Its finally time for the long overdue Part II! In my previous post I outlined how we can setup Apple Notes to manage our own recipes using a combination of a folder or tags and a template. The next couple of parts will show you how to add features via Shortcuts to really take advantage of storing our recipes in Apple Notes. 

Storing our recipes in Apple Notes already gives us some pretty robust search-ability using the in-app tags & search or with Spotlight. Siri, however, can give us the ability to search for our recipes from anywhere in the OS. Enter Shortcuts.

First let’s create a new Shortcut and add the necessary steps:

Pretty simple, right? You can download my version of the Siri Shortcut here: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/14c7407002254b4496d141002c185fd0

Step #2 is where you can customize how to query for your recipes. For instance, with my shortcut, I only look for notes in my Recipes folder and I check if the input, i.e. search query, is found anywhere in the body of the recipe. I also like to sort the results randomly so I am not always seeing certain recipes first, potentially making forgotten recipes re-discoverable. Of course this is a personal preference you can query, sort, and limit your results anyway you like.

For posterity, here is the configuration of my Find Notes Where step:

Once you’ve tested out the shortcut and it works to your satisfaction, we can then deploy two methods for searching our recipes. First, we can add the shortcut to our home screen. This makes using the search as simple as tapping an app. Second, we can activate it using Siri, e.g. “Hey Siri, search recipes” (the actual term is dependent on the name of your shortcut). Then you can follow up that prompt up with what you are searching for, like “Soup,” and voila, your soup recipes will be presented. It’s all magic really. 🪄🎩🐰🥕

Up next in our series finale we will create another shortcut that will add the ingredients of a recipe to our grocery list. See you soon!