What each one is actually for
ReciMe
The biggest app in this category by a wide margin, and the one that imports from the most places: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest all land in the same cookbook. It calculates calories per recipe, builds grocery lists and plans meals across the week, and it runs on Android as well as iPhone and iPad, which none of the Apple-only options here do. If you want one app that will still be maintained in three years and you don't care how the recipe is presented once it lands, this is the low-risk pick. The trade-off is that a saved recipe is a wall of text: you get the ingredients and the steps, but nothing shows you what a step should look like while your hands are covered in flour.
Crouton
An Apple Design Award winner and the most thoroughly Apple app on this list — it runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch, and syncs across all of them. Its strength is organizing recipes you already have: websites, your own notes, a photographed card from a relative. Guided cooking, timers, meal planning and Bluetooth kitchen-scale support are all there and well built. It is also the only app here sold as a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, which for a recipe box you intend to keep for a decade is a real argument. Social video is not what it is built around, so if your recipes mostly arrive as Reels, you will be doing more of the work by hand than with ReciMe, Pestle or Mise.
Pestle
The share-sheet workflow done carefully: send a TikTok, an Instagram post or a YouTube link to Pestle and it keeps just the ingredients and the steps, dropping the blog preamble. It turns any saved recipe into a step-by-step guided process, runs on Apple Watch, and has an actively maintained release history. Made by an independent developer, which shows in the level of detail and in how quickly the app moves. Between Pestle and Mise the split is narrow and specific: Pestle is the stronger general recipe manager, while Mise puts more into the cooking screen itself — a generated photo per step and timers attached to the step that needs them.
Umami
Aimed at people who plan a week of dinners rather than collect recipes one at a time: meal plans, grocery lists and a cookbook, with importing from websites and social posts feeding into that. It ships on Android as well as iPhone and iPad. Mid-sized and steady, with a smaller and slower release cadence than ReciMe or Pestle. Choose it if the weekly plan is the thing you actually want, and the recipe import is a means to filling it.
Remy
The most unusual approach here: a voice call with an AI chef that talks you through a recipe and answers questions while you cook, wrapped around meal planning and grocery lists. Interesting idea, and worth a look if hands-free conversation is what you want in the kitchen. Two caveats: it is a small app with very few ratings, and its App Store listing has not been updated since January 2025 — check whether it is still actively developed before you invest a cookbook in it.
Mise our app
Built around one specific problem: a video shows you what each stage should look like, and a written recipe throws that away. Mise generates a photo for every individual step — not another shot of the finished dish — so the recipe still carries the visual information the video had. Importing from Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts is free and unlimited for everyone, with no monthly cap; cooking timers and an unlimited cookbook are what the subscription buys. Recipes translate into 15 languages, and calories and macros are estimated per recipe.
It imports from video specifically: send it a Reel, a TikTok or a Short and you get back a recipe you can cook from. Digitizing a shelf of paper cookbooks is a different job, and a different app.
Try Mise on the App Store →
Questions people actually ask
Which app saves recipes from Instagram Reels and TikTok?
ReciMe, Pestle and Mise all import directly from Instagram, TikTok and YouTube through the iOS share sheet. ReciMe is the largest and adds Facebook and Pinterest; Pestle pairs importing with a well-regarded guided cooking mode; Mise is the only one that generates a photo of every individual step rather than just the finished dish. Crouton and Umami are strongest as general recipe managers and import mainly from websites.
Can an app turn a cooking video into a written recipe?
Yes. Apps in this category run the video's footage and audio through a model that extracts the ingredient list with quantities and the steps in order, then writes them out as text you can read without scrubbing back through the video. Accuracy depends on how much the video actually states out loud — a clip that never names a quantity leaves the app guessing, and every app here will occasionally guess wrong.
Are these recipe apps free?
All six are free to download and all six charge for something. ReciMe, Pestle, Umami and Remy put their upper tiers behind a subscription. Crouton is a one-time purchase. Mise makes recipe importing free and unlimited for everyone, and charges for cooking timers and an unlimited cookbook.
Is there an Android app that saves recipes from TikTok?
ReciMe and Umami ship Android versions. Crouton, Pestle and Mise are Apple-only — Crouton also runs on Mac and Apple Watch, and Pestle on Apple Watch.
Does any of them keep the video itself?
No. These apps write out a recipe that stands on its own; the original clip stays where its creator posted it, and every app here links back rather than rehosting. Mise records the source link on each recipe page for exactly that reason.