Recipe app for what you have

A recipe app for what you have — not what some database thinks you should make.

Pantry Pal works from the recipes you actually own — cookbooks, NYT, the blog you bookmarked at 1am — and matches them against what's on your shelf right now. So you only see what you can make tonight. No stock database. No "serves four, needs eleven things you don't have."

Try it free

Free to start. No ads. No credit card.

9:41Pantry Pal
Tonight

What you can cook

  • Ribollita
    Six Seasons · p.214
    You have it all
  • Marcella's tomato sauce
    Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
    You have it all
  • Crispy gnocchi & brussels
    NYT Cooking
    You have it all
  • Buttermilk-brined chicken
    Salt Fat Acid Heat · p.314
    Missing 1
From your 47 saved recipes · your pantry, right now
"One lemon short. Annoying, fixable."— your pantry, tonight
In one lineWhat this is

A recipe app for what you have works backwards from your kitchen: it keeps the recipes you already cook from — books, sites, photographed pages — and matches them against what's actually on your shelf, so dinner is a choice you make from the food you already own.

★★★★★

"It found a recipe for the four random things in my fridge."

Marisol R. / Brooklyn
★★★★★

"I can't believe how dumb every other recipe app feels now."

Anya P. / Austin
★★★★★

"I haven't bought duplicate spices in six months."

Theo K. / Portland
The recipe-app problemPlenty of recipes, no dinner

You have plenty of recipes. You just can't cook any of them right now.

Open any recipe app and you get a stock database — thousands of dishes you didn't choose, by people you've never met, calling for ingredients that aren't in your kitchen. It's a catalogue, not an answer. You wanted dinner; you got homework.

Even a recipe finder by ingredient is working from a stranger's pantry, not yours — meanwhile the recipes you actually trust live somewhere else entirely: a shelf of cookbooks, a folder of screenshots, the blog post you swore you'd remember. They're yours, they're good, and they're completely disconnected from the one fact that matters at 6pm — what's on your shelf tonight.

The gap was never a shortage of recipes. It's that no app holds your recipes and your pantry in the same hand. Close that gap and dinner stops being a search and starts being a short list.

What it doesYour recipes, made cookable

A recipe app that starts with the food you already own

01 Bring your own recipes

Every recipe you trust, in one place.

Paste a link, photograph a cookbook page, upload an EPUB, or type it in. The recipes you already cook from — wherever they live now — become a library Pantry Pal can actually reason about.

02 Matched to your real shelf

Cross-referenced against your pantry.

Pantry Pal checks each recipe against what you actually have — counts, not guesses. Pair it with a live pantry inventory and the match updates itself as you cook and shop.

03 "Cook tonight" answers

What's ready, and what's one thing short.

You don't get a wall of maybes. You get the recipes you can make right now — flagged "you have it all" — and the near-misses you're a single ingredient away from. Decide in seconds.

04 Your sources, kept whole

The book, the page, the blog — intact.

Pantry Pal never swaps your recipe for a generic version. It keeps the source it came from — "Six Seasons, p.214" — so you can flip to the real thing whenever you want the headnote, the photo, the marginalia.

Getting recipes inFour ways, no retyping

However you keep your recipes, they come straight in.

Paste a URL, type it by hand, photograph a page from a real cookbook, or drop in an EPUB. Pantry Pal reads the ingredients either way — then checks them against your shelf. Four real ways in; no app-store download required.

Works right in your browser, on the phone already on your counter.

9:41Pantry Pal
Add a recipe

How a recipe gets in

  • Paste a link
    cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/…
  • Type it in
    For the handwritten card and the loose lentils
  • Photograph a page
    Snap a cookbook page — it reads the ingredients
  • Upload an EPUB
    Drop in a cookbook file — chapters and all
How it worksRecipes to dinner

From a shelf of recipes to tonight's dinner in three steps

1

Bring your recipes.

Paste a link, photograph a page, upload an EPUB, or type one in. The recipes you trust become a library, not a pile.

2

Point it at your pantry.

Tell Pantry Pal what's on your shelf — or let your pantry inventory keep it current. It checks every recipe against what you actually have, so you use up what you have before it's forgotten.

3

Cook what's ready.

Open it hungry. It shows what you can make right now, and what you're one ingredient short on — straight from your own recipes.

Start cooking from your pantry — free
FAQ

Cook from your own recipes.

Yours. Pantry Pal isn't a stock recipe database like SuperCook or the big recipe sites — it's a recipe app for what you have, built around the recipes you bring it. Cookbooks, NYT, the blog you bookmarked, the card in your mum's handwriting. It keeps each one with its original source and matches it against your pantry, so it works as a recipe app by the ingredients you have on hand — the answer to "what can I make?" is always drawn from food and recipes you already chose.
Four ways, and you'll use all of them eventually. Paste a URL from any recipe site. Type one in by hand. Photograph a cookbook page and Pantry Pal reads the ingredients. Or upload an EPUB cookbook and it pulls the recipes out chapter by chapter. No retyping a book you already own.
No. Start with the staples you know you have and the matching gets useful immediately. The more of your shelf Pantry Pal knows, the sharper the "what can I make with these ingredients?" answer gets — and the more you use up what you have before it goes off. Keep a live pantry inventory and the matches update themselves as you cook and shop. You can grow it one grocery run at a time.
Yes — genuinely free, no ads and no credit card, right in your browser. New accounts get a 30-day trial with 50 recipe imports a month; after that, the free plan keeps your saved recipes and gives you 5 new imports a month. Pro makes imports unlimited and adds meal planning, hands-free cook mode, and unlimited grocery lists. No nag screens.
Your recipes, finally cookable

Dinner is already in your kitchen.

Bring the recipes you love and the pantry you have. Pantry Pal does the matching — and hands you tonight's short list.

Try it free

Free to start. No ads. No credit card.