Recipe to Grocery List Shortcut
Making habits easier
Small conveniences can make a big difference when you’re trying to stick to habits.
I love to cook and try new recipes. But on busy days even tiny steps — picking a recipe, adding ingredients to a grocery list, going shopping — can feel like too much. And when that happens, I fall back on the same recipes or skip cooking altogether.
They’re small steps, but they can still get in the way of something I enjoy.
A small shortcut
Making a grocery list was one of those friction points. I wanted to make that step a little easier, so I’d be more likely to try new recipes.
I use Apple Reminders for my grocery list and get recipes from New York Times Cooking. I built an Apple Shortcut to connect the two — so adding ingredients from a new recipe takes seconds instead of minutes.
The details
This shortcut skips pantry staples like salt, pepper, and oil that I probably already have, and don’t need to buy for each recipe. And it combines ingredients that wrap to multiple lines so they don’t appear twice.
Next, I’d like to improve it by:
Removing preparation notes (“peeled”, “for garnish”) that I don’t need for grocery shopping
Making the grocery list more scannable by reformatting each ingredient to have the ingredient name (“garlic”) first, followed by the quantity and unit (“1 clove”)