# Instagram Reel Recipe Extractor (`rainminer/instagram-reel-recipe-extractor`) Actor

Turn Instagram Reels cooking videos into structured recipes: ingredients with quantities and units, ordered steps with timestamps, and cook time. Reads on-screen text, speech, and the caption, so silent Reels work too. No login. For recipe apps and food data.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/rainminer/instagram-reel-recipe-extractor.md
- **Developed by:** [rainminer](https://apify.com/rainminer) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, AI, Videos
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $7.50 / 1,000 video analyzeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

### What does Instagram Reel Recipe Extractor do?

**Instagram Reel Recipe Extractor** turns public [Instagram Reels](https://www.instagram.com/reels/) cooking videos into **structured recipes**: ingredients with quantities and units, ordered steps with timestamps, servings, prep and cook time, equipment, and dietary tags.

Paste video links and press **Start**. The Actor watches each video with AI, reads the text shown on screen, listens to the narration, and reads the caption, then merges all three into one recipe. That matters because most short cooking videos put the quantities on screen or in the caption, and many have no speech at all, just music. Transcript tools return nothing for those; this Actor still returns the full recipe.

Use it as a **Instagram Reels recipe API**: call it from your app, export JSON or CSV, or schedule it on Apify.

### Why extract recipes from Instagram Reels?

Short videos are where people find recipes now, but the recipe itself is locked inside the video. Typical uses:

- 📲 **Recipe-saving apps**: import a recipe when a user shares an Instagram Reel link
- 🛒 **Grocery and meal-planning apps**: turn saved videos into shopping lists with quantities
- 🥗 **Nutrition apps**: feed parsed ingredients into calorie and macro calculators
- 📚 **Recipe databases**: build a searchable catalog of creator recipes
- 🍳 **Food brands**: see how creators use your product and in which dishes
- 📈 **Food trend research**: track which dishes, cuisines, and ingredients are trending
- 🌍 **Localization**: translate recipes into another language with `translateTo`
- ♿ **Accessibility**: give viewers a readable recipe instead of a fast-cut video
- 🧑‍🍳 **Creators and agencies**: turn a back catalog of videos into blog posts or cookbooks
- 🤖 **AI agents**: give an assistant a clean recipe object instead of a video URL

### What recipe data can you extract?

| Field | Example |
| --- | --- |
| Recipe title | One Pot 5 Ingredient Sausage Pasta |
| Ingredients | `2` `cups` heavy cream, with the original text and where it came from (on screen, spoken, caption) |
| Steps | "Pour in the heavy cream and water." at `30` seconds |
| Servings, prep, cook, and total time | `4` servings, `25` minutes |
| Cuisine and meal type | Mexican, dinner |
| Equipment | Dutch oven, blender |
| Dietary tags | vegan, gluten\_free, high\_protein (only when obvious) |
| Tips | "Let the steak rest before slicing" |
| Video details | platform, author handle, caption, thumbnail, duration, language |
| Confidence | `0.9` |

Videos that aren't recipes return `isRecipe: false`, so you can filter them out.

### How to extract a recipe from an Instagram Reel

1. Open the Actor and click **Try for free**.
2. Paste one or more **Instagram Reel** links into **Video URLs**.
3. Optional: set **Translate recipe text to** (for example `en` or `de`) to get the recipe in another language.
4. Click **Start**. Each video takes about 20–60 seconds.
5. Open the **Overview** tab for one row per recipe, or the **Ingredients** tab for one row per ingredient. Download as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or read it through the API.

### How much does it cost to extract recipes from Instagram Reels?

You pay a small fee **per video** plus a fee **per second of video**, because longer videos take more AI processing. There's no separate charge for platform usage. Exact prices are on the Pricing tab and drop on higher Apify plans.

On the free plan that works out to roughly:

| Video length | Price |
| --- | --- |
| 30 seconds | about $0.019 |
| 1 minute | about $0.028 |
| 3 minutes | about $0.064 |

- Failed downloads (deleted or private videos) are **not charged**.
- Videos that turn out not to be recipes are charged, because the video was still analyzed.
- Apify's free plan includes monthly credit, which covers well over a hundred videos.

