Adding a Recipe

Vinst can turn almost anything into a properly formatted recipe — a photo of a handwritten card, a link to a blog post, or text you paste from anywhere. This guide walks through each of the four ways to add one.

What you'll need

A Vinst account (you'll be asked to sign in before anything is saved)
Whatever you're starting from — a photo, a link, some text, or nothing at all
A minute or two per recipe

📱 Using Vinst on your phone? Everything below works the same way — you'll just find the menu behind the ☰ icon instead of a sidebar, and pop-ups open as full screens instead of small centered windows.

The basics, at a glance

Click "Add a recipe" in your Recipe Box
Choose a type: Image, Text, URL, or Blank
Fill in the type-specific form
Vinst extracts and formats the recipe, and it lands in your Recipe Box

Choosing a type

Click "Add a recipe" from your Recipe Box, and pick whichever matches what you're starting from:

Type	Best for
Image recipe	A photo of a printed page, a recipe box card, or a screenshot
Text recipe	Pasting or typing a recipe from a chat, note, or document
URL recipe	A link to a recipe from a blog or website
Blank recipe	Starting completely from scratch

📱 On mobile: this opens as a full-screen sheet you can swipe through instead of a small popup, with the four types stacked in a single column.

On desktop:

On mobile:

Step 1: Add an Image recipe

Upload one or more photos — a printed page, a handwritten card, or a screenshot. Vinst reads the image and extracts the recipe automatically.

Recipe Name — required.
Recipe Creator — optional.
Images — drag and drop or select files. Required: at least one image.
Supported formats: JPG, PNG, or WEBP.
Limits: up to 10 MB per file, and up to 10 images per recipe (extra files beyond 10 are dropped silently, so double-check the count if you're uploading a lot at once).

💡 Below the upload box, "Auto-generate an image for this recipe" is unticked by default — tick it if you'd like Vinst to add an AI-generated photo on top of (or instead of) your uploaded images.

Click Save, and you'll see a loading step while Vinst processes it — this can take a moment, especially for multiple images.

Step 2: Add a Text recipe

Paste or type the recipe directly — from a text message, an email, a note, anything.

Title — required.
Author — optional.
Content — required. Paste or type the recipe with no need to format it first; Vinst parses it into structured ingredients and instructions automatically.

Click Save to submit.

Step 3: Add a URL recipe

Paste a link to a recipe from a blog, website, or social post.

Recipe URL — required. Vinst adds https:// automatically if you leave it off.
Vinst fetches the page and extracts the recipe content into a clean, structured format.
Already saved this one? If the link matches a recipe already in your Recipe Box, Vinst won't create a duplicate — it just takes you to the existing copy.

Click Next to fetch and save it.

💡 If a preview doesn't load for the link, you can usually still continue — a missing preview doesn't block the recipe from saving.

Step 4: Add a Blank recipe

Prefer to write it yourself from scratch? Choose Blank recipe and fill in the form directly:

Recipe Name — required.
Recipe Creator, Recipe Introduction — optional.
Ingredients — required: at least one. Use "+ Ingredient" to add one at a time, or "+ Section" to group them (e.g. "For the dressing," "For the topping").
Instructions — required: at least one step. Also supports "+ Section" to break a longer recipe into stages.
Recipe notes, Total time, Servings, Dietary icons (Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Low-Fat, Low-Carb) — all optional.

Click Save once the required fields are filled in.

After you save

Once a recipe finishes processing, it appears in your Recipe Box. You'll also see a quick prompt asking if you'd like to add it to a Collection right away — click "Yes" to pick one, or skip it and do that later from the recipe's own page.

📌 If a recipe fails to process (rare, but it happens with unusual formats or broken links), it just won't show a Food Story page — open it and use the manual Edit option to fix it up yourself.

Now that it's saved, head to Viewing & Tweaking Recipes with Vini to see what you can do with it — adjust portions, convert units, or ask Vini to tweak it for you. Once you've got a few recipes saved, Your Recipe Box covers browsing, searching, and keeping things organized.