Recipes & the Recipe Builder

A recipe is the list of ingredients (and quantities) that make up a menu item or a prep item. Recipes are what let Inventory deplete stock automatically as dishes sell and calculate your food cost. This article covers building recipes with Nexy or by hand, sub-recipes, yields, and location-specific overrides.

Where to find it

Open a menu item and use the Recipe Builder panel. You can also manage reusable prep recipes from the recipe library.

Save the menu item first. If a menu item is brand new, save it once before building its recipe.

Two ways to build a recipe

Option A — Quick Recipe (Nexy)

The fastest way to start:

In the Recipe Builder, click ✨ Quick Recipe (Nexy).
Enter the dish name, the number of servings, and any style notes (e.g. gluten-free).
Click Generate. Nexy proposes ingredients and quantities, matched to your existing inventory.
Review the list. Ingredients Nexy already recognizes are marked matched; ones it doesn't are marked new.
Click Add to recipe. Any "new" ingredients are created automatically.
Adjust quantities as needed and Save.

Option B — Build manually

Click Build manually.
For each ingredient, click + Ingredient and choose the item, then enter the quantity and optional yield %.
To include a prep recipe, click + Sub-recipe and choose it (see below).
Set the batch yield if the recipe makes more than one portion.
Save.

Live cost as you build

As you add and edit lines, the Recipe Builder shows a live cost total and cost per portion, using each ingredient's latest cost. If any ingredient is missing a cost, the cost is flagged incomplete so you know the number isn't final.

Sub-recipes (prep recipes)

A recipe line can point to another recipe — for example a house marinara used in three dishes. Build the marinara once as a prep recipe; then add it as a sub-recipe line in each dish that uses it. Cost and stock depletion flow through automatically, so updating the marinara updates every dish that uses it.

Batch yield & yield %

Batch yield — if a recipe produces multiple portions (a batch of soup that serves 20), set the yield so per-portion cost is calculated correctly.
Yield % — accounts for trim and loss (e.g. peeling, cooking down). A 90% yield means 10% is lost in prep.

Enterprise recipes vs. location overrides

By default, recipes are set at the Enterprise level and used by every location.

When building in a venue context, you can choose This venue only to create a recipe just for that location.
To change an existing shared recipe for one location, open it in that venue and click Override for this venue. This makes a copy you can edit freely — the Enterprise recipe and all other locations are unaffected.
A location that has an override always uses its own version; every other location keeps using the Enterprise recipe.

Tip: Only override when a location genuinely differs. Leaving a dish on the shared Enterprise recipe means a single edit updates it everywhere.

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