Find recipes with what you have

Type what is in your fridge into the free What can I make? finder and it lists real recipes, the ones built on most of what you typed first. Each card says You have everything or names what is left to find. You do not need an account.

The result of searching eggs, bread, butter and cheddar. The heading reads 24 recipes found, 6 with everything on hand, and the first cards, Egg in the Hole, Eggs in a Basket and Toad in the Hole, each carry a green You have everything label above a Uses line and an Assumes line.

Find recipes#

1
Add what you have under What’s in your kitchen?
Type an ingredient and press Enter or a comma. Pasting a whole list works too. Amounts are ignored, so 2 lb chicken becomes chicken. Or tap ingredients under Or tap to add, in groups from Proteins to Fruit and herbs, and mix tapping with typing. Keep it to 12 ingredients. The x on a chip removes it. Short on ideas? Try an example fills in four ingredients and searches.
You'll see: Each ingredient turns into a grey chip with an x on it.
2
Press Find recipes
A search takes a second or two, and the first one after a quiet spell a few seconds more. The heading counts what was found and, when any card needs nothing more, how many are ready to cook. How the cards are ordered is explained under Read a card. You see up to 24 recipes per search.
You'll see: A heading such as 24 recipes found, 6 with everything on hand appears, with the recipe cards under it.
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Open a recipe
Click or tap anywhere on a card. The finder stays open in the first tab, so you can go back to your list.
You'll see: The full recipe, with ingredients and steps, opens in a new tab.

Check the ingredient list once you open it

The finder reads each recipe’s ingredient lines and compares them with what you typed. It is an automatic match, not a person checking, so glance at the full list before you start cooking.

Read a card#

Every card has the recipe name, the website it came from with the time and servings, a coloured status label and up to three grey lines of detail: Uses, Assumes and Optional. A card shows only the lines that apply to it, so some have one and some have all three.

The order of the cards#

The cards are not sorted by how few things you are short of. They are sorted by how much of your list the recipe is built on, so a recipe short of two things can sit above one short of one. The finder works in four groups, top to bottom:

Recipes that need nothing more (You have everything) and use a real share of what you typed.
Recipes short of one or two things that use a real share of what you typed.
Recipes that need nothing more but use only a little of your list.
Everything else, including any recipe short of three or more things.

A real share means about half of what you typed, and never fewer than two things. Inside a group, the recipe that uses more of your ingredients comes first, with a meat or fish you typed counting double. Only then does the card short of fewer things win a tie. So when you type chicken with pasta, garlic and tomatoes, the chicken dishes come first, even when one is short of two things and a plain pasta dish below them is short of only one:

The first six cards of a chicken, pasta, garlic and tomatoes search, each Missing line ringed. In order they are short of kalamata olives, basil pesto, bacon and cheddar cheese, bacon and heavy cream, chicken stock and basil, and last only basil. That last card, a pasta dish with no chicken, is short of the fewest things but comes after five chicken recipes.

Read the Missing line on each card, not its position. To see only recipes that are short of little, set Short by up to to 0, 1 or 2.

What is on a card#

One recipe card, Easy 15-min. Tomato Garlic Pasta from christieathome.com. Its status label Missing: basil is ringed, and so are the lines Uses pasta, garlic, tomatoes and Assumes water, cooking oil, salt, pepper. The Save, free button under them is ringed too.

You have everything in green. Every ingredient line the recipe needs is covered by what you typed or by a staple.
Missing: basil in yellow or grey. These are the lines left to find. That is the whole list, so a card that names one thing is short of exactly one thing.
Uses pasta, garlic, tomatoes. Which of your ingredients the recipe calls for.
Assumes water, cooking oil, salt, pepper. Staples the recipe relies on that you did not type.
Save — free, at the foot of every card. See Keep a recipe.
Optional: sesame seeds, on some cards. Garnishes and “for serving” lines never count against a recipe.

Matching is literal on purpose. Chicken thighs do not stand in for chicken breast, and tomato sauce is not tomatoes. If you have both, add both.

Staples and filters#

The box under the search button reads Assume I have salt, pepper, water, cooking oil, sugar and flour. It is ticked when you arrive, so those six never show up as missing. Untick it if your kitchen is bare. The results refresh by themselves, and a recipe that uses oil or salt now lists it.

Under the Find recipes button, the box that assumes salt, pepper, water, cooking oil, sugar and flour is unticked and ringed. In the pasta, garlic and tomatoes search below it, the first card now reads Missing: olive oil, salt, basil, and the cards no longer have an Assumes line.

Filters appear after your first search, behind a Filters button on a phone. They also refresh the results by themselves, and Clear filters puts them all back.

