If you've built up a collection of recipes across Cookidoo, Samsung Food, a folder of YouTube links, or a dozen bookmarked blog posts, switching meal planning tools usually means one of two bad options: manually re-typing everything, or giving up and starting a new, emptier collection. Recipe import exists to avoid both.
The goal isn't to duplicate the internet's recipe content inside another app. It's to bring enough structure into your meal library — title, ingredients, components, a link home — that you can plan a week, filter by what you have, and generate a shopping list without abandoning the sources you already cook from.
What recipe import actually does
At its simplest, pasting a recipe URL into a planner should extract the useful parts automatically — title, ingredients, steps, a photo if one's available — rather than asking you to retype them. The reliable way to do this uses structured data most recipe sites already publish (schema.org markup, the same data Google uses to show recipe cards in search results) as the primary source, falling back to page text and metadata when a site doesn't publish it cleanly.
YouTube needs a different approach entirely — there's no recipe schema on a video, so import there typically pulls the title, channel, and thumbnail via the platform's own embed data, then relies on the video description or an AI pass over the available text to fill in ingredients where possible.
What gets imported vs what stays at the source
A well-designed import captures:
- Title and source URL — so you can always tap back to the original.
- Ingredient list — for shopping list generation and component tagging.
- Optional photo — for quick recognition on the planning board.
- Source badge — Cookidoo, Samsung Food, YouTube, or generic web — so you know where to cook from.
What typically stays at the source:
- Full step-by-step instructions — especially for Cookidoo's appliance-guided flows.
- Video playback — YouTube imports link out; they don't replace the channel.
- Platform-specific features — Thermomix timers, Samsung Food's community comments, and similar.
This is the same principle behind why a planning layer beats another recipe app: keep your trusted sources, add a layer that plans around them.
Platform-by-platform: what to expect
Cookidoo
Cookidoo URLs import reliably because Thermomix recipes are structured for the platform. Expect a clear source badge, ingredient extraction, and a link that opens the full guided recipe in Cookidoo when you're ready to cook. Planning happens in your meal library; cooking happens in Cookidoo — which is exactly the split most Thermomix households want.
Samsung Food
Samsung Food (formerly Whisk) hosts a mix of platform-native and imported web recipes. URL import usually pulls title, image, and ingredients. If a recipe was originally clipped from a blog, you may get both Samsung Food's page and the underlying source — either works for planning as long as the ingredient list is complete.
YouTube
YouTube is the messiest source and the most common one. Import pulls metadata (title, channel, thumbnail) reliably; ingredients depend on whether the creator listed them in the description. When the description is vague ("see video for amounts"), you may need to edit the imported entry or add components manually. AI enrichment can help fill gaps, but you should review before trusting an import for shopping list generation.
Blog posts and independent sites
Most food blogs publish schema.org recipe markup specifically for Google. Import quality is usually high. Older blogs or minimalist layouts may need a fallback pass over page text. If import misses an ingredient, a quick manual edit beats retyping the whole recipe.
Bulk import: doing this for a whole collection at once
Importing recipes one at a time is fine for the odd new find; it's not practical for migrating a real collection. A useful bulk import flow needs a few extra steps beyond single-recipe import:
- Paste many URLs at once — newline or comma separated — and let the tool parse and deduplicate them.
- Preview before saving anything. Run the extraction for every URL and show what would be imported, without writing anything to your library yet.
- Flag duplicates against your existing library, not just within the batch — matching by normalised URL first, then by similar title — and let you choose to skip, add as new, or replace an existing entry.
- Only import what's confirmed. After review, the actual import runs on the confirmed rows, with a summary of what was skipped and why.
This matters more than it sounds: importing forty recipes and immediately introducing twelve duplicates of things you already had is worse than not importing at all.
Step-by-step: migrating your collection in one session
1. Gather URLs from each source
Export or copy links from Cookidoo favourites, Samsung Food collections, your YouTube "to cook" playlist, and browser bookmarks. A messy text file is fine — you'll clean up in preview.
2. Paste into bulk import
Drop the full list into the bulk import field. The tool should parse line breaks and commas, strip tracking parameters from URLs, and normalise duplicates within the batch.
3. Review the preview table
Scan for failed extractions (blank ingredients, wrong title), duplicate flags, and source badges. Skip anything that's clearly broken. Replace duplicates rather than adding a second copy.
4. Edit components after import
Imported ingredients become planning components — protein, veg, carb tags that power component-based filtering. A few minutes tagging your top twenty meals pays off every week when you filter by what you bought.
5. Plan a week immediately
Don't let imports sit unused. Pick five imported meals, assign them to the board, and run Shop the Week. You'll quickly see which imports need ingredient fixes.
Common import mistakes
Importing without reviewing. Blind bulk import clutters your library with duplicates, broken entries, and recipes you'll never cook. Always use preview-and-confirm.
Expecting YouTube imports to be perfect. Treat video imports as starting points. Watch once, fix the ingredient list, save — still faster than typing from scratch.
Replacing Cookidoo instead of linking to it. If you own a Thermomix, you still want Cookidoo for guided cooking. Import for planning; Cookidoo for execution.
Ignoring component tags. An imported recipe without components can't participate in coverage ranking or "use what you have" filtering. Tag the mains you cook most.
Importing hundreds before planning one week. Start with your actual rotation — ten to fifteen meals you cook regularly — not every bookmark from the last five years.
After import: making recipes part of your rotation
Import is day one. A useful library needs cook history:
- Log when you cook an imported meal — so recency ranking knows it's part of your rotation, not a one-off experiment.
- Rate it — especially for household-specific notes (too spicy, kid-approved, too long for weeknights).
- Respect dietary settings — imported meals should be checked against your dietary profile automatically; verify the transparency panel if something looks off.
Over time, your library becomes a personalised catalogue filtered by what you actually cook — not what you once thought looked nice.
Frequently asked questions
Will import break if a website changes?
Imported meals keep their source URL. If extraction degrades, you can re-import or edit locally. The link to Cookidoo or the original blog still works for cooking.
Can I import from Paprika or another app's export?
If you can get a list of URLs out — from an export, share sheet, or manual copy — bulk import handles the rest. There's no need to migrate app's internal format if the underlying recipe links are accessible.
Does AI rewrite imported recipes?
In SpendScan, extraction runs deterministically first (structured recipe data, then YouTube metadata, then general page content). AI enriches missing fields — it doesn't replace the source or invent steps you didn't ask for.
Is recipe import free?
In SpendScan, recipe import (single and bulk) is a Pro feature, with a 7-day free trial. The shopping list remains free forever, whether or not you import recipes.
You keep the source, not just the content
The point of import isn't to copy someone else's recipe content wholesale — it's to bring in enough structure (title, ingredients, a link to the source) to plan around, while the actual recipe stays wherever it lives. A meal imported from Cookidoo can keep a visible badge saying so, and clicking through takes you back to the original for the full guided steps.
Combined with AI meal planning for gap-filling and free ranking for rotation management, import lets you keep Samsung Food for discovery, Cookidoo for Thermomix nights, and YouTube for weekend projects — while one planner and one shopping list hold the week together.
Try it
SpendScan's meal planner supports both single recipe import and bulk import with duplicate review, as a Pro feature (7-day free trial). Extraction runs deterministically first (structured recipe data, then YouTube metadata, then general page content) with AI used only to enrich what's found — never as the only source of truth.
Your recipes stay where you trust them. Your week gets a board, a merged shopping list, and aisle sorting on mobile. That's the split that actually works in 2026 kitchens.