling and allergen records can start working on them straight away.
Four ways to import
Open Recipe Books and choose Import. From there you can snap or upload a photo of a recipe card, notebook or cookbook page, paste recipe text, paste a link to a recipe on the web, or upload a CSV spreadsheet. Every route opens a review step before anything is saved, so nothing lands in your kitchen records unchecked.
Importing from a photo or pasted text
Take a photo of a handwritten recipe card or cookbook page, or paste text copied from an email or document. Chef’s Helper reads it and pulls out the recipe name, ingredients, quantities, units and method steps. You then see everything in an editable review screen, fix any quantity, rename an ingredient or reorder a step, and nothing is saved until you choose Save recipe. Clear, well-lit photos give the best results.
Using the CSV template
The Import dialog includes a downloadable blank template so you can see the exact format: one row per ingredient, with columns for recipe name, servings, ingredient, quantity, unit and method step. After you choose a file, a preview table flags any rows with missing or invalid data. Fix those in your spreadsheet and re-upload, then save the recipes into the recipe book you choose.
Importing from a web link
Most recipe websites publish structured recipe data (schema.org/Recipe) alongside the page. When you paste a link, Chef’s Helper reads that data and shows a preview of the ingredients and method it found, so you can confirm or edit before saving. Pages without structured data return a friendly “couldn’t read this page” message. The preview step keeps the result honest either way.
What happens after import
Imported recipes behave exactly like typed ones. They land in the recipe book you selected, allergens are flagged from ingredient names the same way, and recipe costing, scaling, gross profit and menu links all work unchanged. Review the allergen flags on imported recipes before relying on them, as you would with any new recipe.
Exporting and backup
Export works for everyone, on every plan: download a single recipe from its page, or a whole recipe book from the book’s menu, as a tidy CSV or JSON file. It is a simple way to keep a portable backup of your recipes and to share them outside the app. Importing is available on paid plans and during the free trial.
Practical tips
- Group each CSV by the recipe book you want it to land in. One import per book keeps things tidy.
- Check allergen detection on imported recipes and record a manual correction where supplier information differs.
- Re-export your books occasionally as a backup you control.
- Cost imported recipes before adding them to a menu so the menu GP% is accurate from day one.