About us

Recette de cuisine is a directory of homemade recipes, born in Hainaut, Belgium. Every recipe is presented with everything you need to make it at home: quantities, times, difficulty, cost per serving and nutrition facts. The site is free, you can read it without an account, and it's available in nine languages.

How a recipe gets on the site

• Homemade recipes are really cooked. Our authors' recipes are made in their own kitchen and tasted before they're published. Their photos are real photos; only the large decorative illustrations at the top of the sections are created with artificial intelligence, and that's clearly stated.
• Adapted recipes are rewritten and credited. When a dish is inspired by another recipe, we rewrite it in our own words and cite the source.
• Some recipes come from open sources. We also publish recipes shared under a free license, such as the Wikibooks Cookbook, or from sites that allow their reuse. They're fully rewritten in our style before they're published; their source and license are cited on the page, and their photo, when there is one, is a freely licensed image credited to its author. Comments from these sources are never copied: only the useful tips are reworded, without any names.
• You can send in yours. The Submit a recipe form welcomes family recipes and everyday dishes. We read every submission, test it if needed, complete it (photos, times, nutrition) and publish it with your first name. It can come with a link to your post on a major platform (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube…); the link is checked and opens in a new tab.

What you'll find on every recipe

• Quantities that adjust: the + and − buttons recalculate every ingredient, and its price, for the number of servings.
• Prep, cook and resting times, the difficulty and the estimated cost per serving.
• A score out of 100 that sums up in one number how affordable, quick and easy the recipe is.
• Nutrition facts per serving: calories, fat, carbohydrates, sugars, fiber, protein and salt.
• Steps you can tick off as you cook, a page that prints cleanly, and a full-screen cooking mode: the screen stays on, the steps can be read aloud, and every time in a step starts a timer.
• The equipment, tips and variations, step-by-step photos and, when there is one, the video.
• Readers' reviews and ratings, with the author's replies.

How we calculate prices

The cost shown isn't a rough guess: it's calculated ingredient by ingredient from real prices, and recalculated automatically when those prices change.

1. The price of each ingredient

Each ingredient has a price per kilo, per liter or per piece. In order of priority, it comes from:

1. a price set by hand, when a specific product calls for it;
2. our grocery receipts: the prices actually paid on our shopping trips, averaged over the last twelve months and weighted by the quantities bought;
3. a daily survey of Belgian supermarkets (Intermarché, Lidl, Aldi and Delhaize). Every morning, we record the products that match the ingredient. We take their regular price, not the sale price, converted to a price per kilo, liter or piece, and we keep the cheapest product among the tens of thousands we record. A price four times higher than the others, or abnormally low (under 40% of the median price), is discarded: it almost always comes from a misidentified product. A price outside the plausible range for its category (more than €90 a kilo for meat, for example) is also discarded, and so is, when at least four countries have a price, a country's price that is four times higher or lower than the median of the countries. Without a plausible Belgian price, the median of the neighbouring countries is used. When the shop does not give it, or gets it wrong, the price per item, per kilo or per litre is recalculated from the pack size written on the product: a box of 12 eggs at €3.60 gives €0.30 per egg, and a "2 x 100 g" bar counts as 200 g.

2. The price of each line of the recipe

The quantity in the recipe is converted into the price unit: a tablespoon counts as 15 ml and a teaspoon as 5 ml, liquids go from volume to weight using their density, and ingredients counted by the piece (an onion, an egg) have an average weight. The price of the line is that quantity multiplied by the ingredient's price. A cup counts as 250 ml and a glass as 200 ml; a weight given in brackets ("1 glass of semolina (about 200 g)") takes priority. A line written without a quantity ("sugar", "apples") is priced at the usual quantity of that ingredient per serving in our other recipes.

3. The cost of the recipe and per serving

The cost of the recipe is the sum of its priced lines; the cost per serving is that total divided by the number of servings. An ingredient whose price isn't known yet isn't counted: it doesn't inflate the total with a made-up number. And if fewer than three quarters of the ingredients have a price, no cost is shown at all, rather than a total that's too low. The recipe is then labeled budget (under €2.50 per serving), moderate (under €6) or pricey (€6 and over). Seasonings (salt, spices, water) and negligible quantities do not count towards the three-quarters rule; a main ingredient whose quantity cannot be read does. Finally, an implausible cost per serving (less than 3 cents or more than €25) is not shown: it points to a misread quantity or price.

4. How prices change

Once a week, we keep a snapshot of the price of every recipe and every ingredient. A recipe's page compares its current cost with the cost about a month ago and shows whether it's steady, going up or going down.

