How to save a recipe from a YouTube video or Short

YouTube is where a lot of us learn to cook properly. Long videos show the technique, Shorts give you a dinner idea in 40 seconds. But tap Save and you've kept the video, not the recipe. When you're standing at the hob with oily fingers, scrubbing back and forth to hear "how much stock?" again is nobody's idea of fun.

This guide covers where the written recipe usually is on YouTube, what to do when there isn't one, and how to keep it so you'll actually cook it.

Where is the recipe on a YouTube video?

Check these four places, in this order. Most cooking channels use at least one.

1. The description. Tap the title (or "...more") under the video. Many creators paste the full ingredient list here, sometimes with the method.
2. The pinned comment. The first comment, marked with a pin, is the creator's own. If the description is full of sponsor links, the recipe often lives here instead.
3. A link to the creator's website. Bigger channels keep the full written recipe on their own site. That page is usually the best version: exact quantities, oven temperatures and serving sizes, often in a structured format search engines can read (Google calls this recipe structured data).
4. The transcript. If the recipe is only spoken, the transcript is the quickest way to get it down in writing. More on that below.

On a YouTube Short

Shorts hide the description. Tap the Short's title, or the three-dot menu, and choose Description. If the Short is a clip from a longer video, there's often a link to the full version, which usually has a fuller description.

How to use the transcript to write the recipe down

When the recipe is said out loud and never written, the transcript saves a lot of pausing and rewinding. On any video with captions, open the description and tap Show transcript. YouTube's help page explains that the transcript scrolls along with the video and lets you jump to any line.

Read through it once and pull out:

• Every ingredient, with whatever amount is mentioned ("two tins of chopped tomatoes", "a big handful of spinach").
• Oven temperatures and cooking times.
• The order things happen in. Write it as short numbered steps.

Auto-generated captions mishear things, especially quantities and ingredient names ("cumin" becoming "coming" is a classic). If a line looks odd, tap it to jump to that moment and listen. Our guide to getting a written recipe from any cooking video has tips for turning vague amounts like "a splash" into something you can shop for.

Where to keep the recipe once you have it

A YouTube playlist is a fine shortlist, and you can keep playlists private. But a playlist can't tell you which recipe uses the chicken thighs in your fridge, and it can't write your shopping list. Once you've found the written recipe, put it somewhere you control:

• A notes app. Free and quick. One note per recipe: name, video link, ingredients with quantities, numbered steps, servings.
• A recipe app. Better if you save more than a few recipes a month, because you can search by ingredient, plan the week and build a shopping list from what you've saved.

Common mistakes

• Saving to Watch later. It turns into a graveyard. A named playlist like "Weeknight dinners" is easier to come back to.
• Copying the ingredients but not the amounts. You'll be back in the video at the shops. Write the amounts, even rough ones.
• Not writing down the servings. If you don't know a recipe serves two, you can't double it for four.
• Trusting the auto-captions blindly. Check anything that sounds strange before you buy it.

Doing this in DinnerSorted

I make DinnerSorted, so take this with that in mind. On iPhone, tap Share under a YouTube video or Short and choose DinnerSorted. It reads the description and the captions, follows a link to the creator's recipe page when there is one, and lays out the ingredients, steps, time and servings. You check and edit it before saving, and the link to the video stays with the recipe.

From there you can put it on a night of the week, and its ingredients go onto a grocery list with everything else you're cooking. The app is free to download and the free plan includes three automatic imports a month. Unlimited imports come with DinnerSorted Pro, which has a free trial. It's iPhone only for now.