The weekly loop, step by step
Fornetto does one job: it turns the meals you fancy into a shopping list you can walk through the shop with. This page is everything it does and how to do it — five minutes to read, then a Sunday habit.
Six things it fixes
Fornetto was built for one household’s weeknights. Each of these is a section below.
Can’t think what to cook
Your own recipes, favourites and collections in one searchable list — by name or by ingredient — or a tile per collection, plus Inspiration and forty ready-made starters.
“We should make this more” — then it’s forgotten
Save it while you’re still at the table: a link, a reel, a photo of the page, or just its name. It’s there next Sunday.
What does it need again?
Ingredients are a list, not a paragraph, so the week’s recipes become one shopping list and the stock check asks only what’s missing.
The shop takes forever
Sorted by aisle, in the order you walk it. Ticks survive no signal and the screen stays awake.
Recipe pages with the life story and the adverts
Paste the link; Fornetto keeps the recipe card and the photo, nothing else, in one place the whole house can read.
Remembering to tell whoever’s shopping
One household, one live list. Anyone adds “we’re out of milk” from their own phone; whoever’s at the shop sees it.
Get your recipes in
Seven ways in — use whichever is nearest to hand. You check every draft before it’s saved.
Share it from the app you found it in
In Instagram, TikTok, Safari or Chrome, tap Share and pick Fornetto: it opens on the add screen with the import already running, so there’s no link to copy across. Built in on Android once Fornetto is on your home screen; on an iPhone it’s a Shortcut you add once — see On your phone below.
Paste a link
Tap Add — the + in the middle of the tab bar on a phone, “Add recipes” in the sidebar on a computer — then Paste a link. The Fornetto AI panel opens on Link with the address box ready; paste any recipe page's address and tap Import. It reads the page and fills in the title, ingredients, method and photo for you to check, in English even if the page isn’t. The original link is kept on the recipe.
Save it from Instagram, TikTok or YouTube
Choose Social and paste the post’s link — or, if the app won’t hand one over, the caption itself. A caption in another language comes in translated into English. Sharing the post to Fornetto (step 1) does the paste for you.
Photograph a page
Choose Photo and take a picture of the cookbook page, flat and in good light; a page in another language comes in translated into English. It costs three credits rather than one, because reading a photo is harder. If the page has a photo of the finished dish, Fornetto crops it out and uses it as the recipe’s photo — remove or change it before you save if it isn’t right.
Type a title
Choose Title, type the dish and tap Generate. Fornetto writes the recipe — often instantly, from the shared library of dishes it has written before. “Write a fresh one instead” asks for a new version.
Write it by hand
Tap Open under Recipe details and type it in: the title, ingredients one per row, the method one step per line. Free — no credits.
Starters and Inspiration
Account → App → Add starter recipes offers forty ready-made recipes with photos, one tap each. Get inspiration, first in the Add menu, suggests dishes that fit your household’s tastes — still on the Recipes page once it opens; the ones marked ready are free to add.
Adding something you already have? Fornetto says so before it saves: add it anyway, look at the differences side by side, or update the one you’ve got.
Sort recipes as you save them: under Collections, tap one you already use or type a new name and tap Add. One from a link, a post, a photo or a title also arrives in Imported, Social, Scanned or Generated, and Fornetto asks before saving whether to add one of your own — unless you’ve told it not to. Each collection is a tile on Recipes → Collections.
Plan the week
Three taps per recipe, and the list builds itself.
Find one to cook
Search the Recipes page by name, collection or ingredient, or switch to Collections at the top: a tile for each collection, with photos from its recipes. Tap one to see just those.
Put a recipe on this week
On any recipe card tap Add to this week. On the recipe itself the same button sits at the bottom of the page.
Do the stock check
A short sheet lists the recipe’s ingredients, with how much of each the recipe needs. Tick what you’re missing and leave what’s already in the cupboard — Need everything ticks the lot. Only the ticked ones reach your list.
See the week
The This week tab shows everything you’ve picked. The clipboard button re-opens the stock check to change your answers, or to move the meal to the shortlist if it isn’t happening this week; the bin takes a recipe off the week and its items off the list (it asks first, and offers Add to shortlist instead if you’d rather keep the idea than lose it); Clear all recipes starts the week over.
Shortlist: save an idea for later
Tap Shortlist on a recipe card, or the calendar button on the recipe itself, and it joins your household’s shortlist — without adding a thing to your shopping list. When you’re ready, open the Shortlist tab and tap Move to this week: the stock check runs then, so you’re answering about the cupboard as it is that day. A meal brought forward arrives Unplanned if you plan by day — drag it to a day as usual.
Plan by day, if you want to
Turn Plan by day on at the top of This week and your meals sit under day names — drag one by its handle, or tap the calendar on the row and pick a day. The days are shared with your household, so whoever cooks on Thursday sees the same plan; the switch itself is yours, and leaving it off keeps the week a simple list.
