Quick Start
Platebreaker is a nutrition-first recipe platform. You search for recipes and they rank by how well they fill your nutritional gaps. Rankings update automatically as you add meals to your plan.
Create Your Account
Section titled “Create Your Account”Visit app.platebreaker.com and sign up with your email. Platebreaker runs in your web browser on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Set Up a Profile
Section titled “Set Up a Profile”After signing in, a setup wizard walks you through creating a profile. It collects your name, date of birth, biological sex, height, weight, and activity level. If applicable, you’ll also set a life stage (pregnancy, breastfeeding, or postmenopausal). Then you pick which nutrition authority to follow: NASEM, EFSA, NHMRC, NNR, or a conservative default that pulls the highest targets across all authorities.
The wizard shows your estimated energy requirements and lets you set a weight goal if you want to gain, lose, or maintain. At the end you get a summary of everything before finalizing.
Multiple profiles work for households. Each person gets their own targets based on their age, sex, body measurements, and activity level.
Discover Recipes
Section titled “Discover Recipes”The Discover tab is where you find recipes. The home screen shows category cards (Easy, Dinner, Vegan, Breakfast, and more) along with scrollable carousels organized by theme. Tap any recipe card to see its details, including ingredients, tags, and a link to the original recipe on the creator’s site.
Every recipe in Platebreaker comes from a public recipe website. The platform reads structured recipe data (schema.org/recipe metadata) and calculates nutrition for each ingredient using USDA FoodData Central. Each recipe links back to the original creator’s page.
Search and Filter
Section titled “Search and Filter”Tap the search icon to search by keywords, ingredients, or tags. AND is the default, so “vegan tomato pasta” finds recipes matching all three terms. You can also use OR for alternatives (“vegan pasta OR vegetarian pasta”), a minus sign to exclude terms (“-nuts”), and quotes for exact phrases.
The filter system has six tabs:
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sort By | Order results by top-rated, rating, prep time, or newest |
| Features | Toggle filters like “Has Image”, “Has Rating”, “English Only” |
| Ranges | Sliders for total time, rating |
| Tags | Select dietary tags, cuisines, meal types, cooking methods, and keywords |
| Domains | Filter by recipe source website |
| Date | Filter by when recipes were indexed |
The Tags tab uses a three-list system: Any (OR), Required (AND), and Exclude (NOT). You can build filters like “any Italian or Mexican cuisine, requires gluten-free, excludes dessert.”
Recipe Scores
Section titled “Recipe Scores”Each recipe shows a score from -10 to +10 based on your current nutritional status. High scores mean the recipe fills your biggest gaps. Negative scores mean it’s heavy in nutrients you’ve already met or are close to exceeding. Scores recalculate every time you add or remove a meal from your plan.
Plan Your Meals
Section titled “Plan Your Meals”The Plan tab shows a diary view with your days laid out in meal slots for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks.
To add a meal, tap the Add button at the bottom of the screen. This opens a search interface where you find a recipe, then an Add to Meal sheet appears. Choose the date, meal type, and number of servings (adjustable from 0.25 to 10 in quarter-serving steps). You can select multiple dates at once and set up recurrence patterns for meals you eat regularly, whether that’s daily, weekly, or on specific days of the week.
Once meals are in your plan, drag and drop to reorder within a day, move meals between days, edit portion sizes, or delete them. Each meal card shows the recipe image, title, servings, and which profiles it belongs to.
How Adding Meals Changes Rankings
Section titled “How Adding Meals Changes Rankings”When you add a meal, Platebreaker recalculates your nutritional status for that day and adjusts every recipe score. Add a salmon recipe rich in omega-3 at lunch and other omega-3-heavy recipes drop in score for the rest of the day because you’ve already covered that need. Recipes strong in nutrients you still lack will rise. This feedback loop keeps your meal plan balanced across all 113 tracked nutrients.
Customize Your Targets
Section titled “Customize Your Targets”Platebreaker tracks up to 113 nutrients. 65 targets are set by default based on your profile, and the remaining 48 are available for custom targets if you need them. Adjust any target using absolute amounts (grams, milligrams), percentages of energy, or by body weight (grams per kilogram). You can also change nutrient weights to emphasize or de-emphasize specific nutrients in search rankings.
To edit targets, go to your profile and tap Edit Targets. The editor organizes nutrients across tabs: Macros and Totals, Lipids, Carbohydrates, Proteins and Amino Acids, Minerals, Vitamins, and Other. Pin your most important nutrients for quick access.