To save a recipe from YouTube, start with the video's description: most cooking creators put the full ingredient list and steps there, or link to a written version on their website. Copy that text (or the link) into a recipe app or note. If there's no written recipe, open the transcript and pull the ingredients and steps out yourself.
Saving the video alone isn't enough. A "Watch later" playlist is great until you're standing at the stove with flour on your hands, rewinding for the third time to hear "how much garlic?" Videos are made for watching. Cooking needs something you can glance at.
So here's how we turn a YouTube cooking video into a real, written recipe you can cook from, step by step.
Before you do anything else, tap the video title (on mobile) or click "...more" under the video (on desktop) to expand the full description. This is where the recipe usually lives.
What you're looking for:
Also check the pinned comment. Some creators drop the recipe there instead of the description, and other viewers sometimes post handy conversions (cups to grams, for example).
Once you've found the recipe text, get it out of YouTube and into a place you cook from.
If the description links to a website, open that link and save the recipe from the web page. Our guide on how to save a recipe from any website covers the cleanest ways to do it.
If the recipe is in the description, you have two options:
In Tradish, you can share a YouTube video straight from the YouTube app by choosing Save to Tradish in the share sheet, or copy the link and use Paste a link. Tradish reads the description text (not the video itself), so it works best when the creator has written the recipe out there. Everything lands on a review screen, so you can fix any ingredient or step and choose a cookbook before you save. Tradish is launching on iOS and Android soon. Learn more about saving recipes.
<img src="/images/screenshots/add-recipe-framed.webp" class="phone-single" alt="The Tradish save screen titled "Where's it coming from?" with options to scan a recipe card, upload a photo, paste a link, record a voice memo, or write it out, plus a note about saving from TikTok or Instagram" loading="lazy" /> The Tradish save sheet: paste a YouTube link here, or share from the YouTube app with Save to Tradish.
Plenty of great cooks just talk you through it. No list, no link. For those videos, YouTube's transcript is your best friend.
How to find it:
Then build your recipe:
Auto-generated transcripts aren't perfect. "Two cloves" can become "too close," so read with a little skepticism and trust what you see on screen.
If you're using Tradish, choose Write it out and paste in your notes from the transcript. It structures pasted text into ingredients and steps, and you can clean up the rest. Or choose Voice memo and talk the recipe through while the video plays, with a live transcript as you go. One honest note: if a video's recipe is only spoken, with nothing written in the description, Tradish can't pull it from the audio for you. That's where these manual methods come in.
Tradish is launching on iOS and Android soon. Save YouTube recipes from the description in a couple of taps and keep them right next to your website saves and family recipe cards. Join the waitlist for early access and our best launch price.
Some techniques are easier to see than read: folding dough, shaping dumplings, knowing what "golden" actually looks like. You don't have to rewatch the whole video for those moments.
Here's a simple trick:
Now your written recipe does the heavy lifting and the video is a quick reference, not a requirement.
A YouTube recipe you've written down is now just like any other recipe in your collection. Treat it that way:
If your saves are scattered across YouTube, TikTok, and bookmarks, our guide on how to organize recipes shows a simple system that keeps it manageable.
This is where all that saving pays off. Prop your phone up, open the written recipe, and cook from it like you would a cookbook.
Tradish's Cook Mode (part of Pro) walks you through one step at a time, with a prep checklist, timers on each step, and your screen kept awake, so you can stop rewinding and start cooking.
Expand the video's description and look for a written recipe or a link to the creator's website. Copy that text or link into a recipe app or notes. If there's nothing written, use the transcript to write out the ingredients and steps yourself.
Check the description first (tap the title on mobile or "...more" on desktop), then the pinned comment. Many creators also link to a full printable recipe on their website.
Expand the description and scroll to the bottom, then tap or click Show transcript. The text appears with timestamps, so you can jump to any part of the video. Auto-generated transcripts can mishear words, so double-check quantities.
Some can, usually by reading the video's description rather than the video itself. When Tradish launches, you'll be able to share a YouTube video with Save to Tradish or paste the link, and it works best when the recipe is written in the description.
It's fine for videos you want to watch, but it's hard to cook from. You can't search by ingredient, scale servings, or glance at a step with flour on your hands. Saving a written copy makes the recipe actually usable in the kitchen.
Look in the description first, save the written version (or build one from the transcript), add a timestamp or two for the tricky parts, and cook from text instead of video. Do that once and you'll never rewind for "how much garlic?" again.
Join the Tradish waitlist to be first to know when we launch.
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