Calculate nutrition for a recipe

Type the ingredients one per line, or paste a recipe link, into the free recipe nutrition calculator, and press Calculate nutrition. You get a nutrition label for one serving, with every ingredient shown beside the USDA food it was matched to. You do not need an account.

The steps below follow one recipe from start to finish: the black bean rice bowls the tool loads when you press Try an example. Press it now if you would rather watch it run once before you type your own.

Calculate a recipe#

1. 1

   Type your ingredients into Recipe link or ingredients

   Put one ingredient on each line, with the amount first, like 2 cups flour. Bullets and blank lines are ignored, and so is a heading such as For the sauce:. The picture shows the ten lines of the black bean bowls. Have a recipe page instead? See Use a link instead.

   

   You'll see: Your lines sit in the box, and a Clear link appears beside Try an example. Press it to empty the box and start over.

2. 2

   Set Servings if you know them

   Type how many servings the recipe makes. If you leave the box empty, the whole recipe is shown as one serving, and the tool says so: No servings count was given, so the numbers are for the whole recipe as one serving.

   You'll see: The number sits in the Servings box. Here it is 4.

3. 3

   Press Calculate nutrition

   Typed ingredients answer in about a second. On a phone the page scrolls down to the result by itself.

   You'll see: A card appears with the headline One serving of Black bean rice bowls has 444 calories. Your own ingredients, which have no name, read One serving of this recipe has ….

4. 4

   Read the label

   The label is for one serving. It lists calories, total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrate, fiber, total sugars, protein and potassium. The % Daily value column uses a 2,000 calorie diet: under 5% is low, 20% or more is high. To the right, a bar shows how much of the calories come from carbs, fat and protein, and the three biggest calorie sources are listed with their share.

   

   You'll see: The label shows Calories 444 for one serving, with the other nutrients and a % Daily value column.

5. 5

   Change the servings with − and +

   Made a double batch, or cutting the recipe into more pieces? Press + or −, or type in the Servings box on the left. The line under the stepper keeps the whole recipe total, Whole recipe: 1776 calories., so you can check the arithmetic. The smallest number is 1.

   

   You'll see: Press + twice and 4 becomes 6, the headline changes to 296 calories and the label follows, with no waiting.

Use a link instead#

1. 1

   Paste the address of one recipe page into Recipe link or ingredients

   Use the recipe’s own page, not a list of recipes. The box must hold the address and nothing else. An address that starts with www. works too.

   You'll see: The line under the box reads That looks like a link. We’ll read the ingredients from the page. The Servings box shows auto.

2. 2

   Press Calculate nutrition

   A link takes a few seconds while the page is read. A card ticks through Reading the recipe…, Matching each ingredient to USDA food data… and Adding it up…. The rest of the result works exactly as above. The picture is a different recipe from the steps above, a chocolate chip cookie page, to show the From line.

   

   You'll see: A line above the headline reads From and the website’s name, and the Servings box fills in with the page’s own number.

If you type your own number in Servings before you press the button, that number is used instead of the page’s. If the box holds a link and other lines, nothing is fetched. Every line is read as an ingredient, and the link line shows Not counted (no amount given). Delete the link line, or delete the ingredients, to use one or the other.

Check where the numbers come from#

Under the label, What went into it has one row for every ingredient line. Each row reads like 1 cup uncooked long-grain white rice → Rice, white, long-grain, regular, raw, enriched · 185 g · 675 calories: your words, the USDA food it was matched to, the weight used, and the calories. A bar shows the line’s share of the recipe’s calories. Skim this list once. It is where a wrong number shows itself.

Notes under a line#

• Weight is a typical amount, check it and Matched with AI help, check it. The recipe gave no usable weight, or the database was not sure of the food. Check these rows first.
• Not counted (to taste), (optional) or (no amount given). These lines are left out. Give parsley for garnish an amount, like 2 tbsp parsley for garnish, and it counts.
• No match found. Pick a food or leave it out. The line adds nothing until you fix it with Fix, and a warning above counts the lines left out.

Fix a line with Adjust#

1. 1

   Press Adjust (or Fix) on the row

   The panel has four tools. Pick another match lists up to five other USDA foods, each with its calories per 100 g. Weight in grams takes the weight from your own scale. Reword the line lets you type it another way, for example 1 tbsp honey for a line that found no match. Leave this line out drops it from the totals.

   

   You'll see: A panel opens under the row.

