Help Center
Answers about reading recipes, shopping lists, the meal planner, Premium and Instacart.
Quick start
Add a recipe
Paste a recipe link, snap a photo, or upload a PDF or Word file on the home page. Add as many recipes as you like.
Make your list
Chomp Shopper combines the ingredients and sorts them by store aisle. Save recipes you love to favorites for next time.
Shop it
Check items off on your phone in the store, print or email the list, or send it to Instacart.
Getting started
Paste the recipe link into the box on the home page and press 'Add'. Our system will automatically extract the ingredients and recipe title for you.
Chomp Shopper works with most popular recipe websites including AllRecipes, Food Network, Epicurious, Bon Appétit, and many more. See our complete list of supported recipe sites and usage statistics.
Take a photo or screenshot of the recipe and upload it, or use the 'Type it in' tab to paste or type the ingredients. Either way you can still save the recipe to your favorites and make your list.
Yes. In the list builder on the homepage, click 'Add extras' and type items one per line (like milk, bread, eggs). Extras go on your list but don't count toward your recipe limit. You can also save these items to one of your essentials lists for next time, making it easy to build up your collection of frequently purchased items.
Recipes
When your list appears, tap the heart to save the recipe to My recipes. New recipes start under To try; tap "I made this" after you cook one and it moves to Proven. You can sort recipes into categories, give them your own name and keep notes on each one.
Yes! Click the 'Edit' button on any recipe card to modify the title, add or remove ingredients, or make any other changes. You can also use the undo/redo buttons while editing.
Yes! In your Dashboard's Favorites tab, click 'View Details' on any favorite recipe to see the full recipe information including a link back to the original recipe website.
Your Dashboard is the central hub for all account management. Access it through the user dropdown or by clicking 'Dashboard'. Here you can view favorites, saved lists, order history, and manage your profile settings.
Shopping lists
Go to your Dashboard's Favorites tab, select multiple favorite recipes using the checkboxes, then click 'Create list'. This will combine ingredients from all selected recipes into one organized list.
Our system automatically detects similar ingredients (like 'garlic, chopped' and 'garlic cloves') and combines them into a single shopping list item to avoid duplicates. This works when combining multiple recipes too.
Absolutely! Hover over any item in your shopping list and click the X button to remove ingredients you don't need.
You have three options: Print it directly, copy it to your clipboard to paste anywhere, or email it to yourself or others using our email feature. All options are available from the shopping list modal.
Visit your Saved lists to see all your previously generated shopping lists. You can search through them, view details, print them again, or mark lists as favorites for easy access.
Yes! In Saved lists, use the list actions to manage your saved shopping lists and keep the ones you want to access easily.
Meal planner
The meal planner is a free weekly calendar tool available to all registered Chomp Shopper users. It lets you schedule breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day, then automatically generate a consolidated shopping list from all your planned meals. Access it from the top navigation bar or visit chompshopper.com/meal-planner. Just create a free account to get started.
Click 'Create New Plan' and give it a name (like 'This Week's Meals'). You'll see a weekly grid with rows for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Click any empty cell to add a meal to that slot. You can choose from your saved favorite recipes, pick from your recent recipe history, or type in a custom meal name for meals that don't have a saved recipe.
Once you've added meals to your plan, click the 'Generate shopping list' button at the top of the planner. Chomp Shopper combines all the ingredients from every recipe in your plan into a single categorized shopping list — automatically handling duplicate ingredients across recipes. The list opens immediately so you can review, edit, email, or send it to Instacart.
Auto-Generate (the wand icon) automatically fills your meal plan with meals drawn from your saved favorites. You can configure it from the Settings dialog — choose how many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners to auto-fill. You can also turn on weekly auto-generation, with an email when your new plan is ready. Both are free. Templates let you save a filled plan as a reusable starting point — click 'Save as Template' and load it any time you create a new plan.
