Do your recipes give AI cooking assistants everything they need to read aloud?
Confirms each recipe page emits Recipe structured data with ingredients, steps, and timings.
What this signal tests
We check whether your recipe pages publish Recipe structured data with at least a name and image, and ideally the full set of cooking metadata: ingredients as an array, instructions as ordered steps, ISO 8601 durations for prep and cook time, nutrition, and recipeYield (how many servings). This is the markup voice assistants and AI cooking flows rely on.
Why it matters for your visibility in AI
Recipe is one of the few structured data types Google still actively rewards with rich snippets in classic search, and it is the format every AI cooking assistant expects. Alexa, Google Home, ChatGPT recipe walkthroughs, and Apple's cooking features all extract ingredients and steps from Recipe markup. A recipe without the markup may rank fine in classic search yet be skipped entirely by voice and AI assistants. The nutritional and yield fields are particularly valuable for AI flows that personalise (halving a recipe, calculating calories per serving, checking allergens). Without those fields the AI can either guess (often wrongly) or refuse to help. Sites that emit the full Recipe schema reliably win in AI cooking discovery; sites that emit only name and image pass the basic check but miss the higher-value flows.
Pass criteria at a glance
| Criterion | Passes when |
|---|---|
| Recipe with name + image; full credit when ingredients and instructions present. |
How we test it
We crawl your recipe URLs and look for Recipe structured data. We confirm name and at least one image. For full credit we look for recipeIngredient as an array of ingredient strings, recipeInstructions as an array of HowToStep objects, prepTime and cookTime in ISO 8601 duration format (PT15M for 15 minutes), recipeYield (with a unit), and ideally nutrition as a NutritionInformation object with calories per serving.
Show technical detection method
@type Recipe with name, image; bonus for recipeIngredient[], recipeInstructions HowToStep[], durations PT15M.
If your site fails: how to fix it
- Audit your recipe template. Most recipe sites already emit some Recipe markup; the question is usually whether all fields are complete and well-formed.
- Make sure recipeIngredient is an array of plain ingredient strings, each including quantity, unit, and item (such as 2 cups all-purpose flour). Avoid HTML or markup inside ingredient strings.
- Emit recipeInstructions as an array of HowToStep objects, each with text and optionally image and name. A flat string is allowed but performs worse in AI presentation.
- Format prepTime, cookTime, and totalTime in ISO 8601 duration format. Thirty minutes is PT30M; one hour fifteen minutes is PT1H15M.
- Add nutrition (calories at minimum), recipeYield, recipeCategory (e.g. main course), recipeCuisine (e.g. Italian), and keywords. These improve the recipe's discoverability in AI recipe search.
- Validate the URL in Google's Rich Results Test under the Recipe test type. Recipe is one of the strictest tests and will surface every missing or malformed field.
Quick facts
| Maturity | ESTABLISHED |
|---|---|
| Weight | medium |
| Category | Structured Data |
Primary sources
Related signals
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an image per step or just one image for the whole recipe?
One image for the whole recipe is required to pass. Per-step images are optional but valuable for AI cooking walkthroughs. If you can include them, do; if not, a single high-quality main image is sufficient for the basic signal. AI assistants reading aloud do not need images at all, but visual presentations do.
How do I format mixed units like 1 1/2 cups?
Use the visible format. Recipe consumers, including AI tools, expect human-readable ingredient strings. 1 1/2 cups, 1.5 cups, and 1 and a half cups are all acceptable. Keep the format consistent within a single recipe. The structured data is for extracting the ingredient list, not for arithmetic.
What is ISO 8601 duration format and why does Recipe use it?
ISO 8601 expresses durations as PT followed by hours and minutes (PT30M for 30 minutes, PT1H for one hour, PT2H30M for two and a half hours). It is unambiguous worldwide, unlike formats like 30 mins or half hour. AI tools rely on it to convert to whatever unit the user wants and to do timer arithmetic.
Will Recipe schema bring more traffic to my recipe site?
Yes, on multiple channels. Google still shows Recipe rich snippets (large image, ratings, cook time) in classic search, which lifts click-through rates. AI assistants discover recipes through the same markup. Both effects compound. Recipe is among the highest-ROI structured data types if you publish recipe content.
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