Recipes

The Recipes tab is a library of kidney-safe recipes, each one scored so you can tell at a glance how it fits your diet. You can also bring in your own recipes — from websites, cookbooks, even handwritten cards — and KidneyPal will work out the kidney-safe nutrition for you.

Browsing the Library

Tap the Recipes tab to browse. Each recipe card shows a kidney score badge so you can quickly tell how kidney-friendly it is.

Filters run along the top of the screen:

You can also search recipes by name using the search bar.

Tip: Tap the funnel icon at the top of the Recipes tab to set your Diet Preferences (Vegetarian, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, and more). The library filters itself automatically so you only see recipes you can actually eat. Diet preferences don’t change your nutrient limits — just what’s suggested.

How Recipes Are Scored

Every recipe carries a kidney score from 0 to 100 — lower is better:

Tap into a recipe and the Why this score? card explains the reasoning, including which nutrient is driving the score based on your own daily limits. Learn how those limits are set in Nutrient Limits.

Reading a Recipe Page

Tap any recipe to open it. From top to bottom you’ll find:

• Total time, Servings, and Difficulty at a glance
• Servings to Eat — use the + and − buttons to set how many servings you plan to eat. Every nutrient number updates instantly.
• Nutrients per Serving — sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and protein (plus any optional nutrients you track), compared against your personal daily limits
• Ingredients — each ingredient has a colored safety dot: green Safe, amber Moderate, red Limit. Ingredients with a concern show a short note explaining why. Tap the copy icon to copy the whole list for shopping.
• Instructions — numbered cooking steps
• Pro Tips — extra preparation pointers included with many recipes

What’s Free and What Needs Pro

This trips people up, so here it is precisely:

¹ On recipes you didn’t create or import yourself, the Instructions section is blurred with an Unlock with Pro button. Recipes you imported or created always show their full instructions, even on the free plan.

See the full Pro comparison in Subscription & Billing.

Adding a Recipe to Your Diary

1. Set Servings to Eat to what you’ll actually have
2. Tap Add to Diary
3. Pick the date (defaults to today) and the meal — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, or Snacks
4. Tap Add to Diary to confirm

The nutrients for your chosen number of servings are added to your daily totals. See Your Daily Diary for what happens next.

Favorites

Found a keeper? Open the recipe, tap the ⋯ menu, and choose Add to Favorites. A red heart appears at the top of the recipe.

To see them all, tap the heart icon at the top of the Recipes tab — that opens My Favorites, a grid of everything you’ve saved.

Free accounts can keep up to 3 favorites; KidneyPal Pro removes the limit.

Importing Your Own Recipes (Pro)

Have a family recipe or one you found online? Import it and KidneyPal’s AI extracts the ingredients, calculates the nutrition, and gives it a kidney score — just like a library recipe. Requires KidneyPal Pro.

Tap the + icon at the top of the Recipes tab (or open My Recipes and tap Add a Recipe), then pick how to bring it in:

• From URL — paste a link from any recipe website
• From Photo — take or choose a photo of a cookbook page or a handwritten recipe card
• From PDF — select a PDF file from your device

Tap Import Recipe and give it a moment — you’ll see the progress as it extracts the recipe, analyzes nutrients, and calculates the kidney score. Imported recipes land in My Recipes, show where they came from, and keep a View Original link for URL imports.

Tip: Your own imported recipes always show their full instructions — the Pro instructions lock only applies to recipes you don’t own.

Creating a Recipe From Scratch (Pro)

Choose From Scratch in the same Add a Recipe screen. Requires KidneyPal Pro.

1. Enter a Recipe Title, the number of Servings, and a Meal Type
2. Type or paste your Ingredients — any format works: a list, sentences, or comma-separated
3. Add Instructions if you like (optional)
4. Tap Calculate Nutrients — the AI works out the per-serving nutrition and kidney score
5. Review the numbers (tap any value to adjust it), then tap Save Recipe

Editing Your Recipes (Pro)

You can edit any recipe you imported or created. Open it, tap the ⋯ menu, and choose Edit Recipe. You can change the title, servings, ingredients, and steps. After editing ingredients, tap Recalculate Nutrients so the nutrition and kidney score stay accurate. You can also tap any nutrient to override it manually — handy when you have exact numbers from a package.

The same menu lets you Add Image (your own photo of the finished dish) and Delete Recipe.

Want to tweak a recipe from the library? Choose Save to My Recipes from the ⋯ menu to make your own editable copy (Pro).

Ask About Recipe (Pro)

Open the ⋯ menu on any recipe and choose Ask About Recipe to chat with the AI about it. The AI knows your kidney profile, so answers are personal to you. Try questions like:

• “Is this safe for my CKD stage?”
• “What substitutions can I make?”
• “How can I reduce the sodium?”
• “How does this fit my daily limits?”

Exporting Recipes as PDF

PDF export is free for everyone — great for printing or sharing with family who do the cooking.

• One recipe: open it, tap the ⋯ menu, choose Export as PDF, then share or save it.
• Your whole cookbook: open the My Recipes filter and tap Export all to bundle every recipe you’ve saved into a single PDF (the button appears once you have more than one recipe).