Mealie can scrape recipes from most cooking websites, pulling out just the ingredients, steps, and photo — skipping the 2,000-word preamble about someone's trip to Tuscany.
Importing a recipe
- Open Mealie from your Terrarium dashboard
- Click the + button (top right)
- Select Import from URL
- Paste the recipe URL
- Click Import
Mealie uses structured recipe data (schema.org) that most cooking sites embed in their pages. It pulls the title, ingredients, instructions, prep time, servings, and photo.
First time setup
The first time you open Mealie, it will walk you through creating an admin account. This is Mealie's own account — separate from your Terrarium login. After that, you land on an empty recipe library ready to fill.
Adding recipes manually
Click + → Create Recipe to type one in from scratch. This is useful for family recipes, cookbook recipes, or anything that isn't online.
Organizing recipes
- Tags: Add tags like "weeknight", "vegetarian", or "dessert" to any recipe
- Categories: Group recipes into broader categories
- Search: Full-text search across all recipe titles and ingredients
Mobile
Open your Mealie URL (https://{your-username}-mealie.getterrarium.app) in your phone's browser. The interface is responsive and works well on mobile — handy for following a recipe while cooking.