Recipes end up everywhere: a screenshot, a note, a message from your sister, a stained card in a kitchen drawer. When you want to cook one, you can't find it. You can keep them all in one place on your iPhone, in your own words. This guide walks through what's worth saving with each recipe, then how to save, find and print them with Recipe Cat, our recipe box for iPhone.
What to save with each recipe
A recipe you'll actually cook again usually has:
- A name you'd search for, like "Lemon drizzle cake".
- Who it's from: Grandma, a friend, the blue cookbook. Easy to forget, and nice to keep.
- Serves and time, written the way you'd say them: "4", "about 20 cookies", "overnight".
- The ingredients, one per line, with the amounts.
- The method, one step per line.
- Notes: the swaps you make, the oven that runs hot, the story behind it.
- A photo of the dish, so you know it when you see it.
Save your first recipe
- Open Recipe Cat. On an empty box, tap Add your first recipe. After that, tap Add recipe (the + at the top), then Type a recipe.
- Type the Recipe name. A name is all it needs to save; everything else is optional.
- Add who it's from in the From field.
- Fill in serves, time and a chapter, like Desserts. Once you've used a chapter, it's offered as a button when you type the next one, so your chapters stay tidy.
- Add the ingredients and the method, one per line, and any notes.
- Tap Add a photo of the dish and pick one from your photos.
- Tap Add. The recipe is saved when you tap Add. If you tap Cancel, nothing is saved.
To change a recipe later, open it and tap More, then Edit, then Save.
Already have it as text? Paste it
If the recipe is in a note or a message, copy it. For free, you can paste a whole list into Ingredients or Method: bullets and step numbers like "1." or "Step 3:" are tidied away, and amounts stay as you wrote them.
With Recipe Cat Pro, tap Add recipe, then Paste a whole recipe. Paste the recipe with its name on the first line, then the ingredients and the method. Lines under "Ingredients" and "Method" go to their places, and lines like "Serves 4" fill in serves. Tap Next, check it all, then tap Add.
Recipe Cat doesn't import from a web link. To save a recipe from a website, copy its text and paste it in.
Save a handwritten recipe card (Pro)
Old family cards are often the recipes people most want to keep. With Recipe Cat Pro, tap Add recipe, then Scan a handwritten card, then Take a photo of the card or Choose a photo. The card is read with text recognition on your phone, not sent anywhere to be read. Handwriting can be hard to read, so you check the words before you tap Add. The photo of the card stays with the recipe, under "The original card".
Find a recipe later
Your recipes are listed A to Z. Once recipes have chapters, the chapters show at the top of the list: tap one to see only those recipes, or All to see every one.
Search looks through the name, who it's from, the chapter, the ingredients, the method and the notes. Capitals and accents don't matter. So if you only remember "the one with buttermilk", type buttermilk.
Open a recipe and tap Add to favourites to put a heart on its card in the box.
Cook from it
Open the recipe and prop up your phone. Tap an ingredient to tick it off as it goes in, and tap the step you're on to mark it. Tap Keep screen on so the screen doesn't go dark with flour on your hands. Tap it again to turn it off.
Print or share a recipe card
Open the recipe and tap Print or share. Pick the paper: 4×6 card, Letter or A4. You see every card or page before you print. Text is never shrunk to fit: a long recipe goes on over more cards or pages, each with the title. The dish photo prints on Letter and A4; the 4×6 card is for the words. Each card or page has a small "Recipe Cat" line at the foot.
Tap Print to print it, or Share to send the PDF to someone.
With Recipe Cat Pro, tap Family cookbook on the home screen to put every recipe in one PDF, with a cover and contents, by chapter, on Letter or A4.
Keeping the paper copies too?
If you'd like a plain PDF of a stack of cards just as they are, our guide on how to scan documents on iPhone shows how.
What it costs
As many recipes as you like, a photo of each dish, chapters, search, cooking from a recipe, and printing or sharing any recipe on a 4×6 card, Letter or A4 are all free. There are no ads and no account. Recipe Cat Pro is an optional one-time purchase that adds three extras: Family cookbook, Scan a handwritten card and Paste a whole recipe. More on the Recipe Cat page.
Your recipes and photos are kept on your iPhone, in Recipe Cat, unless you print or share them. There's no account, so there's nothing to sign in to.
Quick answers
Can I save a recipe from a website?
Not from a link. Copy the recipe's text, then paste it into a new recipe.
Can it scale a recipe or make a shopping list?
No. Recipe Cat keeps your recipe as you wrote it. Nothing is converted or scaled, and there's no shopping list.
Do I need an account?
No. There's no account and no sign-in.
Do my recipes sync to my other devices?
No. They're kept on the phone you saved them on.
How do I delete a recipe?
Open it, tap More, then Delete, then Delete recipe. The recipe and its photo are removed from this phone.
Try Recipe Cat
Try Recipe Cat: free, no ads, no sign-up → iyio.com/apps/recipe-cat