Inspiration
Recipe inspiration is everywhere: short videos, social posts, websites, screenshots, and handwritten notes. But saving a recipe is only the beginning. When it is time to cook, the recipe is often buried in a camera roll, a bookmark folder, or a long video.
I built Hireci to solve that gap. It helps people turn scattered recipe inspiration into a personal cookbook that is easier to search, understand, and actually use in the kitchen.
How it works
Hireci lets users import recipes from supported links, social posts, screenshots, photos, videos, or pasted text. The app organizes the available ingredients and cooking directions into an editable recipe.
Users can then search their recipe collection, save recipes into folders, adjust servings, create meal plans, and build grocery lists from the recipes they want to cook.
The goal is simple: save a recipe once, find it later, and cook it without digging through screenshots or old bookmarks.
How I built it
The iPhone and iPad app is built natively with Swift and SwiftUI. SwiftData is used for the local recipe experience, while UIKit supports platform interactions such as sharing, importing, and camera-based workflows.
Firebase handles authentication and account-related services. The server side is built with Laravel and PHP, and the recipe processing pipeline uses the OpenAI API to help structure imported recipe content.
I designed the product around real cooking situations rather than a generic content feed: large readable controls, clear ingredients and instructions, adjustable servings, meal planning, and shopping lists.
Challenges
One of the hardest parts was handling recipes that arrive in very different formats. A clean recipe website, a screenshot, a handwritten note, and a short video all contain different amounts of information. The app needs to preserve useful context while still producing a recipe that people can edit and cook from.
Reliability was another challenge. Imports can take time, fail temporarily, or return incomplete information. The app therefore needs clear progress states, useful fallbacks, and safe syncing between the local device and the user's account.
I also had to balance automation with user control. AI can help organize a recipe, but users still need to review and correct ingredients, quantities, and instructions before cooking.
What I learned
I learned that a recipe app is not only about discovering food. The most important moment comes later, when someone is standing in the kitchen and needs to find the right recipe quickly.
That shaped Hireci's direction: less clutter, fewer lost saves, and a calmer path from inspiration to dinner.
Hireci is still evolving, and I am continuing to improve import reliability, recipe organization, shared cooking workflows, and the everyday experience of planning and cooking meals.
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