Browsing and Searching for Recipes

Your Food World is the personalized universe of recipes and creators matched to your diet. Diet isn't just a filter here — it's the organizing principle, so the recipes you browse are already foods you can eat: your YES list. This guide covers how to find exactly what you're looking for, or discover something new.

Two surfaces work together:

• Explore — for discovery: search, browse, and find new recipes and creators.
• Recipe Box — your saved recipes, kept and organized in one place.

What's free to browse

Browsing your Food World is part of the free foundation — no subscription needed, and PrepSmart is 100% ad-free. The recipes you can open and cook for free come from:

• Starter Recipes — a small, fixed, diet-matched set included with every account.
• Brands, stores, and appliances you follow — their recipes are free to use.
• 3 free recipes from every creator you follow — yours to keep forever.

Following a creator is always free. If you want a creator's full catalog beyond those 3 free recipes, you can subscribe to that creator (their price, most $2.99–$9.99/mo) — see Following and Subscribing below.

The Explore Section

Tap Explore to open recipe discovery. You'll see:

• A search bar at the top (search by name, ingredient, or cuisine)
• Featured recipes matched to your diet
• Browse categories organized by meal type, cuisine, cooking time, and more

Because your Food World is diet-filtered, everything you browse already fits what you can eat. Changing your diet anytime is non-destructive — nothing is deleted; your Food World simply re-filters around your new YES list.

Searching by Name, Ingredient, or Cuisine

Use the search bar to find recipes quickly:

Search by recipe name: "Pad Thai," "Caesar salad," "Beef stroganoff"

Search by ingredient: "Salmon," "avocado," "spinach," "coconut milk"

Search by cuisine: "Italian," "Mexican," "Thai," "Indian," "Mediterranean"

Search by diet or cooking style: "Keto pasta," "vegan dessert," "30-minute dinner"

As you type, the app suggests recipes matching your search. Tap one to open the full recipe.

Browse by Category

Below the search bar, you'll find category tabs:

Meal Type:

• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner
• Snacks
• Desserts
• Drinks

Cooking Time:

• Under 15 minutes
• Under 30 minutes
• Under 1 hour
• Over 1 hour

Difficulty:

• Easy
• Medium
• Advanced

Cuisine:

• American
• Italian
• Mexican
• Asian
• Mediterranean
• And more

Dietary focus (based on your profile):

• Your diet type
• Popular or complementary styles within what you can eat

Tap any category to filter recipes. Combine multiple categories to narrow results further.

Applying Filters While Browsing

When you're browsing a category, use filter buttons to refine:

• Main protein: Chicken, beef, fish, tofu, vegetarian, etc.
• Equipment: Instant Pot, slow cooker, grill, oven, no-cook, etc.
• Focus: High-protein, low-carb, dairy-free, etc.
• Prep/cook time: Combine for total meal duration
• Seasonal: Spring, summer, fall, winter ingredients

Filters are temporary — they apply only while browsing that category and reset when you leave.

Understanding Recipe Cards

Each recipe appears as a card showing:

• Recipe name and creator
• Photo
• Cooking time (prep + cook time)
• Difficulty level (easy, medium, advanced)
• Diet tags: which diets the recipe supports
• Key ingredients (a few at a glance)
• Rating from other users
• A save icon to add the recipe to your Recipe Box

Tap a card to see the full recipe, including ingredients, instructions, nutrition info, and reviews.

Full Recipe View

When you open a recipe, you'll see:

Overview: Name, creator, prep/cook times, difficulty, servings, ratings

Ingredients: Full list with quantities (adjusted to your chosen servings)

Instructions: Step-by-step directions

Nutrition facts: Per-serving details

Reviews: What other users thought

Flex Steps: Divide cooking tasks across your household (if available)

Smart Convert: Adapt a recipe to fit your diet or swap ingredients (where available)

Save or add to your plan: Save the recipe to your Recipe Box, or drop it onto a Meal Tile in your Weekly Plan

Saving Recipes to Your Recipe Box

Tap the save icon on any recipe card to add it to your Recipe Box — your home for saved recipes. From the Recipe Box you can reopen a recipe, add it to a Meal Tile in your Weekly Plan, or send it to your Cook List.

Saved recipes from the free foundation — Starter Recipes, followed brands/stores/appliances, and your 3 free recipes per followed creator — are yours to keep forever.

Following and Subscribing to Creators

Notice the creator's name on each recipe card. You can:

• Tap the creator's name to view their profile
• Follow them — always free. Following gives you 3 free recipes from that creator (kept forever) and surfaces more of their work in Explore.
• Subscribe to unlock that creator's full catalog beyond the 3 free recipes.

Follow vs. Subscribe — the difference:

• Follow is free and adds the creator to your Food World.
• Subscribe is a paid, creator-set price (most creators $2.99–$9.99/mo) that unlocks their entire catalog.

Creator subscriptions are decided in-app, whenever you're ready — not during onboarding. They're completely independent of PrepSmart+: you can subscribe to a creator with or without PrepSmart+, and you never need PrepSmart+ to subscribe to a creator. Add either, both, or neither.

Personalized Recommendations

The Explore home page shows recipes PrepSmart thinks you'll love, based on:

• Your diet and Food World
• Recipes you've saved
• Creators you follow
• Recipes you've recently viewed

These suggestions get smarter over time as you use the app.

Trending and New Recipes

Look for Trending, New, or Editor's Pick sections showing popular or recently added recipes. It's a great way to discover what other users love or what's new from creators you follow.

Recipe Collections

Some creators bundle related recipes into collections (e.g., "30-Minute Weeknight Dinners" or "Budget-Friendly Keto"). Collections appear on creator profiles — tap to see all recipes in the collection. Recipes beyond a creator's 3 free ones require a subscription to that creator.

Tips for Better Discovery

Use specific searches: "Sheet pan chicken" finds recipes better than "chicken"

Lean on your Food World: it's already filtered to foods you can eat, so you skip the noise

Check reviews and ratings: high-rated recipes are usually good bets

Follow creators whose style matches yours: you'll get personalized discovery without endless scrolling, plus 3 free recipes from each

Mix old favorites with new experiments: balance trusted recipes in your Recipe Box with new ones from Explore

Questions?

If you can't find recipes that fit your diet, see our diet guides or contact support — we're here to help you discover great food.