A meal type, one at a time: Breakfast, Mains, Sides, Soups, Salads, Snacks and apps, Desserts, Drinks or Bread.
Vegetarian goes by the tags on the recipe, so read the ingredient list before you rely on it.
Short by up to Any, 0, 1, 2 or 3. 0 keeps only the recipes that say You have everything. 1 keeps those plus the ones short of a single thing.

The Short by up to row with 1 selected, ringed. Under it the heading reads 8 recipes found and the first two cards read Missing: basil.

Keep a recipe#

Every card ends with a Save — free button. Press it and the sign-up page opens. Make a free account, or switch to logging in, and the recipe is in your library when you land, as your own copy. Nothing is read again, and it does not use one of your AI imports.

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Press Save — free on the card you want
Under the results, a line reads Found one? Tap Save on its card. with a Start free — no card needed button. Each card’s Save goes straight to sign-up, and the automatic save covers the card you pressed last. If you pressed Save on several cards, the earlier ones are offered afterwards in a prompt, see the next step.
You'll see: The sign-up page opens.
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Finish signing up or logging in
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. A free account keeps up to 50 recipes, and a recipe that does not fit is not saved. See Free, Pro and Family.
You'll see: A banner at the top of your library reads Saved from the free tools: followed by the recipe’s title.
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Already signed in? Press Save
Signed in, the button on each card reads Save and saves straight away.
You'll see: The button reads Saved.

When you come back to the finder, your ingredients are still in the box, because this device remembers them. To cook from a card first, open it and read the recipe. Once you have an account, Find recipes from what you have runs the same search across your own saved recipes and your pantry, and your grocery list turns what you are missing into a shopping list. A copy of a public recipe can also be made from its page, see Explore other cooks’ recipes.

Limits and privacy#

Up to 12 ingredients in one search, and 24 recipes shown. There is no next page, so change the ingredients or a filter to see others.
20 searches a minute from one connection. A filter change or a tap on the staples box counts as a search.
The recipes are RecipeClip’s public library, about 35,000 recipes from food blogs and recipe sites. It does not search the whole web.
Searching saves nothing and uses no AI imports. A recipe is added to an account only when you press Save — free on its card and sign up or log in.
Your chips and the staples box are remembered in this browser only. Remove the chips, or clear the site’s data, to forget them.
After a search the address ends in ?i= followed by your ingredients. Copy it to share the list: whoever opens it sees the same search, with staples ticked and no filters.

If something goes wrong#

No recipes found#

The page says No recipes match that yet. Try removing one ingredient or turning off a filter. One rare ingredient is usually the cause, or a filter such as Short by up to 0. Press Clear filters first. If it is still empty, remove the most unusual ingredient.

A chip with a dashed outline#

When a search finds recipes but none uses one of your ingredients, that chip gets a dashed outline and a line under the box reads No recipe here uses kiwi. Try a simpler name, or remove it. Try the plain name (tomatoes instead of heirloom tomatoes), or remove it.

A line that says it fixed a typo#

If you slip a letter, the finder may correct a common ingredient and tell you, for example Fixed a typo: brocoli to broccoli. A word it does not recognise stays as you typed it, so check the chips.

Other messages#

Salt, pepper, water, oil, sugar and flour are already assumed. Add something else. Every ingredient you typed is a staple. Add one more that is not.
Add at least one ingredient. You pressed Find recipes with an empty box. Type or tap one.
That is a lot. Keep it to 12 ingredients. Remove a few chips. Extra ones are not added.
Too many searches. Try again in a minute. You passed 20 searches in a minute. Wait, then press Find recipes again. Tapping all your ingredients first and searching once rarely reaches it.
Search is unavailable right now. Try again in a minute. The recipe library did not answer. Nothing is lost, so press Find recipes again shortly.
We couldn’t reach the server. Check your connection and try again. Your phone or computer is offline. Reconnect and press the button again.

Common questions#

Do I need an account?#

No. Add ingredients and the recipes appear. An account only matters when you want to keep a recipe, plan it or turn it into a shopping list.

Is this the same as the finder in the app?#

No. This tool searches RecipeClip’s public library and needs nothing from you. The in-app version works from the recipes you have saved and the pantry you keep, so it needs an account.

Why is a recipe I expected not here?#

Either it is not in the library, or the match is literal: a different cut, a different form of an ingredient or a different name will not stand in. Add both names if you have both, or try the plain name. Only 24 recipes show at once.

Can I use this for an allergy?#

No. The finder matches ingredient names and filters on recipe tags. It does not check labels or hidden ingredients, and Vegetarian goes by tags. Read the whole ingredient list yourself.

Can I search from a link or a video instead?#

That is another job. To read a recipe from a link and change its servings or units, see Convert and scale a recipe. To combine several recipes into one shopping list, see Make a grocery list from links.