Setup in 2 minutes.
Three quick things tell Toui everything it needs to know about your kitchen and your family. Do these once and every recipe forever gets better.
Stock your pantry
Open the Pantry tab. Type 8–12 things you have in your fridge and cupboard right now. Don't overthink it. You'll add more as you go.
The faster way: tap the microphone icon and just talk. Say something like "we have chicken thighs, a dozen eggs, spinach, half a lemon, butter, olive oil, garlic, yellow onion, and a block of parmesan." Toui categorizes it all automatically.
Users who load their pantry have 5-8x the retention of users who skip this step. Your pantry is the engine. Load it once, and every recipe Toui writes you is built around what you already own.
Tell Toui about your family
Open the Preferences tab. Add:
- Dietary rules: keto, vegetarian, pescatarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, etc.
- Allergies: the serious ones. Toui will never suggest these. Ever.
- Dislikes: mushrooms, cilantro, olives — whatever makes your kid scream. Toui remembers and avoids.
- Household size: how many people you usually cook for.
You can update these anytime. Toui honors them on every future recipe. You'll never have to type "no mushrooms" again.
Add your kitchen equipment
In Preferences, scroll to Kitchen Equipment. Check what you own — cast iron, air fryer, Instant Pot, grill, etc.
This is bigger than it sounds. Toui picks cooking methods based on what you actually have. If you own an air fryer, it'll use the air fryer instead of making you preheat the oven for 25 minutes. If you own a cast iron, it'll write searing instructions that assume cast iron. The gear list is how you get faster, better recipes.
Your first dinner.
Open the Cook tab. Tap Dinner. Now you pick one of three modes — and this is where most users miss the best one.
The 3 cook modes, explained.
My Pantry
Toui scans your loaded pantry and writes a dinner from what's actually there. Zero store run.
Quick List
Just type what you've got right now. Fast, no pantry setup needed.
Dream It Up
Any recipe, any ingredients. Toui builds a shopping list too.
80% of the value of Toui is in My Pantry mode. It's the "no store run" magic. If you're defaulting to Dream It Up every time, you're using Toui like a regular recipe app and missing the whole point.
Dialing the vibe.
After picking a mode, you'll walk through 4-5 quick choices:
- Meal type: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert
- Cuisine: Pick one (Italian, Mexican, Thai, etc.) or tap "Surprise Me"
- Time cap: 20, 30, 45, 60+ minutes — Toui respects this strictly
- Servings: How many plates tonight
- Cooks: Solo, 2 chefs, or 3 chefs (more on this in Part 3)
- Gourmet toggle: Flip this for date-night, dinner-party, or "I want to impress myself" nights
Tap Go. Toui writes your recipe in about 15-30 seconds. You'll get 3 options to pick from. Pick one, hit View recipe, then Start Cook Mode.
If Toui generates a recipe and something feels off — a weird ingredient combo, a temperature you think is wrong, anything — trust your gut, not the app. AI is excellent but not infallible. You're the final check, especially for food safety.
The hidden superpowers.
These five features turn Toui from "a recipe app" into "the only cooking tool you need." Most users never find them. You will.
The AI Chef
This is the feature that separates Toui from everything else on the market. You'll see a floating Toui button in the bottom-right corner of any recipe or cook screen. Tap it.
You can ask anything. Say anything. Here are real examples that work:
When you ask for a change, Toui queues the change (you'll see a count appear on the Toui button). When you're ready, tap Apply changes and the whole recipe updates — ingredient list, steps, timers, everything.
You can queue multiple changes at once. "Swap chicken for shrimp, make it spicier, and add a green vegetable." Three changes. One update.
The first time you tell Toui "make it spicier" mid-recipe and the steps actually update — that's when you'll get it. Most users don't find this in their first week. Find it on day one.
Multi-chef mode
When you're setting up a cook, you'll see a Cooks picker: Solo Chef, 2 Chefs, or 3 Chefs. Most users skip past this. Don't.
In 2 or 3 chef mode, Toui splits the recipe into parallel stations. Chef 1 gets a recipe. Chef 2 gets a different recipe. They run at the same time and finish at the same time. You plate together.
Each step shows who's doing what. Instead of:
- Step 3: Chop onion
You'll see:
- Step 3:
Chef 1: Sear the chicken 3 minutes per side
Chef 2: Chop the onion and start the rice
Use it for cooking with a partner. Or to teach your kid how to cook. Or when your mom is helping for Thanksgiving. It turns Toui into a family ritual.
Smart Up Next
The Cook tab isn't just a blank "what do you want?" screen. It's time-aware. At 6pm, Toui shows dinner options first. At 9am, breakfast. At 2pm on a Saturday, lunch or light snacks.
More importantly — if you've been planning meals in the Planner tab, Smart Up Next will pre-surface your planned meal for right now. You tap once and you're cooking. Zero friction.
