A simple recipe ingredient and instruction parser that avoids regexes as much as possible.

Getting started

Install package from npmjs.com:

npm install @jlucaspains/sharp-recipe-parser
# or
yarn add @jlucaspains/sharp-recipe-parser

Then:

import { parseIngredient, parseInstruction } from '@jlucaspains/sharp-recipe-parser';

// with default options
parseIngredient('300g flour', 'en');
// results in
// {
//   quantity: 300,
//   quantityText: '300',
//   minQuantity: 300,
//   maxQuantity: 300,
//   unit: 'gram',
//   unitText: 'g',
//   ingredient: 'flour',
//   extra: '',
//   alternativeQuantities: []
// }

// with explicit options
parseIngredient('300g flour, very fine', 'en', { includeAlternativeUnits: true, includeExtra: true});
// results in
// {
//   quantity: 300,
//   quantityText: '300',
//   minQuantity: 300,
//   maxQuantity: 300,
//   unit: 'gram',
//   unitText: 'g',
//   ingredient: 'flour',
//   extra: 'very fine',
//   alternativeQuantities: [
//     {
//       quantity: 0.6614,
//       unit: 'lb',
//       unitText: 'pound',
//       minQuantity: 0.6614,
//       maxQuantity: 0.6614
//     },
//     {
//       quantity: 0.3,
//       unit: 'kg',
//       unitText: 'kilogram',
//       minQuantity: 0.3,
//       maxQuantity: 0.3
//     },
//     {
//       quantity: 10.5822,
//       unit: 'oz',
//       unitText: 'ounce',
//       minQuantity: 10.5822,
//       maxQuantity: 10.5822
//     },
//     {
//       quantity: 300000,
//       unit: 'mg',
//       unitText: 'milligram',
//       minQuantity: 300000,
//       maxQuantity: 300000
//     }
//   ]
// }

// with default options
parseInstruction('Bake at 400F for 30 minutes.');
// results in
// {
//   totalTimeInSeconds: 1800,
//   timeItems: [ { timeInSeconds: 1800, timeUnitText: 'minutes', timeText: '30' } ],
//   temperature: 400,
//   temperatureText: '400',
//   temperatureUnit: 'fahrenheit',
//   temperatureUnitText: 'F'
// }

// with explicit options
parseInstruction('Bake at 400F for 30 minutes.', { includeAlternativeTemperatureUnit: true });
// {
//   totalTimeInSeconds: 1800,
//   timeItems: [ { timeInSeconds: 1800, timeUnitText: 'minutes', timeText: '30' } ],
//   temperature: 400,
//   temperatureText: '400',
//   temperatureUnit: 'fahrenheit',
//   temperatureUnitText: 'F',
//   alternativeTemperatures: [
//     {
//       quantity: 204.4444,
//       unit: 'C',
//       minQuantity: 204.4444,
//       maxQuantity: 204.4444
//     }
//   ]
// }

How it works

sharp-recipe-parser uses a simple technique that preserves words and punctuation in order to tokenize the ingredient and instruction phrases. After tokenization, rules developed specifically for recipe parsing are executed like so:

1. Look through the tokens for numbers (e.g. 1, 10, 1.5, 1/2, 1 1/4, one, etc)
   1. Fractions are parsed using fraction.js
   2. Word numbers (e.g. one, two, etc) are lookup in a language specific dictionary
   3. Ranges for min and max are determined by markers defined in a language specific dictionary (e.g. -, to)
   4. If no numbers are found, reset the index so next step starts at token 0
2. Assume the next word is a UOM, singularize the word, lookup in language specific UOM dictionary
3. Assume the next words up to a comma is the ingredient description
4. Anything after the comma is an extra

Features

parseIngredient

1. Identify the quantity from whole numbers (2), decimals (1.5), fractions (1/2), Unicode fractions (½), composite fractions (1 1/2), and ranges (1-2)
2. Identify 58 notations of english language UOMs plus appropriate plural words (e.g. cup, cups, g, gram, grams, etc). See all UOMs in units.en.ts in source code.
3. Calculate alternative quantity UOMs
4. Identify the ingredient
   1. Note that parenthesis are ignored so 1 cup (150g) flour will only identify flour as the ingredient
5. Automatically removes prepositions from ingredients (e.g. 10g of flour; only flour is identified as ingredient)
6. Identify extra instructions (e.g. 1 cup of carrots, cut small; cut small becomes extra)

parseInstruction

1. Identify instances of time units in minutes, hours, and days
   1. "Bake for 30 minutes"
   2. "Rise for 2 hours"
   3. "Wait 3 days"
2. Identify the temperature in Farenheit or Celcius.
   1. "180C"
   2. "350F"
   3. "180°C"
   4. "180 degree celsius"

Contribute

1. By default regex is not allowed. If absolutely necessary, they will be reviewed in a case-by-case basis
2. All changes need to have appropriate translation in the same PR
3. Open an issue describing the problem you are trying to fix before opening a PR. That should help ensure all PRs are reviewed and approved.
4. Please be nice. This is a work of love, not money.

FAQ

1. Why not use AI? I've tried a few models such as the New York Times Ingredient Phrase Tagger but nothing yielded the results in a satisfactory way. Mostly, they introduced dependencies that were less than ideal.

2. Where is this used? The library was developed side-by-side with Sharp Cooking. As soon as version 1 of the library is released, I expected Sharp Cooking will leverage it in PROD as well.

3. Why not regex? Regex quickly becomes clunky and hard to understand at a glance. There are reasonably simple rules that can be followed to parse and understand a recipe using a tokenizer and dictionaries to lookup specific data.