How to make a shopping list from recipe videos
2 min readUpdated October 1, 2026
Quick answer
Write down each recipe’s ingredients with their amounts, merge the ones that repeat by adding amounts in the same unit, and round up what you can only buy whole (eggs, cans). With video recipes, the slow part is getting the ingredients out of the video — an app that reads the video does that part.
Who it’s for: Anyone who plans the week’s meals with recipes saved from Instagram, TikTok or YouTube and shops from a list.
In this guide
Step by step
- 1
Pick the week’s recipes
Three or four are enough. Sharing ingredients between them — the same chicken in two dishes — beats varying everything.
- 2
Get each one’s ingredients
From the caption, when they’re there; from the video, when they were spoken or shown on screen. Always write the amount alongside.
- 3
Merge what repeats
Add amounts in the same unit: 200 g of cheese plus 100 g makes 300 g. Different units sit side by side (“2 tablespoons and 1 cup”).
- 4
Scale servings before adding up
If a recipe serves 4 and you’re cooking for 2, halve its amounts first.
Eggs, cans and packs don’t come in halves: round up.
- 5
Group by aisle
Produce, meat, deli, pantry. A list in aisle order ends the back-and-forth.
Where to keep the list
- A notes app with checkboxes. Google Keep and Apple Notes tick off what’s already in the cart.
- A chat with yourself. It’s at hand in the store and easy to send to whoever is shopping.
- Paper. Still works. You just can’t search later which recipe needed that ingredient.
The list comes from the recipes
In Munvi every saved recipe already has its ingredients with amounts, even when they were only spoken in the video. Select the week’s recipes in a folder and tap the shopping-list button: it puts everything together, adds up what repeats and rounds up eggs and cans. One tap copies the list to paste wherever you like.
Questions
How do I add “2 cups” to “200 g”?
Not safely without knowing the ingredient: keep both amounts side by side and buy for the larger.
What about “to taste” items like salt and oil?
List them once, without an amount. Most kitchens already have them.
Does this work with recipe websites, not just videos?
The same way. In Munvi, a recipe page also becomes a card with ingredients.