How to Find the Perfect Recipe: Use the Yummly App's Search Filters

Yummly’s filters make it easy to fine-tune your recipe search. A few clicks will help you find exactly what you need.

I’ve been collecting cookbooks for decades. Right now my library hovers in the 350 range, and that’s after a move to an apartment with less space for bookshelves, which forced me to downsize (thanks, NYC). Many of the older ones are stained and spattered, proof they’ve been used next to the stove, but for the last few years, I’ve been buying them to read rather than to cook from. Yummly is a big reason why.

Back when I had time and cooked for fun — ahem, before I became a mother — I’d bring home an interesting ingredient and pull out a stack of cookbooks whose indexes mentioned it. After a pleasant hour of browsing and comparing, I’d settle on an intriguing recipe. Then I’d start to cook. That approach no longer suits my life. Instead I rely on technology, in the form of the Yummly app and my phone, to plan meals for the week.

By maximizing the filter settings, I can accomplish seven days’ worth of planning in about half an hour. During the week, if I’m just looking for a single recipe to use up some leftover chicken or wilting greens, I usually find what I need in less than five minutes.

Seriously, you have to try this. All you need is a Yummly subscription and the app, on your phone, tablet, or computer.

Jump ahead to:

Two steps for turbo-powered search >>

Food filters >>

Convenience filters >>

Likes & dislikes filters >>

Cooking filters >>

Two steps for turbo-powered search

Searching for "pasta" on Yummly

If you’ve been using Yummly casually, drilling down into your search specifics is going to change your life. It couldn’t be simpler, and it offers more ways to filter than any recipe app I’ve seen. Here’s how it works:

Search for something. Let’s say you have pasta on hand. Do a basic search using just that word, “pasta,” and you get a list of possibilities that goes on for days. No surprise, since Yummly has nearly 2 million recipes in its database. Still, that many options is intimidating, and it would take ages to wade through them. Here’s where things get interesting.
Click the word “filter” and you’re off and running. That’ll open up a list of options so extensive, you’ll be able to pinpoint the perfect recipe with a few clicks. You can use — or ignore — as many filters as you like to get there.

Food filters

Using food filters on Yummly

I always start with food, whether I’m trying to use up what’s already in the fridge or I’m drawing up a shopping list. Here you can list whatever ingredients you have (or plan to have) on hand — in the case of our pasta example, let’s say lemons and broccoli. The more you list, the smaller your group of results. Choosing lemon alone takes the possibilities from a hundred thousand-plus to around 18,000. Add broccoli and we’re under 1,000. Now we’re talking.

Next I think about what kind of food my family likes, which cuisines and global influences. For pasta, I’d choose Italian, Mediterranean, Asian, and American. Boom! Down to 90 results. I could easily scroll through that list and see what appeals, but let’s keep going.

Convenience filters

Using convenience filters on Yummly

At this point I consider the practicalities. What course am I looking for? In this case, dinner — main dishes. I didn’t think this would make much of a difference, but choosing it shaved off almost 20 more recipes. If I knew I wanted to make a pasta salad, clicking “salad” instead would bring my list down into the teens.

Next I think about the reality of my life. And by that I mean cooking time. Most often, I’m hoping to get dinner on the table in a half hour or so. Choosing 30 minutes trims the list down to thirtysomething. Or if I have just 15 minutes, it winnows my choices down to less than 10.

How about that? We’ve taken the list of possible recipes from 100,000+ to single digits in nine clicks, and I’d be shocked if it took more than three minutes. That’s much less time than I’d need to page through a few cookbooks or browse the Internet for recipes.

Likes & dislikes filters

Using "tastes" and "disliked ingredients" filters on Yummly

Honestly, by now usually I’m able to make a selection. But Yummly offers some additional filters that come in handy if you’re feeding people with, let’s say, discerning palates. (Yes, I mean picky eaters.) There’s one called “tastes” that lets you go less or more salty, sweet, bitter, spicy, and so on. Just for curiosity’s sake, I chose “sweet” with the previous selections — pasta, broccoli, lemon, the various cuisines, the cooking time — and it yielded a single selection: Roasted Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo. How perfect is that?

You can even give the app a list of “disliked ingredients,” and it’ll steer your results away from them. Though if I were to enter an honest list of my son’s disliked ingredients, there might not be any recipes left.

These filters don’t just come in handy for personal taste. There are also options to discover recipes suitable for specific diets. For instance, I found five vegan pasta recipes with lemon and broccoli, all of them ready in 30 minutes or less. Similarly, you can choose from a list of common food allergies, which will eliminate recipes that include those foods.

Cooking filters

Techniques filters on Yummly

If you’d rather not use the likes and dislikes filters, you still have another way to trim your list. As I type this, the temperature outside is well into the 90s. Even with air conditioning, I don’t want to heat up my kitchen tonight. (That pasta dish with broccoli and lemon ain’t happening this evening.) The only way we’ll have anything other than salad or, y’know, cold cereal, is if I make dinner in a keep-it-cool gadget like the microwave, pressure cooker, or slow cooker. Good thing they’re all choices in the “techniques” section! That’s in addition to cooking methods like braising, broiling, grilling, marinating, and stir-frying.

These filters are the fastest way I know to find a recipe that works for my situation — no matter what that situation might be. Do I want to use canned tuna, or chickpeas? Is it a rush-rush 15-minute kind of night, or a leisurely weekend afternoon? Am I cooking for my kid’s palate or mine? With so many ways to go and Yummly’s filters, the recipe is always going to be exactly right.