How to save recipes from Instagram Reels and YouTube videos, and get a shopping list

You watch a cooking Reel: fast music, hands chopping onions at speed, a beautiful pot at the end. You tap save and promise yourself you'll make it this weekend. When the weekend comes, you either can't find the Reel among hundreds of saved posts, or you find it and realize the quantities aren't written anywhere.

Why saved recipes don't get cooked

• The saved folder fills up. Instagram's saved posts and YouTube's Watch later hold everything: recipes, funny clips, decor ideas. Finding one Reel months later takes a long scroll.
• Ingredients are spoken, not written. Many cooks only show or say the ingredients, so you end up pausing and rewinding. Others list them in the caption, but without amounts.
• Screenshots are incomplete. A screenshot of the caption or a frame rarely shows every ingredient, and never the method. Then it gets lost in your gallery.
• The shopping list is a separate job. Even with the full recipe, you still have to check what's at home and write down what's missing. That last step is often where the recipe dies.

Saving the post, screenshotting, copying the caption into notes or forwarding it to yourself in a messenger all miss the real job: turning a video into a recipe you can cook and shop from.

Sabad's way: send the link, get the recipe

Sabad's recipe import reads the recipe from the post's link.

1. Send the link. In Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, tap Share and pick Sabad. Or copy the link and paste it into "Import from link" under My recipes. Cooking websites work too.
2. Sabad extracts the recipe. It reads the post and pulls out the ingredients with quantities, and the steps. If the recipe is inside the video, Sabad listens to it. That can take a few minutes, but you don't have to wait; Sabad lets you know when it's ready.
3. The recipe is saved in My recipes, with ingredients and amounts, step-by-step method, servings and calories per serving, plus a button to watch the original video. Cooking mode walks you through the steps at the stove.
4. Add the ingredients to your shopping list in one tap. Things you probably already have, like salt, oil and spices, are listed separately so they don't land on the list for no reason. If the list is shared, your family sees it right away, and Sabad can compare the prices across the online stores that deliver to you.

When the recipe is only in the video

Not every video has a precise recipe. Some cooks just cook without saying or writing anything. Sabad is upfront about it:

• If the method can only be worked out from the video, Sabad writes a rough outline of the steps with a note to see the video for the exact method, and a button that takes you to the original post.
• If the recipe can't be worked out from the video at all, Sabad tries to find a very similar recipe from a cooking site and tells you which site it came from.
• Private posts, and posts with no recipe, can't be imported, and Sabad tells you so.

Tips for better results

• Prefer posts that list the ingredients in the caption or description; the amounts come out more precise.
• Set the servings to your household size before you shop.
• Give the ingredient list a quick look before buying, especially spice and liquid amounts.

Or start from a ready recipe

The Sabad recipe collection ranks dishes by the likes, views and comments on cooks' posts on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. For some dishes, like ghormeh sabzi or kabab koobideh, versions from several cooks sit side by side so you can pick yours. For cheap weekday ideas, see this weekly Persian menu.

Try it: get Sabad free and send it the first cooking Reel you saved. iPhone is coming soon.