Simply Recipes Scraper

Recipes Scraper

Scrape Recipes search results for any recipe or ingredient, up to a million per run. Every recipe comes with its ingredients, instructions, nutrition, and ratings. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Recipes has thousands of tested recipes, but there is no official API for bulk access. This Actor searches the public recipe pages by keyword, reads each match, and returns the structured data in one flat row per recipe. It is built for recipe researchers, food bloggers, and meal-planning apps that need clean recipe data without scraping by hand.

Who uses it	What they scrape Recipes for
Food bloggers	Find popular recipes for a given ingredient to inspire their next post
Meal-planning app developers	Build a recipe database with structured ingredients and instructions
Nutrition researchers	Collect nutrition facts for a set of recipes to analyze dietary patterns
Recipe aggregators	Populate their site with Recipes content under fair use

What it does

This Actor collects Recipes recipe data by keyword search and returns each recipe as a flat row with ingredients, instructions, nutrition, and ratings.

• 🔍 Keyword search: enter any recipe name or ingredient, like 'pasta' or 'chicken soup', and get matching recipes.
• 📊 Structured output: each recipe returns ingredients, instructions, nutrition, and ratings in a flat row.
• ⚙️ Flexible volume: set maxItems from 1 to 1,000,000 recipes per run.
• 📁 Multiple export formats: download as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Recipes data

🍝 Build a recipe database.

A meal-planning startup runs the Actor with 'pasta' and maxItems 5000 to seed their app with structured pasta recipes, including ingredients and instructions.

📈 Track food trends.

A market researcher runs weekly searches for 'air fryer' and 'plant-based' to see which recipes Recipes is promoting and how ratings change over time.

🥗 Analyze nutrition data.

A nutritionist collects 200 recipes for 'salad' and exports the nutrition fields to compare calorie and macro profiles across recipes.

📝 Inspire blog content.

A food blogger searches 'chocolate cake' to find the top-rated Recipes versions, then writes a roundup post linking to the originals.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No official API	Recipes does not offer a public API, so this Actor is the only way to get bulk recipe data.
Complete recipe data	Ingredients, instructions, nutrition, and ratings are all included in one row.
Scalable	Collect up to a million recipes per run, enough for a full recipe database.
No coding required	Run it from the Apify console or API with a search query.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Recipes the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Recipes Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Recipes changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a single search query, and set the maximum number of recipes to collect. The search runs on Recipes' own relevance ranking, so the top results come first. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "searchQuery": "pasta",
 "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
 "searchQuery": "pasta",
 "maxItems": 200
}

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Recipes Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Recipes through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/simplyrecipes-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your searchQuery. Try a more common term like 'pasta' or 'chicken'. Also make sure maxItems is at least 1.

Why did the run stop before reaching maxItems?

Recipes may have fewer matching recipes than your maxItems. The Actor stops when there are no more results.

Why are some nutrition fields empty?

Not all Recipes pages include full nutrition data. The Actor returns whatever is available on the page.

Why did the run time out?

Large maxItems values can take a long time. Try reducing maxItems or increasing the Actor's timeout in the Apify settings.

Can I get only recipes with a certain rating?

This Actor does not filter by rating. It returns all search results. You can filter the exported data afterward.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Does this Actor scrape the full recipe text?	Yes, it returns the full ingredients list and step-by-step instructions for each recipe, along with nutrition facts and ratings.
Can I search by ingredient instead of recipe name?	Yes, the searchQuery field accepts any keyword. Searching 'chicken' will return recipes that use chicken as an ingredient.
How many recipes can I get in one run?	You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000. The actual number returned depends on how many matching recipes Recipes has for your query.
What export formats are supported?	You can export the results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify dataset.
Do I need an API key or login for Recipes?	No, this Actor reads the public website directly. No registration or API key is required.
Is the data returned in a consistent schema?	Yes, every recipe is returned as a flat row with the same fields, so you can easily import it into a database or spreadsheet.
Can I schedule this Actor to run regularly?	Yes, you can set up a schedule in Apify to run it daily, weekly, or at any interval you need.
Does this Actor handle pagination?	Yes, it automatically follows the search result pages until it reaches maxItems or there are no more results.
What if my search query returns no results?	Try a broader keyword or check the spelling. Recipes may not have a recipe for very specific terms.
Is this Actor legal to use?	You should only scrape public data in accordance with Recipes' terms of service and applicable laws. Apify provides the tool, but you are responsible for how you use it.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Recipes. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.