CookEat help
Welcome to CookEat — the platform where real home cooking meets purpose. Whether you’re discovering new meals, creating your own recipes from photos, or planning your week, this guide will help you get the most out of every feature.
Getting started
CookEat is built around four main pages — Discover, Plan, Shop, and Create — plus Cook, where you follow recipes step by step.
- 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.
- Cook. Open Cook to view your saved recipes with photo-synced, step-by-step instructions — perfect for following along in the kitchen.
- Plan. Drag recipes into your weekly grid to organise breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks across the week.
- Shop. Turn your meal plan into a shopping list — ingredients combined and grouped by aisle, ready to tick off and share.
- Create. Snap photos of a dish and let Sous Chef turn them into a full recipe with ingredients, steps, and nutrition. Premium members can also Suggest a recipe from one photo or import recipe text.
You can browse recipes without an account, but signing in unlocks saving, creating, planning, and sharing your own published recipes.
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 — filter by cuisine (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, Moderate, or Premium.
- Duration — Quick (up to 30 min), Medium (31–60 min), or Long (over 60 min).
- Difficulty — Easy, Medium, or Hard.
- Servings — filter by serving sizes that appear in the recipes currently loaded (not a fixed 1/2/4/6 list).
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 + Quick.
- Switch to Plans mode on Discover to browse published meal plans from creators (when available).
- Like, save, or share recipes from the card actions (see Sharing recipes).
- Click any recipe card to open a quick preview panel, then View full recipe to open Cook.
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:
- Hero photo — the main image of the finished dish.
- Info & features — servings, prep time, cook time, difficulty, cost, dietary tags, allergen warnings, and a nutrition summary (calories, protein, carbs, fat, fibre).
- Ingredients — a clean, scannable list with quantities.
- 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, save, rate, or share from the hero action row — you don’t need to go back to Discover.
- Scale servings to resize ingredient quantities. Signed-in members can use simple scaling; household scale (from My Account household size) is a Premium feature.
- Tap the nutrition summary to open a nutrition breakdown (see Nutrition).
- On your own recipes, use the publish eye to control whether others can discover the recipe, and quick edit for fast tweaks to photos or details.
Nutrition
CookEat estimates nutrition from mapped ingredients (official food databases), shown per serving on Discover cards, Cook, and the nutrition modal.
- Everyone can see the summary macros (calories, protein, carbs, fat, fibre).
- Premium (and recipe owners) can open the full breakdown: each ingredient’s contribution, sources, and cooking adjustments.
- Cooking realism — frying oil is counted as the amount absorbed by the food (shown as an “absorbed oil” line where relevant), not the full pan of oil. Dressings count in full. Shell-on or bone-in weights use edible portion where known.
- Figures are estimates. They can differ from labels or creator-stated numbers; imported “post” nutrition is for comparison only and is not verified.
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.
Free (signed in): plan your current and next week, then push a shopping list to Shop. Premium unlocks saving plans to your library, planning weeks ahead, and using published creator plans on your week.
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
Premium: 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 — available when browsing other creators’ plans.
- Premium: drag a published creator plan 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 shopping list (manual) — a simple list from your plan so you know what to buy. Available to signed-in Free and Premium members.
- List from your plan — ingredients from your week, combined and grouped by aisle.
- Tick as you go — check items off while you shop; your progress is saved.
- Share — send the list to whoever's doing the shopping.
Create (Sous Chef)
Create is CookEat’s AI kitchen assistant. Use Sous Chef to turn photos into a full recipe, Suggest Recipe for a one-photo draft (Premium), or Import recipe text (Premium).
Sous Chef (Create Recipe)
Upload photos of a dish you’ve cooked and Sous Chef generates a complete recipe — title, ingredients, step-by-step instructions, nutrition, and more. Available to signed-in members.
- Upload photos — drag and drop or browse. Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, and WebP. (iPhone HEIC: convert to JPEG in Photos, or choose “Most Compatible” in Camera settings.) Upload as many photos as you need.
