How to Install Mealie Recipe Manager

By Admin · Mar 2, 2026 · Updated Apr 23, 2026 · 31 views · 3 min read

How to Install Mealie Recipe Manager

Mealie is a modern, self-hosted recipe manager and meal planner with a clean interface, automatic recipe scraping from URLs, and shopping list generation. Running Mealie on your Breeze gives your household a centralized place to store, organize, and plan meals without relying on ad-filled recipe websites.

Prerequisites

A Breeze instance with at least 1 GB of RAM
Docker and Docker Compose installed
A domain or subdomain (e.g., recipes.example.com)

Step 1 — Create the Docker Compose File

Set up a directory and create the Docker Compose configuration:

mkdir -p ~/mealie && cd ~/mealie
cat > docker-compose.yml <<'EOF'
version: "3.8"
services:
  mealie:
    image: ghcr.io/mealie-recipes/mealie:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:9925:9000"
    environment:
      ALLOW_SIGNUP: "true"
      PUID: 1000
      PGID: 1000
      TZ: America/New_York
      BASE_URL: https://recipes.example.com
      MAX_WORKERS: 1
      WEB_CONCURRENCY: 1
    volumes:
      - mealie_data:/app/data
volumes:
  mealie_data:
EOF

Step 2 — Start Mealie

docker compose up -d

Mealie will be accessible on port 9925 after a brief startup period. The default credentials are changeme@example.com with password MyPassword. Change these immediately after your first login.

Step 3 — Configure the Reverse Proxy

Set up Nginx to forward traffic to your Mealie instance:

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name recipes.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9925;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Step 4 — Importing Recipes

Mealie makes it easy to build your recipe collection:

URL scraping — paste any recipe URL and Mealie extracts the ingredients, instructions, and image automatically
Manual entry — create recipes from scratch with the built-in editor
Bulk import — import from other formats via the API

To scrape a recipe, click the + button on the homepage, paste the URL, and click Import. Mealie strips away ads and clutter, saving just the recipe content.

Step 5 — Meal Planning and Shopping Lists

Use the meal planner to drag recipes onto a weekly calendar. Once your week is planned, click Generate Shopping List to automatically compile all required ingredients. Mealie intelligently combines duplicate items and lets you check off items as you shop.

Additional Features

Tags and categories — organize recipes by cuisine, meal type, or dietary restriction
Recipe scaling — adjust serving sizes and ingredient amounts automatically
Cookbooks — group related recipes into themed collections
Multi-user support — create accounts for family members with shared or private recipe access
API access — integrate with home automation or other tools via the REST API

How to Install Mealie Recipe Manager