Build the list
Recipe items arrive on their own; add the rest however you like.
Recipe items are already there
Everything you ticked in a stock check is on the List tab, under the recipe it came from, with the amount beside it. When two recipes need the same thing in the same unit, the amounts are added together.
Add your own items
Type one thing at a time into Add a single item — or paste a whole brain-dump into the box below it, “loo roll, bin bags, that cheese Sam likes”, and Fornetto splits it into items. Free.
Keep your regulars
Milk, bread, bananas — the things you buy every week whatever you’re cooking. Tap the repeat button beside one of your own items and it becomes a regular. Next week it waits under Your own items: tap it and it’s back on the list. Edit drops one. Your household shares them. Free.
Generate list by aisle
Tap it and the draft is sorted into supermarket aisles, in the order you walk the shop, and shop mode opens, amounts included, and anything two recipes share says “in 2 recipes”, as it does on the draft. Free, every time. If the draft hasn’t changed since, the button reads Show list by aisle instead. It needs signal, so do it before you set off. Without it, the list page can still open the last list by aisle this phone saved.
Get a nudge on shop day
If you’d like one, Account → App → Notifications can send a notification on the morning you shop, if there’s a list waiting, and another on the evening you plan the week. Each is off until you turn it on, and nothing else is ever sent that way. On an iPhone, reminders come from the installed app.
Clear list wipes the draft and takes every recipe off this week. The recipes themselves stay in your library, and so do your regulars and anything shortlisted.
Shop it by aisle
One hand, a trolley, and no signal.
Tick as you go
Shop mode shows the list by aisle. Tap an item to tick it off; the count at the top tracks progress and the screen stays awake while you shop.
Put the aisles in your shop’s order
Drag the grip beside an aisle name to reorder the aisles. Fornetto remembers your order for next time.
Forgot something?
The box at the bottom adds an item straight onto the aisle list without regenerating it.
No signal? Keep ticking
Ticks are saved on your phone and sent when you’re back online. Installed on your home screen, the list, this week and your recipes open with no signal at all — as they were the last time you had signal, which a note at the top tells you.
Clear collected
When you’re done, Clear collected removes the ticked items from the aisle list and the draft. The week’s recipes stay until you change them.
Share it with your household
One kitchen, one list, everyone’s phone.
Invite someone
Account → Household → enter their email, or make an invite link and send it on WhatsApp. When they accept, you share everything — recipes, the week, and one live shopping list.
One list, everyone’s phone
Anyone adds items or ticks them off, and everyone sees it. Recipe cards say who added what, and the Recipes page can filter by person.
Managing the household
The owner can rename the household and remove members; anyone can leave. Free accounts share with one other person; Premium has no limit. From 27 October, in a bigger household on Free the owner chooses who that person is in Account → Household, and everyone else can look but not change things.
Give a friend Fornetto
For someone outside your household: Account → Household → Give a friend Fornetto has your own link. Share it, and when they sign up with it and their household finishes its first shop, they get an extra week of Premium and you get 30 extra AI credits for that month.
Put it on your home screen
Fornetto installs from your browser — full screen, its own icon, it works in the shop with no signal, and it can remind you on shop day. No app store. The install guide walks through it for iPhone and Android.
Once it’s installed, sign in once inside the app — it keeps its own login.
Once you’re using it
Can I plan which meal is on which day?
If you want to. Turn on the Plan by day switch at the top of the This week page and your meals sit under day names. Drag one by its handle, or tap the calendar on its row and pick a day. The days are shared with everyone in your household, so whoever is cooking on Thursday sees the same plan. Leave the switch off and the week stays a simple list: nothing else changes either way.
Can I save a recipe without shopping for it yet?
Yes, that’s what the shortlist is for. Tap Shortlist on a recipe card, or the calendar button on the recipe’s own page, and it joins your household’s shortlist without putting a single ingredient on your shopping list. When you’re ready to cook it, open the Shortlist tab and tap Move to this week: only then does Fornetto ask what you already have in. Taking a meal off the week offers the shortlist too, so one you didn’t get round to is kept rather than lost.
Can it remind me to do the shop or plan the week?
Yes, if you want it to. Turn on Shop day in Account → App → Notifications and Fornetto sends a notification on the morning you shop, if there’s a list waiting. The Plan the week reminder does the same on an evening you choose, if nothing is planned yet. Each is off until you turn it on, and nothing else is ever sent that way. On an iPhone, reminders come from the installed app, so add Fornetto to your home screen first.
We cook something great, then forget it existed. How does Fornetto help?
Every recipe you save is searchable by name, collection or ingredient (“what did we make with that chorizo?”). The Collections view lays each collection out as a tile with its recipes’ photos, favourites are a tap away, and the whole household can see who added what. If you try to add the same recipe twice, it tells you.
Ready when you are
Pick the week’s meals, get a list you can actually shop from, and stop buying a third jar of cumin.