CookEat help

Getting started

CookEat is built around four main pages — Discover, Plan, Shop, and Create — plus Cook, where you follow recipes step by step.

1. Discover. Head to Discover and explore — search by name, filter by cuisine, dietary needs, allergens, spice level, or cost. Like and save recipes that catch your eye.
2. Cook. Open Cook to view your saved recipes with photo-synced, step-by-step instructions — perfect for following along in the kitchen.
3. Plan. Drag recipes into your weekly grid to organise breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks across the week.
4. Shop. Turn your meal plan into a shopping list and find the best prices (coming soon).
5. Create. Snap photos of a dish and let Sous Chef turn them into a full recipe with ingredients, steps, and nutrition.

You can browse recipes without an account, but signing in unlocks saving, creating, and planning.

Home

The home page is your launchpad. It highlights what CookEat offers and gives you quick links to every section. If you ever get lost, the navigation bar at the top is always there — on any page, on any device.

Discover

Discover is where you find your next meal. Search thousands of recipes and narrow results with powerful filters until you find exactly what you’re after.

Filters at your fingertips

• Search — type a recipe name, ingredient, or keyword.
• Cuisine — pick from 24 cuisines (Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, and many more), each with its own icon.
• Occasion & course — filter by meal time (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or course type (starter, main, dessert).
• Dietary & lifestyle — Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, Keto, Kosher, Halal, and more.
• Free-From (allergens) — toggle any of the 14 UK major allergens: Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Milk, Eggs, Gluten, Crustaceans, Molluscs, Fish, Soya, Celery, Mustard, Sesame, Sulphites, and Lupin.
• Spice level — Mild, Medium, or Hot.
• Cost — Budget, Medium, or Premium.
• Servings — cooking for 1, 2, 4, or 6.

Your personal collections

Toggle the quick-filter buttons at the top to view only:

• My Recipes — recipes you’ve created.
• Favourites — recipes you’ve liked.
• Saved — recipes you’ve bookmarked for later.

Get the most out of Discover

• Combine multiple filters for precise results — for example, Vegan + Gluten-Free + Budget + Under 30 min.
• Click any recipe card to see full details in the side panel without leaving the grid.
• Use the heart icon to like a recipe, or the bookmark icon to save it to your collection.

Cook

Cook is your kitchen companion. Open it when you’re ready to start cooking — everything is laid out so you can follow along without scrolling back and forth.

Four-card layout

Every recipe is presented in four clear sections:

1. Hero photo — the main image of the finished dish.
2. Info & features — servings, prep time, cook time, difficulty, cost, dietary tags, allergen warnings, and a nutrition summary (calories, protein, carbs, fat, fibre).
3. Ingredients — a clean, scannable list with quantities.
4. Step carousel — swipe or click through step-by-step photos, each with matching instructions underneath.

Navigate your recipes

• Use the arrow buttons to move between recipes (shows "3 / 12" so you always know where you are).
• Use the same quick filters as Discover — My Recipes, Favourites, Saved — to narrow your list.
• Search within your collection by name or ingredient.

Get the most out of Cook

• Use the step carousel dots to jump to any step — each dot shows a step number badge so you can track progress (e.g. "Step 3 / 8").
• Allergens are highlighted so you can spot them at a glance.
• Like or save recipes directly from the Cook page — you don’t need to go back to Discover.

Plan

Plan is where you build your own meal plans and discover plans from other creators. Organise breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks across the week with a drag-and-drop grid, then save your week as a reusable plan.

The weekly grid

The grid shows the seven days of the week as columns and four meal rows: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snack. Each cell is a drop zone — drag a recipe into any slot to plan that meal. Use the week arrows to move between weeks.

The strip — recipes or plans

The strip below the grid has a toggle that switches what it shows:

• Browse Recipes — your recipes to drag into the grid. Filter by search, servings, or cost, and tap a meal-row header (e.g. "Breakfast") to show only recipes for that meal.
• Browse Plans — meal plans from you and other creators. Filter by My Plans, Favourites, or Saved.

Saving your plan

When your week is ready, use the corner button to open the save panel, where you can:

• Give your plan a name and an optional description.
• Choose the cover — drag the numbered badges (1–6) onto the meals you want as the plan's cover photos, in the order they appear.
• Add it to a list or add it to your calendar.

A saved plan of yours shows a pencil to edit it again. Editing and saving updates the same plan; change the name and you'll be asked whether to rename it or save a new copy (a variation). Plan names must be unique to you.

Using a creator's plan

• Save it to a list to find it again later — the only action on another creator's plan, since it stays theirs.
• Drag it onto your week to cook from it. Adjust any meal and it becomes your own arrangement, ready to save as your plan.

Get the most out of Plan

• On mobile, long-press a card to start dragging it.
• Drag a recipe onto a filled cell to replace it, or click a filled cell to remove it.
• A small "by …" badge on a meal means that recipe is from another creator — handy for spotting which parts of a plan are yours.

Shop

Shop turns your meal plan into a smart shopping list and helps you find the best prices across stores. This feature is coming soon.

• Auto-generated lists — ingredients from your weekly plan, combined and grouped so you buy only what you need.
• Price comparison — see prices across partner stores and pick the best deal.
• Buy directly — order ingredients from partner stores without leaving CookEat.

Create (Sous Chef)

Sous Chef is CookEat’s AI-powered recipe creator. Upload photos of a dish you’ve cooked and Sous Chef will analyse them to generate a complete recipe — title, ingredients, step-by-step instructions, nutrition, and more.

How it works

1. Upload photos — drag and drop or browse to select your images. Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF, WebP. You can upload as many photos as you need.
2. Generate — Sous Chef analyses every photo, identifies ingredients, and writes step-by-step instructions matched to each photo.
3. Review & edit — adjust the generated title, ingredients, steps, servings, prep/cook times, dietary tags, and allergen information until it’s exactly right.
4. Save & publish — save to your collection as a private recipe, or publish it for the entire CookEat community to discover.

Tips for better recipes

• More photos = better results. Take photos throughout the cooking process — raw ingredients, mid-cook, and the finished dish.
• Good lighting helps. Clear, well-lit photos give Sous Chef more detail to work with.
• Include packaging. If you’re using branded or packaged ingredients, a photo of the label helps with accurate identification.
• Order matters. Upload photos in the order you cooked — Sous Chef uses the sequence to match each step to the right photo.
• Always review. AI is clever, but you know your recipe best. Check quantities, timings, and seasoning before publishing.

Membership

CookEat offers three tiers — Free, Premium, and Creator — so you can choose the experience that fits your cooking journey.

View full membership comparison →

My account

Tap the profile icon in the top-right corner to manage your account. From there you can update your details, review your preferences, and manage your saved recipes.

Sign in / Sign up

Sign in with your Google or Microsoft account, or create an account with email and password. Signing in unlocks saving, creating, planning, and all personalised features.

Forgot your password? Use the reset link on the sign-in page — you’ll receive an email with instructions.