### Input

Click the **Input** tab for all options. A minimal input:

```json
{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbZPyMTPHXu/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbf9BSox3NC/"
  ],
  "maxItems": 5,
  "translateTo": null
}
```

| Field | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `videoUrls` | Instagram Reel links. Other links are skipped with a warning. |
| `maxItems` | Maximum number of videos per run. |
| `translateTo` | Two-letter language code to translate the recipe. Leave empty to keep the creator's language. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Apify Proxy is on by default, because Instagram blocks many datacenter IPs. It's included in the price. |

### Output example

One dataset row per video:

```json
{
  "videoUrl": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbZPyMTPHXu/",
  "authorHandle": "@beth.h20",
  "imageUrl": "https://…",
  "durationSeconds": 61,
  "language": "en",
  "isRecipe": true,
  "recipe": {
    "title": "One Pot 5 Ingredient Sausage Pasta",
    "servings": null,
    "totalTimeMinutes": null,
    "ingredients": [
      {
        "name": "heavy cream",
        "quantity": 2,
        "unit": "cups",
        "originalText": "2 cups heavy cream",
        "notes": null,
        "source": "on_screen"
      }
    ],
    "steps": [
      { "order": 1, "text": "Slice the Andouille sausage.", "startSec": 9 },
      { "order": 4, "text": "Pour in the heavy cream and water.", "startSec": 30 }
    ],
    "dietaryTags": [],
    "confidence": 0.9
  },
  "error": null
}
```

Fields the video doesn't show are `null` rather than guessed. A step's `startSec` is `null` when the moment can't be pinned down.

### Tips for better results

- **Check the caption**: many creators list exact quantities there, and the Actor uses it.
- **Use `confidence`** to route low-confidence recipes for a quick human check.
- **Batch links** in one run rather than starting one run per video.

### Other rainminer Actors for short-form video

- [TikTok Recipe Extractor](https://apify.com/rainminer/tiktok-recipe-extractor): the same recipe extraction for TikTok videos
- [Instagram Reel Places Extractor](https://apify.com/rainminer/instagram-reel-places-extractor): restaurants, cafés, and spots shown in travel and food Reels
- [Instagram Reel Text Extractor](https://apify.com/rainminer/instagram-reel-text-extractor): on-screen text from Reels with timestamps
- [Google Maps Menu Scraper](https://apify.com/rainminer/google-maps-menu-scraper): restaurant menus and prices from Google Maps photos

### FAQ

#### Does it work on videos without speech?

Yes. Music-only videos with quantities on screen are the main reason this Actor exists. It reads the on-screen text frame by frame.

#### Can it handle recipes in other languages?

Yes. By default the recipe stays in the creator's language. Set `translateTo` to translate it.

#### Do I need an Instagram account?

No. The Actor only reads public videos and never logs in.

#### Is it legal to extract recipes from Instagram?

The Actor only processes publicly available videos and doesn't collect private user data. Recipes are the creator's content, so respect their rights and Instagram's terms when you republish anything. If you're unsure about your use case, consult a lawyer.

#### Something looks wrong?

Open an issue on the **Issues** tab with the video link. Feedback goes straight into the next version, and custom versions are possible on request.

# Actor input Schema

## `videoUrls` (type: `array`):

Public Instagram Reel URLs to extract recipes from. Other links are skipped with a warning.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of videos to process in a single run.

## `translateTo` (type: `string`):

ISO 639-1 language code to translate recipe title, ingredients, and steps into (e.g. en, es). Leave empty to keep the original language from the video.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Instagram blocks many datacenter IPs, so Apify Proxy is on by default. Failed downloads are retried with a new proxy.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbZPyMTPHXu/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbf9BSox3NC/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZS3fS0JYpI/"
  ],
  "maxItems": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbZPyMTPHXu/",
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbf9BSox3NC/",
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZS3fS0JYpI/"
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("rainminer/instagram-reel-recipe-extractor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "videoUrls": [
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbZPyMTPHXu/",
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbf9BSox3NC/",
        "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZS3fS0JYpI/",
    ],
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": True },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("rainminer/instagram-reel-recipe-extractor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "videoUrls": [
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbZPyMTPHXu/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbf9BSox3NC/",
    "https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZS3fS0JYpI/"
  ],
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}' |
apify call rainminer/instagram-reel-recipe-extractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,rainminer/instagram-reel-recipe-extractor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/Rsg3tOcP31vBVRKbC/builds/aa4siDgTQvJemYyyd/openapi.json