Sometimes, you will be surfing the web and you may spot a recipe you would like to use in NutriAdmin. It is possible to add recipes from the web to NutriAdmin. There are a few ways of doing this.

Basically, if you wish to have a copy of the recipe in NutriAdmin, you can:

  • Import the recipe from a URL (automatic).
  • Create a recipe in NutriAdmin (manual).
  • Create a report in NutriAdmin (manual).
  1. Go to Recipes & Foods > My Recipes > New Recipe > Import from URL.
  2. Enter the recipe url and click import

We use a third-party service to provide the recipe importing feature. What this system does is:

  • an algorithm "reads" the website you provide. The url must be publicly accessible (e.g. no need to log in to that website) in order for this to work. The content must be in text form too, if the instructions/ingredients are part of a video or image then the algorithm won't be able to parse them
  • the algorithm tries to extract the ingredients, food quantities, image, cooking instructions, etc

Some websites will prevent automatic crawling from third parties, so for those websites the feature won't work. In addition, some websites will use a format for describing recipes that the algorithm cannot understand.

In some other cases, the importing algorithm may "understand" part of the content, but not all. I.e. the recipe image and instructions may be copied but not the ingredients. When this is the case, the software will warn you and ask you to fill in the gaps manually.

An example of a website where recipe importing works well is shown below:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-coronation-chicken

Typically, when you find a website where importing a recipe works well, then most of the recipes in that same website should work well too (assuming the same formatting/rules are shared across the site). If a particular website doesn't seem to work, then you may want to try alternatives.

Importing recipes from files

If your recipe is in a file, you can check our tutorial on how to import a recipe from a file to learn more.

Importing recipes manually

When you create a recipe, you add the different ingredients from the database. This allows the software to calculate macronutrient/micronutrient content, and makes the recipe suitable for using in meal plans.

Click here to learn how to create a recipe

You can copy/paste the recipe instructions, name, and upload an image. However, you will have to enter the ingredients and quantities one by one. This is because, unfortunately, we do not have a way to automatically match ingredients listed as text in a website to the corresponding food items in the database.

It may take some time and effort to create recipes manually, but the advantage is that once created, you will be able to use them in meal plans. So this could be a one-time effort that could save you time and hassle in the future.

On the other hand, if all you want is a recipe that you can print out and hand in to clients, you can create a report. A report in NutriAdmin is similar to a Word document. You can literally copy/paste the contents of the recipe into an empty report and save it.

Click here to learn how reports work

A report can be printed and handed in to a client at any point, so you may find this option interesting depending on your case. The main disadvantage of storing a recipe as a report is that you will not be able to use such recipe in meal plans and you will not get the macronutrient/micronutrient analysis either.

You can also save a recipe from our recipes database. Once you do, you will be able to edit it and customize it as explained here.