How to Import Recipes from Allrecipes, NYT Cooking, and BBC Good Food

If you cook from the internet, you already know the problem. You bookmark a recipe on Allrecipes, save another to your NYT Cooking account, pin a third from BBC Good Food, and two weeks later you cannot find any of them. Each site has its own save button, its own app, its own folder structure, and none of them talk to each other.

This guide describes import attempts for three recipe sources. Site layouts and access requirements can change; a URL or a known site name does not guarantee a complete import. Check each result against a source you can access.

Start with one recipe

Choose one recipe you want to cook. Try its URL first, then use an available text or file import option if the source allows you to obtain that material.

Allrecipes: try the recipe URL

A recipe page may expose structured recipe data. That can provide ingredients and instructions, but does not establish that every page will import correctly.

Step by step

1. Open the recipe you want to save and copy its full URL.
2. Paste it into /import and start the import.
3. Wait for its result or error message; no completion time is guaranteed here.
4. Compare the ingredients, instructions, and servings with the original.
5. Correct missing or misread details before cooking.

Gotchas

Allrecipes shows user reviews inline with the recipe. A naive scraper will sometimes pull a highly rated review tip into the instructions. A schema-aware importer ignores the review block entirely, which is why the URL method is more reliable than copy-paste.

NYT Cooking: handling the paywall

NYT Cooking is subscriber-only for most recipes. If you are not logged in, the page returns a truncated version of the recipe with only the first few ingredients visible. Importers that fetch the public HTML get the stub, not the full recipe.

Step by step

1. Open a recipe you are entitled to access.
2. If URL import is incomplete, check whether the source offers a printable version or allows you to copy the recipe text for your use.
3. If available, save that version as a PDF for file import, or use text import.
4. Compare the result with the original, including quantities and fractions.

Gotchas

NYT Cooking uses em-dashes, fractional Unicode characters (½, ¼, ⅔), and writes temperatures in Fahrenheit only. A good importer converts the fractions to decimals and optionally flips the temperature to Celsius. If yours does not, check the ingredient list for "½" rendered as a broken box character and fix it before saving.

BBC Good Food: metric, method-dense, generally clean

BBC Good Food uses metric measurements by default, separates ingredients from "for the sauce" / "to serve" groups, and writes instructions as dense numbered paragraphs rather than short steps.

Step by step

1. Copy the recipe's full URL and try it in /import.
2. Check each ingredient group against the original; do not assume groups survive import.
3. Review the instructions for missing actions and the quantities for parsing errors.
4. If the result is incomplete, try an available text or file option and review again.

Gotchas

BBC sometimes writes "1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes" where the "x" means "one tin of". A parser that treats "x" as multiplication will decide you need 400 tins. Verify tin/can ingredients after import.

Working through a saved recipe folder

Keep a list of source links and work through the recipes you want to save. Start with a single import and check the result before continuing. Keep your original bookmarks or files until you have checked the saved recipes. This guide does not establish a supported batch size or completion time.

After the import

Open each saved recipe and check its ingredients, instructions, and source link. Try serving adjustments and assigning recipes to a meal plan with a small sample first. Start at /import, or browse /explore for recipe ideas.

A note on schema drift

A source can change its layout or access rules. If an import fails or is incomplete, follow the error message and check what content you can access. Where the source permits it, try text or printable-file import. This guide does not promise an automatic parser repair or a retry deadline.

Quick reference

Start with the source you use most and review one result at a time. The methods above are options to try, not a domain-specific success guarantee.