TheMealDB Recipe Scraper — Ingredients & Instructions

Pull recipes with full details — search by name, or grab every meal in a category, cuisine or ingredient — as clean JSON/CSV/Excel. Each recipe comes with its ingredients + measures, step-by-step instructions, category, cuisine, image, tags, YouTube video and source link.

Powered by TheMealDB. Keyless, no anti-bot — built for food & recipe apps, meal planners, diet tools and content.

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What this Actor does

Give it any mix of inputs and it returns full recipes:

• Search by name — e.g. arrabiata, beef wellington, pancakes — with complete details.
• By category — pull every meal in Dessert, Seafood, Vegetarian, Beef, Pasta…
• By cuisine (area) — every meal from Italian, Turkish, Mexican, Japanese, Indian…
• By ingredient — every meal that uses chicken_breast, salmon, garlic…

For category/cuisine/ingredient results, it automatically fetches each meal's full details (ingredients, measures, instructions) — or you can switch to a fast, light list.

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Why use it

• Complete recipes, structured. Ingredients paired with measures, full instructions, image and video — ready for an app or a dataset.
• Four ways in. Name search, category, cuisine or ingredient — build exactly the recipe set you want.
• Keyless and clean. No API key, no anti-bot, no scraping headaches — fast and reliable.
• Media included. Every recipe has a dish image, and most have a YouTube tutorial link.
• Great for apps & content. Meal planners, diet/nutrition tools, recipe blogs, chatbots and RAG pipelines.

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Who it's for

• Food & recipe app developers needing a structured recipe source.
• Meal-planning & diet tools building menus by cuisine, category or ingredient.
• Content creators & bloggers assembling recipe collections.
• AI builders feeding recipes into cooking assistants and RAG.

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Quick start

Run it in the console (no code)

1. Fill any of the fields:

   Meal names:  arrabiata, pancakes
   Categories:  Seafood, Dessert
   Cuisines:    Italian, Turkish
   Ingredients: salmon
   

2. Keep Include full details on for complete recipes.

3. Click Start, then export as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Leave everything empty for a demo.

Run it via API (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run_input = {
    "areas": ["Italian", "Turkish"],
    "categories": ["Dessert"],
    "includeDetails": True,
}

run = client.actor("YOUR_USERNAME/themealdb-recipe-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

for r in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{r['title']} ({r['area']}, {r['category']}) — {r['ingredientCount']} ingredients")

Run it via API (JavaScript)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/themealdb-recipe-scraper').call({
    mealNames: ['arrabiata'],
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((r) => console.log(`${r.title}: ${r.ingredients}`));

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Input

Field	Type	Description
Meal names (search)	array	Recipe name searches, full details. Empty-all = demo.
Categories	array	Seafood, Dessert, Vegetarian, Beef, Chicken, Pasta, Lamb…
Cuisines (areas)	array	Italian, Turkish, Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Chinese…
Ingredients	array	chicken_breast, salmon, garlic (underscores for spaces).
Include full details	boolean	Fetch each meal's full recipe for category/cuisine/ingredient results. Default on.
Max recipes per query	integer	Cap per query. Default 100.
Speed (parallel queries)	integer	Queries at once. Default 4.
Proxy configuration	object	Apify Proxy. On by default.

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Output

One record per recipe:

{
  "source": "Turkish",
  "sourceType": "area",
  "idMeal": "52977",
  "title": "Corba",
  "category": "Side",
  "area": "Turkish",
  "ingredients": "Lentils: 1 cup; Onion: 1 large; Carrot: 1; ...",
  "ingredientCount": "13",
  "instructions": "Pick through your lentils for any foreign debris...",
  "tags": "Soup",
  "thumbnail": "https://www.themealdb.com/images/media/meals/xxxx.jpg",
  "youtube": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxx",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.themealdb.com/...",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-10T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Field	Description
source / sourceType	The query value and how it was searched (name/category/area/ingredient).
title / category / area	Recipe name, category and cuisine.
ingredients / ingredientCount	Ingredients paired with measures, and how many.
instructions	Full cooking steps.
tags	Recipe tags.
thumbnail	Dish image URL.
youtube	Video tutorial link (when available).
sourceUrl	Original recipe source.
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp.

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Tips & notes

• Combine inputs. Mix names, categories, cuisines and ingredients in one run to build a themed recipe set.
• Fast list mode. Turn Include full details off to get a quick id/title/image list (useful for building a picker, then enriching later).
• Ingredients for spaces. Use underscores in ingredient names (chicken_breast).
• Dedupe. The same meal can appear via multiple queries — dedupe on idMeal if needed.

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Frequently asked questions

Do I need an API key? No — it uses TheMealDB's public endpoints.

Can I get all meals from a cuisine or category? Yes — add them to Cuisines or Categories; with Include full details on, each meal comes back complete.

Are measures included with ingredients? Yes — each ingredient is paired with its measure (e.g. Lentils: 1 cup).

Is there an image and video? Every recipe has an image; most have a YouTube link.

Good for a cooking app or AI assistant? Yes — clean, structured recipes with ingredients and steps are ideal for apps, meal planners and RAG.

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Export & integrate

Results are available as JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML and via the Apify API. Push to Google Sheets, a webhook, Make, Zapier or your database.

Data from TheMealDB.