Recipe Finder

Cook What You Have, Love What You Make.

Comment

Inspiration

Every day, people open their fridge and feel stuck sometimes there are random ingredients that don't match, sometimes a lot of ingredients, but no idea what to cook. I wanted to simplify that moment of indecision. Instead of sifting through endless low-quality Google results, what if you could just input your ingredients and instantly see high-quality recipes from trusted sources? That’s how Recipe Finder was born : A smarter, cleaner way to cook what you already have.

What it does

Recipe Finder lets users:

  1. Enter ingredients they have on hand
  2. Toggle trusted recipe sources like AllRecipes or Food Network
  3. Get real, relevant recipes with match percentages
  4. Instantly explore links from credible cooking websites

Challenges

  1. Achieving a working prototype with API integration was extremely hard: What I achieved was the ability to integrate the API, but it fails in a lot of scenarios, falling back to statically generated recipes. What is next is building onto this system and ensuring a fully functional website.
  2. Handling a good UI/UX with two pages in one prompt was also hard and it required a lot of prompt refinements and tries to land on the final version
  3. Google Custom Search sometimes returned unrelated or broken links, so I had fine-tuned queries and filtered for known domains but still with the constraint of one prompt it was hard to ensure full functionality
  4. Handling user-added custom sources required validation logic and heuristics to ensure useful results

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  1. Functional MVP with one-prompt
  2. Ingredient-based recipe search that actually returns useful results from credible sources
  3. Smart source toggling and persistent user preferences using localStorage

What I learned

  1. How to leverage Google’s Custom Search API to create a focused vertical search experience
  2. Handling edge cases in fuzzy matching of ingredient names
  3. The importance of speed, simplicity, and clear CTA-driven design

What's next for Recipe Finder

  1. "Let It Cook" Mode : An AI-powered feature that suggests experimental recipes or remixes based on user ingredients
  2. Ingredient Autocomplete & Pantry Syncing
  3. Nutrition Info & Filters (e.g., vegan, gluten-free)
  4. Save & Share Recipes

Built With

  • bolt
Share this project:

Updates