How to save recipes from Instagram reels (as real recipes)
By Parth Akholkar, who makes Skwirl · 8 November 2026
Recipe reels are great to watch and hard to cook from. The ingredients flash on screen for a second, the amounts are said once, and the reel ends up buried in your Saved folder with a hundred others.
The manual way
- Pause the reel at each ingredient and type it into your notes app.
- Check the caption and the comments. Creators often put the full recipe there, or "recipe in comments".
- Save it in a collection called "Recipes" so you can at least scroll to it later.
It works, but it's slow, and most of us never do it.
The quick way: share it to Skwirl
Skwirl watches the reel for you. It listens to what's said, reads the text on screen, the caption and the top comments, and writes the recipe out:
- Ingredients as a checklist you can tick while you shop or cook.
- Steps in order.
- Searchable later by dish or ingredient: "paneer", "no-oven dessert", "that 10-minute pasta".
- Open Skwirl and start free.
- In Instagram, tap Share on the recipe reel and pick Skwirl (or paste the link).
- A couple of minutes later the recipe is in your library.
It works with YouTube Shorts, Facebook and X videos too. Already have dozens of recipe reels saved? Import your whole Saved folder.
Skwirl writes what the reel says. If a creator doesn't give amounts, the note won't invent them, so check the original for anything that matters.
More guides: How to search your saved Instagram reels · How to export your saved Instagram posts and reels