Shopping list → pantry flow
When a recipe needs something you don't have, it automatically goes to your Shop List. Here's the magic part most users miss:
- Go shopping with the list on your phone
- Check things off as you pick them up (or tap "Got everything")
- Toui automatically adds what you bought to your pantry
- Later, when you cook the recipe, Toui deducts what you used
Your pantry stays accurate without you ever typing in an ingredient list. It's the reason users who stick with Toui for 30+ days report they've stopped grocery-shopping blind.
You can share the shopping list via text, email, or a link. Perfect for sending to a spouse on their way home from work — "grab these 4 things."
Voice pantry input
In the Pantry tab, tap the microphone. Talk for 30 seconds. Say anything naturally:
Toui parses every item, categorizes them (Protein, Produce, Dairy, Leftovers, etc.), and updates your pantry in one shot. Typing a pantry list is for chumps. Talk to it.
Walking into the house with groceries, before you even put them away. Thirty seconds of talking saves ten minutes of typing.
Quick answers.
Real questions from real users. Short, tactical answers.
Add it to your Dislikes in Preferences. Toui avoids everything on that list — forever. If it still shows up, tell the AI Chef: "never suggest mushrooms to me again."
Two ways. Fast: In the Pantry tab, tap the item and set quantity to zero. Faster: Hit the mic and say "ran out of cilantro." Toui understands.
Dream It Up: assumes you're willing to shop. Builds a full shopping list.
Quick List: restricts Toui to only the ingredients you type. Won't add fresh produce or proteins you didn't mention. Great when you're stuck with what you have and don't want to leave the house.
Yes. On any recipe, tap the heart/bookmark icon. It goes to your Recipes tab. You can re-cook, tweak, or share from there anytime.
You'll see a prompt to upgrade. You can read every recipe you've already generated, browse your pantry and shopping list, and plan — but new AI generations pause until you top up. Upgrading takes 30 seconds.
Yes. Toui syncs in real-time across all your devices. Your partner logs in on their phone with the same credentials and sees exactly what you see. If you check off step 3 on your phone, it updates on theirs within a second.
Mostly. If you already have a recipe open, you can cook it offline. AI generation needs internet (to talk to the AI). Once a recipe is loaded, you can cook it in a basement with no signal, no problem.
iPhone: Open Toui in Safari, tap the Share button (square with up arrow), scroll down and tap "Add to Home Screen."
Android: Open Toui in Chrome, tap the three-dot menu, tap "Add to Home screen."
Once installed, it opens full-screen and behaves exactly like a native app.
Trust your gut, not the app. AI recipes are excellent but not infallible, especially around food safety. For meat internal temperatures, use a meat thermometer. If a step seems unsafe or off, don't do it — report the issue via the bug report button in the Account tab.
Yes. On any recipe, tap the share icon. You'll get a link to send via text, email, or any messaging app. They can open and read the full recipe without needing a Toui account.
Account tab → Billing → Cancel subscription. Takes one tap. You keep access through the end of your current billing period. No questions asked.
Account tab → Report a bug. Include a screenshot if you have one. A real person reads every report, and this is how Toui improves. Keep them coming.
Pro tips from power users.
Real behaviors from real Toui users who've turned this app into a weeknight superpower.
The Sunday pantry reset
Power users do a 5-minute pantry review every Sunday morning. Open the mic, walk to the fridge, and say what's in there. Then repeat in the pantry cupboard. Takes less time than brewing coffee, keeps your pantry accurate all week, and every recipe you generate Monday-Friday is dialed in.
The "three options" trick
When Toui gives you three recipe options to pick from, don't just take the first one that looks good. Read all three. The second or third is often more interesting — and the AI was exploring different angles on purpose.
Use Gourmet mode on Saturdays
The Gourmet toggle doesn't just add prettier plating. It triggers Toui to write at Michelin-quality level: multi-component dishes, pan sauces, compound butters, the works. Save it for weekends or date night. You'll feel like you ate out without leaving the house.
Name your meal plan themes
In the Planner tab, power users organize by theme. "Meatless Monday. Taco Tuesday. Pasta Wednesday. Sheet-pan Thursday. Wildcard Friday." Toui suggests meals that fit the theme automatically once it sees your pattern.
Ask the AI Chef "why"
Stuck on a step? Don't guess — ask. "Why do you sear before braising?" or "What does shimmering oil look like?" The AI Chef is a cooking teacher with infinite patience. Use it.
Scale down, not up
Cooking for one tonight but the recipe says 4 servings? Tap the serving picker and drop it to 1. Toui rewrites every measurement. Better than cooking too much and eating leftovers for 3 days.
Turn bad weeknights into recipes
Got a weeknight where everyone's running different directions? Use Quick List with a 15-min time cap. Toui will write you a genuinely good 15-minute dinner — not a compromise dinner. That's the difference between this and takeout.
Save the "bangers" immediately
When a recipe nails it — heart it the second dinner ends. If you wait, you'll forget what made it great. Power users keep a "bangers" collection in their Recipes tab and re-cook from it monthly.
Now go cook.
You know more about Toui than 95% of users. Time to put it to work. Tonight's dinner is one tap away.
Open Toui →