Get a Recipe from Any Cooking Video
The Problem with Video Recipes
Cooking videos are incredible for inspiration. You watch someone make a dish that looks absolutely perfect, and you think "I could make that tonight." Then reality sets in. The creator adds "a splash" of this, "a handful" of that, and "just enough" of something else. No measurements. No written recipe. No way to follow along without pausing every three seconds.
Even when creators do include measurements, the information is scattered across a fast-moving video. You're left pausing, rewinding, and squinting at the screen trying to catch whether that was one tablespoon or two. And if you're actually cooking while watching? Good luck keeping your phone clean while you tap back and forth between the video and your notes app.
Then there's the discoverability problem. You save a cooking video to your TikTok favorites, your YouTube Watch Later, or your Instagram saves. A week goes by. The video is buried under hundreds of other saves. The algorithm no longer shows it to you. The recipe you were excited about is effectively gone — lost in a feed designed to keep showing you new content, not help you cook old content.
And what about shopping? Even if you manage to extract a recipe from a video, you still need to manually type out a shopping list. For a weeknight dinner that pulls from two or three different videos, that's a serious amount of work before you even step into a grocery store.
I don't give a f*** about your video recipe if it doesn't have measurements
even for chefs and recipe creators I love... I just don't think you could do it just from watching the video only
3 Ways to Extract a Recipe
From pen-and-paper to AI, here's how people turn cooking videos into usable recipes — and what actually works.
Method 1: Write It Down
The old-school approach. Watch the video, pause constantly, and scribble down ingredients and steps as you go. It works, but it's slow, error-prone, and you'll almost certainly miss something. Quantities are anyone's guess when the creator doesn't state them.
Method 2: Screenshot & Notes
Take screenshots of key moments and paste them into a note. Better than writing from scratch, but you end up with a camera roll full of blurry frames and no structured recipe. You still can't generate a shopping list or follow the steps hands-free.
Method 3: AI Extraction with Preplo
Paste a video link and get a complete, structured recipe in seconds. AI extracts ingredients with quantities, step-by-step instructions with timestamps, and automatically generates a shopping list with price estimates. Then follow along in guided cook mode.
How Preplo extracts your recipe
From video to kitchen in under a minute. No manual work required.
Copy the Video URL
Find a cooking video you love on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram and copy the link. Any public cooking video works.
AI Extracts the Recipe
Paste the URL into Preplo. Our AI analyzes the video and extracts ingredients, quantities, and step-by-step instructions with timestamps.
Cook with Guided Mode
Follow the extracted recipe in full-screen cook mode with large text, timers, and an embedded video player. Generate a shopping list with one tap.
Why Preplo beats manual methods
AI does the tedious work so you can focus on cooking.
AI Recipe Extraction
Paste a video link and get a complete recipe in seconds. Preplo's AI captures every ingredient, estimates quantities, and writes clear cooking steps — even when the creator doesn't share the full recipe in the description.
Extracted Recipe
Smart Shopping Lists
Every extracted recipe instantly becomes a categorized shopping list with estimated prices. Merge lists from multiple video recipes into one grocery run so you never forget an ingredient.
Produce
Protein
Guided Cook Mode
Follow each extracted step on your phone with large, readable text and embedded video playback. Tap any timestamp to jump to that exact moment. Your screen stays awake so your hands stay free.
Heat wok until smoking. Sear chicken 2 minutes per side.
Don't overcrowd the pan or the chicken will steam.
Works with All Platforms
YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels — Preplo handles them all. No matter where you discover a cooking video, paste the link and get a structured recipe with ingredients, steps, and a shopping list.
Supported platforms
Preplo works with all major video platforms. Learn more about extracting recipes from YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels.
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Start Cooking with Preplo
Available now on iOS. Android coming soon.
Recipe from Video FAQ
Common questions about extracting recipes from cooking videos.
Preplo uses AI to analyze cooking video transcripts, captions, and descriptions. It identifies every ingredient, estimates quantities when they're spoken or shown on screen, and structures the information into a clean recipe with step-by-step instructions and timestamps. The entire process takes about 10 seconds.
Preplo currently supports YouTube (including Shorts), TikTok, and Instagram Reels. Simply paste any cooking video URL from these platforms and you'll get a complete recipe in seconds. We're actively adding more platforms based on user feedback.
Preplo's AI does its best to infer quantities from visual cues, verbal mentions, and common recipe ratios. When a measurement can't be confidently determined, it's clearly flagged so you know what to double-check. For videos that explicitly state measurements, extraction accuracy is extremely high.
Preplo offers a free tier with a limited number of recipe extractions per month. For unlimited extractions and premium features like guided cook mode, AI recipe alterations, and merged shopping lists, you can upgrade to our premium plan starting at $4.99/month.
Yes. Preplo handles YouTube videos of any length, from 60-second Shorts to hour-long cooking marathons. For longer videos with multiple recipes, the AI identifies and separates each recipe so you can save them individually.
Absolutely. Every extracted recipe automatically generates a categorized shopping list with estimated prices. You can also merge shopping lists from multiple video recipes into a single grocery run, so nothing gets missed.