Recipe Search API Documentation

Our Recipe Search API allows you to search through millions of web recipes and integrate this information into your mobile or web applications.

We have released the Recipe Search V2! The changelog for this new version can be found here Recipe Search API V2 Changelog. We are currently continuing to support the older version of the Recipe Search API.

The Edamam B2B API is accessed by sending HTTPS requests on specific URLs as described below. The base URL is https://api.edamam.com, and you obtain the full URL by appending request’s path to the base URL, for example, https://api.edamam.com/api/recipes/v2.

Our Recipe Search API allows you to search through millions of web recipes and integrate this information into your mobile or web applications.



The above OpenAPI specification for our API can be found here.
More information on OpenAPI can be found at: https://swagger.io/.
Note: Depending on the plan or agreement you are on, not all fields will be available

Edamam Platform Assistant

The Edamam Platform Assistant is a chatbot integrated into four of Edamam’s API. This can provide an easy to use intuitive interface for your customers. The assistant allows you to submit natural language queries and receive back the necessary API calls needed in order to obtain the data requested by your query.

The Recipe Search API is integrated into this service, allowing the Edamam Platform Assistant to construct requests using all the parameters seen above. The Edamam Platform Assistant Documentation can be found here.

Web Recipes

The recipes contained in the Recipe Search API are web recipes. These are recipes collected from throughout the internet. We do not hold the copyrights to these recipes. Therefore, we do not provide the cooking instructions for them, but we do provide the url to the source recipe. The nutrition information is generated by Edamam.

We do offer fully licensed recipes with cooking instructions, this can be discussed by getting in contact with us using the “Support” widget.

Usage with the Recipe Management API

The Recipe Search API also functions as way to access the recipes submitted to the Recipe Content Management API. More information on this can be found at its respective documentation page.

Finding a specific recipe with _links URLs

To go back to a specific recipe, the URL found in the “_links” section of the recipe reponse, under the “Self” titl,e can be used to access that specific recipe directly again.

HTTP Compression

Edamam servers support standard HTTP compression using gzip. Using compression can reduce the size of the response and thus, increase the transfer speed.

The client can include the following header, to indicate what compression methods it supports:

Accept-Encoding: gzip

The server, then will include the following header to indicate the compressed response

Content-Encoding: gzip

or it will omit it, if the response is not compressed.

For more information see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http_compression

Active User Tracking in the Meal Planner API

In order to have Active User tracking, your app_id should be configured with this feature. If the app_id has been configured with this feature, the header for the user ID becomes mandatory or else an error will occur. If your app_id has not been set up for this feature, requests with it will result in error. Contact us if this is a feature you require.

There are restrictions on valid characters for user_ids. Allowed characters are: a-z/A-Z, 0-9, “-”, “_”, “.”. With a maximum length of 30 characters.

Nutrient Guide

The list of all of the nutrients that may be contained as part of a recipe’s nutritional information under the totalNutrients and the totalDaily section of the response. totalNutrients is the absolute nutrient amount, while totalDaily is the percent of daily recommended nutrient intake.

NTR Code Name Unit
SUGAR.added Added sugar g
CA Calcium, Ca mg
CHOCDF.net Carbohydrate (net) g
CHOCDF Carbohydrate, by difference g
CHOLE Cholesterol mg
ENERC_KCAL Energy kcal
FAMS Fatty acids, total monounsaturated g
FAPU Fatty acids, total polyunsaturated g
FASAT Fatty acids, total saturated g
FATRN Fatty acids, total trans g
FIBTG Fiber, total dietary g
FOLDFE Folate, DFE µg
FOLFD Folate, food µg
FOLAC Folic acid µg
FE Iron, Fe mg
MG Magnesium mg
NIA Niacin mg
P Phosphorus, P mg
K Potassium, K mg
PROCNT Protein g
RIBF Riboflavin mg
NA Sodium, Na mg
Sugar.alcohol Sugar alcohols g
SUGAR Sugars, total g
THIA Thiamin mg
FAT Total lipid (fat) g
VITA_RAE Vitamin A, RAE µg
VITB12 Vitamin B-12 µg
VITB6A Vitamin B-6 mg
VITC Vitamin C, total ascorbic acid mg
VITD Vitamin D (D2 + D3) µg
TOCPHA Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) mg
VITK1 Vitamin K (phylloquinone) µg
WATER Water g
ZN Zinc, Zn mg

Nutrient Structure

The structure of the Nutrients based on what is under the totalNutrients and totalDaily sections of the response.

Field Type Description
uri string Ontology identifier
label string Display label
quantity float Quantity of specified units
unit string Units

Response Guide

The first sections of the response contain basic information on your search. “from” and “to” contain what number of the search results depicted in the current response. “count” contains the total number of search results found.

Hits

The “hits” section of the response contains all the search results for the recipe query based on relevance. These will include all the corresponding data for the recipes, as well as all the nutritional information.

Pagination

To obtain the next page, the API user should follow the “next” link from the “_links” section in the result JSON, which looks like this:

"_links" : {
    "next" : {
      "title" : "Next page",
      "href" : "https://api.edamam.com/api/food-database/v2/parser?..."
    }
}

CO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent) Emissions

Edamam has developed the capability to search by CO2e effect per serving. This can be seen through the “co2EmissionsClass” parameter, which uses a rating system to classify the CO2e effect of recipes. The rating starts from A+ and goes down through A, B, C, D, E, F, to G being the highest emissions per serving for a recipe. When searching for recipes with a given rating, for example “B”, the Recipe Search API will return all recipes with a rating of B or better, i.e. A+, A, and B respectively. The new traffic light capability is published as a Beta feature on the Recipe Search API, meaning “beta=true” must be in the request in order to use the “co2EmissionsClass” parameter.

