We’ve updated the way we handle units of measure. If you’ve ever not found the unit you wanted or been confused setting up a custom ingredient, this update is for you.

What's New

• Simplified naming conventions
• For custom ingredients, all volume units created automatically from one entry
• Ingredients retroactively updated to increase unit options available

If you prefer to learn over video, we have a version on our YouTube Channel and embedded below:

Unit Naming

Previously, we displayed a 1 before every unit of measure. So if you wanted to use cups as a unit, it would display as “1 cup”. For ½ a cup you’d need to enter a quantity 0.5 and a unit of 1 cup.

While this naming convention made sense to us internally, we’ve fielded tons of questions from people who found this confusing. We understand where this confusion comes from and we’ve now eliminated the “1” that preceded all of the unit labels to create a more straightforward display.

Unit Creation

Adding a new ingredient to the database is pretty simple. All you need to do is copy the nutritional data from a label/spec sheet into our form. That said, setting up units of measure for a new ingredient often caused confusion. As such, lots of user-created ingredients lack the units that other users would want when using it in their own recipes.

Let’s say a user added pancake mix as an ingredient and the nutritional info was based on ¼ cup. Oftentimes, this user wouldn’t include any additional units of measure, so anyone using the ingredient after them would have to do a quick conversion to make it work. If your recipe called for 2 cups of pancake mix, you’d have to select the unit as ¼ cup and set the quantity to 8.

Now, when you add any volume measure our system automatically creates units for all standard volume measures.

That means by simply adding the info for ¼ cup you’re then able to select from teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, fl oz, pint, quart, gallon, mL, Liter. On top of that, all the standard weight measures will automatically be created - gram, oz, lb, kg.

The great news is that this update applies retroactively. So if the person added the pancake mix before the update, the additional units will still become available for this ingredient. So now you’ll find that more ingredients have the units you need and you’ll have to spend less time doing conversions.

What if the unit of measurement that you want still isn’t available?

While we’ve greatly simplified the process, there still needs to be at least one volume unit entered in order to populate all the other volume units. So you may find ingredients that lack volume measures all together.

If this is the case, we have the option to “Copy and create a custom ingredient”.

This function copies over all the data of the ingredient and gives you the ability to edit it. Just click on the hyperlink of the ingredient name and click the copy and create custom ingredient button. From here, you can select edit and add any additional units you want to the ingredient (you’ve just got to know the weight).

💪Pro Tip: While ReciPal creates standard volume measures, we give you the ability to add any sort of unit you need. If your recipe calls for a box of pancake mix you can set up a unit for a non-standard measure (like a box) to make your life easier.

Wrapping it up

Since units are a part of every single recipe, we really focused on making this aspect as easy as possible. This update makes setting up custom ingredients more straightforward and creates more unit options for tons of ingredients. If you have other suggestions on how we can further simplify setting up recipes, please let us know your ideas in the comments.