CookPal - Recipe & Meal Plan
CookPal is a personal recipe box. You type in the dishes you actually cook - family recipes, notes from a cookbook, something you adapted from a video - and keep them in one tidy place with a photo, the ingredient list, numbered steps, tags and your own notes.
Once a recipe is saved, CookPal helps while you cook. Change the number of servings and every ingredient amount is recalculated, open cooking mode to see one step at a time in large type with a timer for steps that need one, and send the ingredients to a shopping list that sorts items into groups such as produce, dairy and meat.
The web version runs entirely in your browser with no account, for home cooks tired of hunting through screenshots, bookmarks and paper cards at dinner time.
The app runs entirely in your browser. What you enter is saved only on this device.
How to use CookPal
- Add a recipe. On the Recipes tab tap the + button. Enter a title, pick a category (Breakfast, Dinner, Dessert and others, or create your own), and fill in prep time, cook time and the number of servings the recipe makes.
- Enter ingredients and steps. Add each ingredient with an amount, a unit such as cup, tbsp, g or ml, and a name. Add the steps in order; give a step a timer in minutes if it needs one, for example simmering or resting.
- Add a photo, tags and notes. Tap the photo tile to choose up to five pictures. Add tags like quick or vegetarian, a source link, and notes for your own tweaks, then save.
- Find recipes later. Search by name, filter by category with the chips at the top, show only favorites, or sort by newest, oldest or name. Tap the heart on a recipe to mark it as a favorite.
- Scale the servings. Open a recipe and use the minus and plus buttons next to the servings count. Ingredient amounts update right away and are shown as kitchen-friendly fractions where that makes sense.
- Cook step by step. Tap Cook above the instructions to enter cooking mode. Swipe or use Next and Previous to move through the steps; steps with a timer show a start, pause and reset control. The ingredient list is one tap away.
- Build your shopping list. Tap Add to Shopping List on a recipe. Items appear on the Shopping tab grouped by category, and matching items with the same unit are combined. Add extras by hand and clear checked items when done.
Features
- Recipes with title, category, prep and cook time, servings, photos, ingredients, steps, tags, source link and notes
- Serving scaler from 1 to 99 that recalculates every ingredient amount
- Switch between metric and US units for display (ml, g, kg or cups, oz, lb)
- Cooking mode with one large step at a time and per-step countdown timers
- Keeps the screen awake in cooking mode in browsers that support it
- Shopping list grouped into produce, dairy, meat, seafood, grains, spices, oils and sauces
- Search, category filter, favorites filter and sorting
- Share a recipe as plain text
- Up to 50 recipes on the web, stored only in your browser
Getting more out of your recipes
Write recipes you can follow at the stove
A recipe that reads well on a blog is not always easy to follow with wet hands. Keep each step to one action or one stage - chop, brown, deglaze, simmer - so you can glance at it and know what to do next. Put the quantity in the ingredient list rather than repeating it in the step, and note the cue you are looking for, such as golden at the edges or a skewer comes out clean, because times vary between stoves and ovens.
List ingredients in the order they are used. It makes prep faster and helps you notice early if something is missing. If an ingredient is split, for example butter for the sauce and butter for the topping, write two lines.
Scaling up and down without surprises
Multiplying ingredients is simple arithmetic, but cooking does not always scale in a straight line. Salt, strong spices and chili are best scaled a little conservatively and adjusted by tasting, because a doubled pinch can be too much. Leavening in baking (baking powder, baking soda, yeast) is sensitive too: when you double a cake, it is often better to bake two pans of the original size than one deeper pan.
Pan size and cooking time change with volume. A double batch of stew in a wider pot may need longer to come to a simmer, while the same amount spread across two trays roasts in about the original time. Liquids that reduce, like sauces, take longer in larger quantities because there is more to evaporate.
Measuring: volume versus weight
One US cup is about 237 ml, one tablespoon about 15 ml and one teaspoon about 5 ml. These are volume measures, so a cup of flour weighs very different amounts depending on how it is scooped - anywhere from roughly 120 to 150 grams. For baking, weighing in grams gives the most repeatable results. For soups, stews and most savory cooking, cups and spoons are perfectly fine.
When you switch display units in CookPal, only recognised units are converted (cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, ounces, pounds, millilitres, grams and similar). Items counted by the piece, like two eggs or one onion, stay as they are.
Turning recipes into a shopping trip
Before shopping, look at the recipes you plan to cook for the next few days and add them to the list together. Shared ingredients such as onions, garlic or milk are merged when the unit matches, so you see one total instead of three separate lines. Grouping by section of the store means fewer trips back down the same aisle.
Frequently asked questions
Where are my recipes stored?
Only in this browser on this device, in its local storage (IndexedDB and localStorage). There is no account and nothing is uploaded. If you clear your browser's site data or use a private window, your recipes and photos are deleted, and they do not sync to other browsers or devices.
Can I import a recipe from a website link?
Not on the web. Browsers block a page from reading other websites directly, so the link import of the phone app is not available here. You can paste the link into the source field and type the recipe in yourself.
How many recipes can I save?
The web version holds up to 50 recipes. The iPhone and Android app can remove that limit.
What is different in the phone app?
The iPhone and Android app adds importing recipes from a link, a weekly meal planner, exporting and importing your recipe collection as a backup file, saving a recipe as a PDF, and an option for unlimited recipes. The web version covers recipes, scaling, cooking mode and the shopping list.
Will the timer ring when it finishes?
No. The step timer counts down on screen and shows a check mark when it reaches zero, but it does not play a sound, so keep the cooking-mode screen in view.
Why does the screen stay on in cooking mode?
Cooking mode asks the browser to keep the screen awake so you do not have to unlock it with messy hands. Some browsers do not support this, and it stops when you leave cooking mode.
Limitations of the web version
- Importing a recipe from a website link is not available on the web
- Meal planner, recipe backup export and import, and PDF export are only in the phone app
- Up to 50 recipes on the web
- Timers are silent and are not shown when the page is closed
- Recipes and photos stay in this browser and do not sync across devices
Phone app
CookPal is also available as an app for phones and tablets: