MealDB Scraper - Food Recipes & Ingredients

Scrape meal recipes from TheMealDB. Search by name, browse by category or cuisine. Get full ingredient lists with measures, cooking instructions, images, and YouTube video links.

Features

• Search by name: Find meals by name (e.g. "chicken", "pasta", "curry")
• Browse by category: Get all meals in a category (Beef, Seafood, Dessert, Vegan, etc.)
• Browse by area/cuisine: Get all meals from a cuisine (Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, etc.)
• Random mode: Fetch a batch of random unique meals for discovery
• Full details: Every result includes complete ingredient list with measures
• Fast: Direct JSON API calls, no browser needed

Output Fields

Field	Description
id	MealDB meal ID
name	Meal name
category	Category (Beef, Chicken, Seafood, Dessert, etc.)
area	Cuisine/area (Italian, Japanese, Mexican, etc.)
instructions	Step-by-step cooking instructions
ingredients	Array of {ingredient, measure} objects
imageUrl	Meal thumbnail image URL
youtubeUrl	YouTube recipe video URL
source	Original recipe source URL
tags	Comma-separated tags
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp

Input Options

• Mode: search (by name), category (by category), area (by cuisine), or random
• Search Query: Meal name to search for
• Category: Beef, Breakfast, Chicken, Dessert, Goat, Lamb, Pasta, Pork, Seafood, Side, Starter, Vegan, Vegetarian
• Area: American, British, Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Thai, and more
• Limit: Maximum results to return (default 25, max 100)

Use Cases

• Recipe apps: Build meal recipe databases with ingredients and instructions
• Menu planning: Browse meals by category or cuisine for meal planning
• Grocery lists: Extract ingredient lists for shopping
• Content creation: Generate food content for blogs, social media, or YouTube
• Nutrition apps: Collect recipes organized by cuisine and category
• Education: Learn about international cuisines and cooking techniques

Example Output

{
  "id": "52772",
  "name": "Teriyaki Chicken Casserole",
  "category": "Chicken",
  "area": "Japanese",
  "instructions": "Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9x13-inch baking pan...",
  "ingredients": [
    { "ingredient": "soy sauce", "measure": "3/4 cup" },
    { "ingredient": "water", "measure": "1/2 cup" },
    { "ingredient": "brown sugar", "measure": "1/4 cup" },
    { "ingredient": "garlic", "measure": "1/2 teaspoon" }
  ],
  "imageUrl": "https://www.themealdb.com/images/media/meals/wvpsxx1468256321.jpg",
  "youtubeUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aZr5hZXP_s",
  "source": "http://www.ثقافته.com/recipes/teriyaki-chicken-casserole",
  "tags": "Meat,Casserole",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-26T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Data Source

• TheMealDB - Open, crowd-sourced database of meal recipes from around the world

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