Placeholder events let you mark a meal slot as a non-cooking occasion — like 'Dining Out', 'Takeout', 'Special Event', or a custom label. These appear as neutral-colored pills in the calendar, keeping that slot accounted for without contributing ingredients to the shopping list. You can create one-off placeholders for a specific date, or recurring placeholders that repeat automatically every week on the same day and meal type (e.g., 'every Friday dinner is pizza night out').
Yes to both. Meals can be dragged and dropped to any other slot in the weekly calendar — grab the card and drop it on the target day and meal type. The meal planner also supports multiple named plans: use the plan selector to switch between them, create a new plan for an upcoming week or special occasion, or delete old plans you no longer need.
Essentials lists
Essentials Lists are reusable shopping templates that contain your frequently purchased items like milk, bread, and household staples. Create a list once, then quickly add all those items to any shopping list with a single click. This premium feature saves time by eliminating the need to manually add the same items repeatedly.
Go to your Dashboard's Favorites tab to create custom lists of items you buy regularly. You'll find the essentials lists section alongside your favorite recipes. Organize items by grocery store categories, add quantities and notes, then save your list. You can create multiple lists for different needs - like 'Weekly Essentials', 'Pantry Staples', or 'Household Items'.
When creating a shopping list from recipes, you'll see an 'Add Essentials' button that lets you select which of your saved essentials lists to include. All items will be automatically added and organized by category, making your shopping trip more efficient.
After adding items with 'Add extras', premium users will see a dialog asking if they want to save these items to an existing essentials list. Select the list you want to add to, and the ingredients will be automatically appended to your existing essentials with default category 'Other' and quantity '1'. You can edit these details later from your Dashboard's Favorites tab where all your essentials lists are managed.
Yes! Visit your Dashboard's Favorites tab to edit any list. In the essentials lists section, you can update item names, change quantities, modify categories, add notes, or remove items. Your changes will apply to future shopping lists where you add these essentials.
Reading photos and messy pages
When a recipe page is hard to read, we use AI (from OpenAI) to pick out the ingredients. It also reads photos of cookbook pages, magazines and handwritten cards. We only use it to read recipes. Then we combine the ingredients and sort them by store aisle.
Take or upload a photo of a recipe from a cookbook, magazine or handwritten card. AI reads the title, servings and ingredients, and we turn them into a shopping list. Free accounts get 3 photo or file reads a day. Premium is unlimited.
Try a closer photo in good light, with the whole ingredient list in the frame. If it still doesn't work, use the 'Type it in' tab to paste or type the ingredients. You can still save the recipe and make your list.
Pricing and Premium
Chomp Shopper has three plans: Free (always free: 5 recipe links and 3 photo or file reads a day, aisle-sorted lists, sending lists to Instacart and the meal planner), Annual Premium ($29/year), and Monthly Premium ($3/month, cancel any time). Both premium plans include the same full feature set. See the Pricing page for details.
Both plans give you exactly the same Premium, including priority support and early access to new features. Annual Premium is $29, billed once a year. Monthly Premium is $3, billed every month. Annual costs less than 12 months of Monthly ($36), and you can cancel either one at any time.
Premium removes the daily limits and adds saving extras: unlimited recipe links, photos and files, unlimited saved recipes, unlimited essentials lists (Free accounts get 5), list history, preferred brands for Instacart, priority support and early access to new features. Annual and Monthly include exactly the same Premium. Sending lists to Instacart and the meal planner are free for everyone.
Reading recipes with AI costs us money every time, so Free has daily limits. Premium pays for unlimited reading and the saving extras. Making lists, sending them to Instacart and the meal planner stay free, so anyone can shop without a credit card.
Instacart and support
Make your list, then press 'Order with Instacart'. We send every item and its amount to Instacart, where you choose a store and check out. It's free for everyone. Premium members can add preferred brands, which we pass to Instacart to help it pick the right products.
You can cancel Annual or Monthly Premium at any time from your account settings. You'll keep access through the end of your billing period with no further charges. For refund requests on either plan, check our 30-day money-back guarantee policy or contact our support team.
Still need help?
Send us a message. We read every one and usually reply by email within a few days.
Contact supportOr check the recipe sites we've tested and pricing.