How to save recipes from Facebook (Reels and posts)

Why recipes get lost on Facebook

Facebook's Saved list was built to hold anything: videos, links, listings, events. Recipes land in the same pile as everything else. There's no list of ingredients to search, and no way to pull up the chicken recipe you saved last month without scrolling through all of it.

Posts also disappear. A page changes its name, a group goes private, or the person who shared the recipe deletes the post, and the item in your Saved list stops opening. Even when the post is still there, the recipe is rarely in one tidy place. It's buried in a long caption under a story about someone's summer, scattered across the comments, or only said out loud in the video while the cook stirs the pot.

A screenshot in your camera roll has the same problem. It's in there somewhere, between photos of the kids and a picture of where you parked, and you can't search it for the word chicken.

So the goal isn't really to save the post. It's to get the recipe itself, the ingredients and the steps, into a place you control.

Step one: copy the link in Facebook

Every way of keeping a Facebook recipe starts from the post or Reel. Facebook moves its buttons around from time to time, so here are the general steps rather than exact menus:

1. Open the post or Reel with the recipe.
2. Tap Share.
3. Choose Copy link.

The link is now on your clipboard, ready to paste wherever you want to keep the recipe. The idea is the same on a computer: find Share, then copy the link.

Step two: paste it into Chefra

In Chefra, you can import a recipe by pasting a link from a recipe website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook or X. Paste the Facebook link, import it, and the recipe is in your Chefra instead of sitting in another pile of links.

It works when the post has readable text, captions or speech. Some posts can't be read: one behind a login wall, for example, or a video with no caption and no one talking. If a link doesn't come through, try one of the other ways in below.

There's more about every way in on the recipe importer page.

Sharing straight from Facebook on Android

If you use Chefra on an Android phone, you can skip the copy and paste. Chefra lets you share a recipe into it straight from another app, so in Facebook you tap Share and send the post to Chefra from your phone's share options.

This works in the Android app and in the web app installed on an Android phone. It isn't available in the iPhone or iPad app yet. On an iPhone or iPad, copy the link and paste it into Chefra instead.

When the link doesn't work: a screenshot or the caption

Chefra can also import a recipe from a photo or screenshot, or from pasted text. Both come in handy on Facebook:

• Take a screenshot. If the ingredients and steps are on your screen, in the caption or on a recipe card shown in the video, take a screenshot and import it as a photo. If it's in the video, pause on it first so nothing is cut off.
• Copy the caption. If your phone lets you select the caption's text, copy it and paste it into Chefra as text.

If the recipe is only spoken in the video, with nothing written down anywhere, jot the ingredients and steps down as you watch and paste your notes in as text. It's slower, but the recipe ends up written down for good.

Once it's saved: plan it, shop for it, cook it

Saving the recipe is the first step. These are the ones that get it onto the table.

• Plan it. Put it on a day. Chefra lets you plan meals on a day, week or month calendar, with saved recipes or quick free-text meals.
• Shop for it. Add every ingredient you haven't checked off to any grocery list in one tap. Or send the ingredients from this week's meal plan to the grocery list you pick, skipping what's already on it.
• Cook along. Tap Start Cooking inside the recipe and follow it step by step, with timers, progress and a screen that stays awake.
• Keep it. Organize recipes into cookbooks with your own cover photo, then search, filter by tag and sort. A cookbook just for the ones you found on Facebook is a good place to start.

And when you've made it and want to send it back to the friend who posted it, you can share it as a web link anyone can open without an account, as long as the recipe is set to Public or Unlisted.

A quick checklist

1. In Facebook, tap Share, then Copy link.
2. In Chefra, paste the link and import it.
3. On Android, share the post straight into Chefra instead.
4. If the link doesn't come through, import a screenshot or paste the caption as text.
5. Put it on your meal plan, add it to a grocery list, and cook along.

The best time to save a recipe properly is the moment you find it. Your Saved list can keep the funny videos. The recipes deserve a cookbook of their own.