5. Prices in your country

• Pages in French show Belgian prices, in euros.
• Pages in Dutch show Belgian prices, except for visitors from the Netherlands, who see prices from Aldi, Lidl, Jumbo, Dirk and Spar.
• Pages in Spanish use prices from Spanish supermarkets (Ahorramas, Lidl, Aldi, Condis, Gadis, bonÀrea), and pages in German use prices from German supermarkets (Aldi Nord, Aldi Süd, Penny, Kaufland, mytime.de).
• Pages in Italian use prices from Italian supermarkets (Aldi, Carrefour, Lidl), in euros; pages in Polish use prices from Stokrotka and Aldi Poland, shown in złoty; pages in Chinese use prices from the Cold Storage supermarket in Singapore, shown in Singapore dollars; pages in Portuguese use Belgian prices, in euros. Belgian amounts are converted at the European Central Bank's rate of the day.
• Pages in English use prices from US supermarkets, shown in dollars. Belgian amounts are converted at the European Central Bank's rate of the day.

When an ingredient has no price in the country, or an implausible one (more than four times the Belgian price or, without a Belgian price, the median of the other countries), the Belgian price, or failing that this median, is used, and the page shows how many ingredients are priced at the country's prices.

These prices are only a guide: they vary by store, by brand and with current promotions.

The score out of 100

The score sums up three criteria:

• the price per serving (35%): 100 points at €0.75 or less, 0 points at €6 or more, on an even scale in between;
• the time (35%): 100 points for 20 minutes or less, 0 points for 2½ hours or more. Resting time only counts for a quarter, since it doesn't keep you busy;
• how easy it is (30%): 100 points for an easy recipe, 55 for a medium one, 15 for a hard one.

Our top picks on the home page are the recipes with the best score.

Nutrition facts

They're calculated from the Ciqual food composition table of ANSES (the French food safety agency), using the weight of each ingredient in the recipe, then divided by the number of servings. An ingredient listed without a quantity counts for the usual amount in the site's other recipes, and frying oil only for the share the food absorbs (10%). Salt, pepper, spices and herbs used in very small amounts are left out, as are optional ingredients, those listed "to serve" and an ingredient of unknown composition used at one tablespoon or less. If even one relevant ingredient has no known weight or composition, no values are shown: we'd rather show nothing than a wrong number.

Seasonal recipes

The Seasonal recipes page follows Brussels Environment's calendar of fruit and vegetables in season: every month, it features the recipes that use what's in season. In the Southern Hemisphere (Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia…), where the seasons are reversed, the calendar is shifted by six months based on the country you connect from: in the southern spring, you get the recipes of the Belgian spring.

Appliance reviews

In the Reviews, our authors give their opinion on the electric appliances they really use for their recipes: a rating out of 5, pros, cons and the lowest price found. No brand reviews or pays for these reviews. Some shop links are affiliate links, which is always stated: they may earn us a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Your free member account

A free account lets you keep your favorite recipes and the history of the recipes you've viewed (which you can pause or clear), rate recipes, leave reviews and like other people's. You can sign in with your email address or with Google, Microsoft or Facebook: we then receive only your first name and your email address.

Every contribution earns points:

• 10 points per detailed review;
• 2 points per recipe rated;
• 3 points per like received on a review;
• 1 point per recipe liked;
• 5 points per recipe submitted, then 50 when it's published.

Points move you up the ranks, from Apprentice to Kitchen hand (10 points), Cordon bleu (50), Silver toque (150), Golden toque (400) and Star chef (1,000). Badges also reward milestones: first review, ten recipes rated, a recipe published…

Nine languages

The site is available in French, Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese. Recipes are written in French, then translated automatically with a culinary glossary we check ourselves, so every ingredient keeps its proper cooking name. The typography of each language is respected. Readers' reviews are translated too, with a link to the original text. For legal texts, only the French version is binding.

Stay in the loop

• The newsletter sends new recipes and seasonal ideas, with no ads; you can unsubscribe in one click.
• The RSS feed brings new recipes and reviews to your reader.
• The news page collects what we share day to day on our Facebook page.

Your data

The site sets one technical cookie for your session. Ads (Google AdSense) and audience measurement (Google Analytics) only set cookies with your consent; without it, visits are measured without cookies. The server's visit statistics stay with us. Everything is explained in the privacy policy.

Who we are

Behind the site, there's first and foremost a family kitchen in Hainaut. Meet our authors, their story and their favorite recipes.