2. 2

   Choose, type, then press Update or Recalculate

   Picking another match applies at once. For grams, type the number and press Update. For reworded text, press Recalculate. A line you left out reads Not counted. Open Adjust again and press Count this line again to bring it back. After any fix, the other rows may say Your pick. That only means they were held at the values you saw, so the numbers do not shift.

   You'll see: The panel closes and the label recalculates in a moment.

Keep or share the result#

Copy results copies the headline, the label rows, the calorie split, every ingredient row, the disclaimer and, for a link, the recipe’s address as plain text. The button reads Copied for two seconds. Print label opens your browser’s print window with the result and no site menus, so you can print it or save it as a PDF.

Save the recipe to your account#

A result worked out from a link has a Save this recipe — free button beside Copy results, with Make a free account and it’s waiting there. already under it. Typed ingredients have none, so use Copy results for those. Close the tab and a result is gone, unless you saved it.

1. Press Save this recipe — free. The sign-up page opens. Already have an account? Switch to logging in on that page.
2. Finish signing up or logging in. A banner at the top of your library reads Saved from the free tools: followed by the recipe’s title. It keeps its steps and photo, and the per-serving numbers you just got are added to its notes as plain text.
3. Signed in already? The button reads Save this recipe and saves straight away, with the message Saved to your recipes: Title.

The recipe waits in this browser for 24 hours. Finish signing up in the tab where you pressed Save, and Google sign-in comes back to that tab: it saves by itself. If you sign in from another tab of the same browser, a prompt asks Save “Title” from the free tools to this account? Press Save to keep it, or Not mine — discard to drop it. Another browser or another device does not get it. Press Back from sign-up and your result is drawn again. Saving does not use one of your AI imports. A Free account keeps up to 50 recipes, see Free, Pro and Family. Once you eat it, log it in your food diary with its calories.

Limits and privacy#

For a link, RecipeClip fetches the page to read the recipe. The numbers come from USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy, the US government’s public food table of about 6,800 plain foods. When a line cannot be matched with confidence, its text can be sent to an AI helper to pick the food. Those lines carry the Matched with AI help, check it note.

If something goes wrong#

We couldn’t recognise any of those lines as a food#

None of your lines was a food with an amount that the USDA table knows. Typical causes are a paragraph of method pasted in place of the ingredients, a lone salt to taste, or an incomplete address like https://. Replace the text with ingredient lines that start with an amount.

We couldn’t read that page#

Some large recipe sites do not let other sites read them. Open the recipe, copy its ingredient list, press Paste the ingredients instead, paste the list and press Calculate nutrition. The message We read the page but couldn’t find a recipe on it has the same fix.

Other messages#

• That’s a video link. The calculator reads recipe pages, not videos. Press the button in the message, for example Open the YouTube tool, then paste the ingredients back here.
• You’ve used today’s free tries on this tool. You have used all 8 free AI reads for the day. Links to most recipe sites and typed ingredients still works. This free tool has hit its shared daily limit. means every visitor together used the day’s pool. It resets at midnight UTC and was not caused by you.
• Servings needs a number above 0, like 4. or That doesn’t look like a valid link. Fix the Servings box, or copy the address again from the browser’s address bar.
• Invalid request. or That’s a lot of lines. One line is over 240 characters, or the list is over 60 lines. Split it.
• You’re going a bit fast, The service is busy right now or We couldn’t reach the server. Wait a minute, check your connection and press the button again.

Common questions#

How accurate is it?#

It is as good as the weights behind it. A cup of flour can weigh 120 g or 150 g depending on the scoop, and an onion has no standard size. Lines that use a typical weight say so, and Adjust lets you type the grams from your own scale. Treat the label as a careful estimate, not a lab result.

Does cooking change the numbers?#

The calculator works from the raw ingredients you list. Oil left in the pan, water that cooks off and fat that drains away are not tracked. A word like cooked or uncooked on a line helps it choose the right food.

Does it show vitamins and minerals?#

No. It shows the ten nutrients on the label, including potassium. It does not show vitamins or other minerals.

Can I pick a brand-name product?#

No. The USDA table holds plain foods, not brands or restaurant items, so a branded product is matched to the closest plain food. If you know the label’s numbers, use Weight in grams to match what you used.

Can I get this for a recipe I already saved?#

Inside RecipeClip, a saved recipe has its own nutrition estimate on the recipe page, a Pro feature, see The recipe page. The free calculator here works from any link or list and needs nothing saved.

Where do I go next?#

• Convert and scale a recipe, to change the servings and units before you calculate.
• Make a grocery list from links, to shop for the recipes you checked.
• Set daily nutrition targets, to hold a day against a goal.

Ready to try it? Open the free recipe nutrition calculator.