- Generate — Sous Chef analyses every photo, identifies ingredients, and writes steps matched to each photo.
- Review & edit — adjust title, ingredients, steps, servings, times, dietary tags, and allergens until it’s right.
- Save & publish — save privately, or publish for the CookEat community to discover.
Suggest Recipe (Premium)
Prefer one photo and a short idea? Open Suggest Recipe (Premium / Creator). Upload a single image, describe what you want, and CookEat drafts a full recipe you can edit and save — similar to Sous Chef, but guided from one photo plus your prompt.
- Upload one clear photo of the dish (or a close match).
- Add a short prompt if you like (cuisine, dietary needs, or “make it spicier”).
- Generate, review, edit, then save to your library.
Import recipe text (Premium)
Paste ingredients and method from a blog, notes, or message into Import Recipe. See Import recipe text for rules. There is no Instagram/TikTok URL import — copy the text yourself, then paste.
Tips for better recipes
- More photos = better results (Sous Chef). Take photos throughout cooking — raw ingredients, mid-cook, and the finished dish.
- Good lighting helps. Clear, well-lit photos give the AI more detail to work with.
- Include packaging. A photo of a branded label helps with accurate identification.
- Order matters (Sous Chef). Upload photos in the order you cooked.
- Always review. Check quantities, timings, and seasoning before publishing.
Import recipe text
Save a recipe you found online into your private CookEat library by pasting the text via Import recipe (also linked from Create and My account). Available to Premium and Creator members.
How it works
- Copy the recipe text — ingredients (with quantities) and method.
- Paste it into the import page. CookEat uses AI to structure title, ingredients, and steps.
- Review and edit, then save to My Imports.
Important rules
- Paste recipe text only — we do not accept links or URLs.
- Imported recipes are for personal, non-commercial use — they stay in your library and cannot be published on CookEat.
- Only import recipes you have the right to save for personal, non-commercial use.
- If your pasted text names a source or creator, CookEat may import it with clear attribution or reject the import if rights are unclear.
- CookEat may add estimated prep/cook time, gram weights, and nutrition from ingredient databases. Ingredient and step wording stays as you pasted it. Any calories or protein in your pasted text are for comparison only and are not verified.
See our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for full details.
Membership
CookEat offers three tiers — Free, Premium, and Creator — so you can choose the experience that fits your cooking journey.
Premium is available now: start a free trial from My Account. Premium includes an ad-free experience, Suggest Recipe from Photo, recipe text import, household servings scale, full nutrition breakdown, and the full planner (save & reuse plans, weeks ahead, creator plans). Free members can plan this week and next and build a shopping list from their plan (see the membership page).
Premium free trial
- 30-day free trial — add your card to start; you are not charged when the trial begins.
- After the trial, you have a 14-day grace period to confirm a paid subscription.
- Payment is collected only when you confirm. If you do not confirm, Premium ends and you return to Free with no charge.
Creator is invite-only (beta). You need an invitation code; there is no public Creator checkout yet.
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, manage saved recipes, and start or confirm a Premium trial.
You can also raise a data protection complaint from My account via the dedicated complaint section, or open the shared form directly at /privacy-complaint.
Language
Use the globe / flag control in the top navigation to choose your language (English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, and more as they roll out).
- Your choice is remembered in a cookie; when signed in, CookEat can also save it to your account.
- Shell text (nav, buttons, labels) uses CookEat’s built-in translations where available.
- Some recipe body content may still use browser translation for gaps until full recipe translations are enabled.
- Sharing uses your chosen language for captions and link previews (see Sharing recipes).
Data protection complaints
If you have a concern about how your personal data has been handled, use our data protection complaint form. You can submit via web form or by emailing privacy@simplyenjoyit.co.uk.
We issue a complaint reference, acknowledge receipt within 30 days, and provide an outcome. If you remain unsatisfied, you can escalate to the ICO.
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.