Recipe Box

Categorizing Grocery Items

2 min read

When grouping by category, Recipe Box needs to decide which category each ingredient belongs to. This is controlled by Category source, Category overrides, and Category order under Settings → Recipe Box → Categories.

Category Sources

Category source has three options:

  • Dictionary (default) - categorize using Recipe Box’s built-in keyword dictionary.
  • Recipe tags - use the trailing #Tag on the ingredient line in the recipe (e.g. - 2 cloves garlic #Produce). If an ingredient has no tag, it falls back to “Other”.
  • Tag, then dictionary - prefer the recipe’s #Tag if present, otherwise fall back to the dictionary.

The Built-in Dictionary

The dictionary matches ingredient names against keyword lists for these categories (also the default category order):

Produce, Herb, Bread, Meat, Seafood, Dairy, Cheese, Egg, Pasta, Grain, Canned, Broth, Sauce, Condiment, Oil, Seasoning, Baking, Snack, Frozen, Beverage, Drinks, Alcohol, Household, Other.

Matching is substring-based and longest-keyword-first, so “ground beef” matches Meat and “roma tomatoes” matches Produce. Anything unmatched falls into Other.

Category Overrides

Category overrides let you force specific ingredients (or substrings) into a category regardless of the dictionary or tags - useful for ingredients the dictionary gets wrong, or personal categories.

Each override is a match string (lower-cased, matched as a substring against the ingredient name) and a category. Overrides are checked first, with longer match strings checked before shorter ones. The settings UI offers autocomplete from categories already in use.

Example: if “miso paste” keeps landing in “Other” and you’d rather it sit with your sauces, add an override with match miso → category Sauce.

Category Order

When Auto-sort categories is off, the grocery list’s category groups follow Category order (a manually-ordered list). Categories not in the list are appended alphabetically at the end. When Auto-sort categories is on, all categories are sorted alphabetically and the manual order is ignored.

Putting It Together

A typical setup:

  1. Leave Category source as Dictionary unless you tag ingredients in your recipes.
  2. Add Category overrides for the handful of ingredients the dictionary miscategorizes for your cooking style.
  3. Leave Auto-sort categories on for simplicity, or turn it off and customize Category order to match how your store is laid out.

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