TheMealDB Recipe Scraper

Browse and search global recipes from TheMealDB — the world's largest open recipe database. Find meals by ingredient, cuisine area, or category. Get full recipe details including ingredients, step-by-step instructions, and images.

No API key required. Data sourced from TheMealDB — a free, open meal database.

Features

• Browse recipes by ingredient (e.g. chicken, pasta, salmon)
• Browse by cuisine area (Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, and 20+ more)
• Browse by category (Chicken, Beef, Seafood, Vegetarian, Dessert, and more)
• Search by recipe name keyword
• Returns full ingredients list with measures
• Includes step-by-step cooking instructions
• Links to YouTube tutorial videos when available
• No proxy required — free public API
• Retries on rate limits and server errors

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	select	Browse mode: byIngredient, byCategory, byArea, or search
query	string	Ingredient, category, area, or search term (e.g. chicken, Italian, pasta)
fetchDetails	boolean	Fetch full recipe details including instructions (default: true)
maxItems	integer	Maximum recipes to return (1–200, default 20)

Browse Modes

Mode	Query Example	Description
byIngredient	chicken	Find meals containing a specific ingredient
byCategory	Beef	Browse meals by TheMealDB category
byArea	Italian	Browse meals from a world cuisine
search	pasta	Search meals by name keyword

Supported Areas (Cuisines)

American, British, Canadian, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, Egyptian, Filipino, French, Greek, Indian, Irish, Italian, Jamaican, Japanese, Kenyan, Malaysian, Mexican, Moroccan, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Tunisian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

Supported Categories

Beef, Breakfast, Chicken, Dessert, Goat, Lamb, Miscellaneous, Pasta, Pork, Seafood, Side, Starter, Vegan, Vegetarian

Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
mealId	string	TheMealDB meal ID
name	string	Meal name
category	string	Meal category
area	string	Cuisine area/country
instructions	string	Step-by-step cooking instructions
ingredients	array	Ingredient list with measurements
ingredientCount	integer	Number of ingredients
tags	string	Comma-separated tags
youtubeUrl	string	YouTube tutorial URL
imageUrl	string	Meal photo URL
sourceUrl	string	TheMealDB meal page URL
recordType	string	Always "meal"
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp

Example Input

{
  "mode": "byIngredient",
  "query": "chicken",
  "fetchDetails": true,
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example Output

{
  "mealId": "52772",
  "name": "Teriyaki Chicken Casserole",
  "category": "Chicken",
  "area": "Japanese",
  "ingredients": ["3/4 cup soy sauce", "1/2 cup water", "1/4 cup brown sugar"],
  "ingredientCount": 13,
  "imageUrl": "https://www.themealdb.com/images/media/meals/wvpsxx1468256321.jpg",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.themealdb.com/meal/52772",
  "recordType": "meal",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-10T12:00:00+00:00"
}

FAQ

Is this free to use? Yes — data comes from TheMealDB public API, which is free and requires no authentication.

What's the difference between modes?

• byIngredient finds all meals containing a specific ingredient
• byCategory lists all meals in a TheMealDB category (Chicken, Beef, etc.)
• byArea lists all meals from a specific world cuisine (Italian, Japanese, etc.)
• search finds meals whose name matches a keyword

How many recipes are available? TheMealDB contains hundreds of recipes across 20+ world cuisines and 14 categories.

Are instructions available? Yes — set fetchDetails: true (the default) to include full step-by-step instructions and ingredients with measurements.

Data Source

Data is retrieved from TheMealDB API — a free, open meal database with hundreds of recipes from around the world. No scraping is performed; this actor calls the official REST API directly.