Ingredient Structure

The structure of the Ingredients based on what is under the ingredients section of the response.

Please note that some plans may not include all of the fields for the ingredient object.

Field Type Description
foodId string Food identifier
quantity float Quantity of specified measure
measure Measure Measure
weight float Total weight, g
food Food Food
foodCategory string Shopping aisle category

Image Sizes

You can narrow down the recipe search by specifying the “imageSize” parameter. By specifying from the possible values: THUMBNAIL, SMALL, REGULAR, and LARGE, the search will return recipes that have the specified image size available to use, i.e. using the LARGE value will return recipes that have the Large image size available (which might not be the same results as a query without the image sizes parameter defined, due to differing availability of image resolutions.)

These different sized images can then be seen in the “images” field of the JSON response. The following table shows all possible sizes.

Image Size Dimensions
Thumbnail 100×100
Small 200×200
Regular 300×300
Large 600×600

Diet Labels

The list of all possible Diet Labels generated from the nutrient information on the recipes. These labels describe commonly used nutrient level aspects of the recipe.

Type Web Label API Parameter Definition
Diet Balanced balanced Protein/Fat/Carb values in 15/35/50 ratio
Diet High-Fiber high-fiber More than 5g fiber per serving
Diet High-Protein high-protein More than 50% of total calories from proteins
Diet Low-Carb low-carb Less than 20% of total calories from carbs
Diet Low-Fat low-fat Less than 15% of total calories from fat
Diet Low-Sodium low-sodium Less than 140mg Na per serving

Health Labels

The list of all possible Health Labels generated from the ingredient information on the recipes. These labels describe commonly used ingredient level aspects of the recipe.

Type Web Label API Parameter Definition
Health Alcohol-Cocktail alcohol-cocktail Describes an alcoholic cocktail
Health Alcohol-Free alcohol-free No alcohol used or contained
Health Celery-Free celery-free Does not contain celery or derivatives
Health Crustcean-Free crustacean-free Does not contain crustaceans (shrimp, lobster etc.) or derivatives
Health Dairy-Free dairy-free No dairy; no lactose
Health DASH DASH Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet
Health Egg-Free egg-free No eggs or products containing eggs
Health Fish-Free fish-free No fish or fish derivatives
Health FODMAP-Free fodmap-free Does not contain FODMAP foods
Health Gluten-Free gluten-free No ingredients containing gluten
Health Immuno-Supportive immuno-supportive Recipes which fit a science-based approach to eating to strengthen the immune system
Health Keto-Friendly keto-friendly Maximum 7 grams of net carbs per serving
Health Kidney-Friendly kidney-friendly Per serving – phosphorus less than 250 mg AND potassium less than 500 mg AND sodium less than 500 mg
Health Kosher kosher Contains only ingredients allowed by the kosher diet. However it does not guarantee kosher preparation of the ingredients themselves
Health Low Potassium low-potassium Less than 150mg per serving
Health Low Sugar low-sugar No simple sugars – glucose, dextrose, galactose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, maltose
Health Lupine-Free lupine-free Does not contain lupine or derivatives
Health Mediterranean Mediterranean Mediterranean diet
Health Mollusk-Free mollusk-free No mollusks
Health Mustard-Free mustard-free Does not contain mustard or derivatives
Health No oil added No-oil-added No oil added except to what is contained in the basic ingredients
Health Paleo paleo Excludes what are perceived to be agricultural products; grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils
Health Peanut-Free peanut-free No peanuts or products containing peanuts
Health Pescatarian pecatarian Does not contain meat or meat based products, can contain dairy and fish
Health Pork-Free pork-free Does not contain pork or derivatives
Health Red-Meat-Free red-meat-free Does not contain beef, lamb, pork, duck, goose, game, horse, and other types of red meat or products containing red meat.
Health Sesame-Free sesame-free Does not contain sesame seed or derivatives
Health Shellfish-Free shellfish-free No shellfish or shellfish derivatives
Health Soy-Free soy-free No soy or products containing soy
Health Sugar-Conscious sugar-conscious Less than 4g of sugar per serving
Health Sulfite-Free sulfite-free No Sulfites
Health Tree-Nut-Free tree-nut-free No tree nuts or products containing tree nuts
Health Vegan vegan No meat, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs or honey
Health Vegetarian vegetarian No meat, poultry, or fish
Health Wheat-Free wheat-free No wheat, can have gluten though

Meal Types

List of all possible Meal Types. The meal types refer to the meals in a day the recipe is commonly consumed in.

Type Value
mealType breakfast
mealType brunch
mealType lunch/dinner
mealType snack
mealType teatime

Dish Types

List of all possible Dish Types. The dish types refer to the category of food the recipe would fall under.

Type Value
dishType alcohol cocktail
dishType biscuits and cookies
dishType bread
dishType cereals
dishType condiments and sauces
dishType desserts
dishType drinks
dishType egg
dishType ice cream and custard
dishType main course
dishType pancake
dishType pasta
dishType pastry
dishType pies and tarts
dishType pizza
dishType preps
dishType preserve
dishType salad
dishType sandwiches
dishType seafood
dishType side dish
dishType soup
dishType special occasions
dishType starter
dishType sweets

Cuisine Types

The list of all possible Cuisine Types. The cuisine types refer to the cuisine that the recipe would fall under.

Type Value
cuisineType american
cuisineType asian
cuisineType british
cuisineType caribbean
cuisineType central europe
cuisineType chinese
cuisineType eastern europe
cuisineType french
cuisineType greek
cuisineType indian
cuisineType italian
cuisineType japanese
cuisineType korean
cuisineType kosher
cuisineType mediterranean
cuisineType mexican
cuisineType middle eastern
cuisineType nordic
cuisineType south american
cuisineType south east asian
cuisineType world