canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/spoonacular.com/spoonacular

# spoonacular API

The spoonacular Nutrition, Recipe, and Food API allows you to access over thousands of recipes, thousands of ingredients, 800,000 food products, over 100,000 menu items, and restaurants. Our food ontology and semantic recipe search engine makes it possible to search for recipes using natural language queries, such as "gluten free brownies without sugar" or "low fat vegan cupcakes." You can automat. The API exposes 99 endpoints secured with apiKey authentication.

## For AI agents

Programmatically search recipes, search recipes by ingredients. Covers 99 operations with apiKey authentication.

## Scope

Does not handle payments, communications, or crm - use for e-commerce only.

## Capabilities

- Search Recipes
- Get Recipe Information
- Integrate spoonacular API into automated workflows
- Query and filter spoonacular API records by parameters
- Monitor spoonacular API operational status and events

## Use cases

### E-Commerce Operations

Use the spoonacular API to perform e commerce operations programmatically. The API provides 99 endpoints covering core functionality including search recipes, search recipes by ingredients, search recipes by nutrients.

Example prompt: Call GET /recipes/complexSearch to search recipes

### Automated ingredients Management

Automate ingredients operations by combining multiple spoonacular API endpoints. Agents can search recipes by ingredients and then search recipes by nutrients in a single workflow.

Example prompt: Call GET /recipes/findByIngredients to search recipes by ingredients, then verify the result

### AI Agent Integration via Jentic

AI agents discover and call spoonacular API endpoints through Jentic without managing credentials directly. An agent searches for the required operation by intent, receives the matching endpoint schema, and executes the call with Jentic-managed authentication. This eliminates the need to read API documentation or handle apiKey tokens manually.

Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'search recipes', load the operation schema, and execute with Jentic-managed credentials

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | /recipes/complexSearch | Search Recipes |
| GET | /recipes/findByIngredients | Search Recipes by Ingredients |
| GET | /recipes/findByNutrients | Search Recipes by Nutrients |
| GET | /recipes/{id}/information | Get Recipe Information |
| GET | /recipes/informationBulk | Get Recipe Information Bulk |
| GET | /recipes/{id}/similar | Get Similar Recipes |
| GET | /recipes/random | Get Random Recipes |
| GET | /recipes/autocomplete | Autocomplete Recipe Search |

## Key resources

- **ingredients** — Operations related to ingredients
- **meal planning** — Operations related to meal planning
- **menu items** — Operations related to menu items
- **misc** — Operations related to misc
- **products** — Operations related to products

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the spoonacular API by hand means provisioning its API key, attaching it to every request, and pointing calls at the api.spoonacular.com host yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import the spoonacular API from the API Directory, store the API key once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** spoonacular puts the recipe id in the URL path (/recipes/{id}/information), so a rule can pin your agent to reading one recipe. The endpoints here are all reads, so you choose which search and lookup operations it may call and nothing writes back.
- **Credential handling:** Your spoonacular API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'search recipes by ingredients' or 'get a recipe's nutrition', and Jentic returns the matching spoonacular API operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **Shopify** — Alternative e commerce API
- **Stripe** — Alternative e commerce API

## FAQ

### What authentication does the spoonacular API use?

The spoonacular API uses an API key passed in the `x-api-key` header. Through Jentic, these credentials are stored encrypted in your Jentic One instance and injected at execution time, so raw secrets never enter the agent context.

### Can I search recipes with the spoonacular API?

Yes. Use the GET /recipes/complexSearch endpoint. The API returns structured JSON responses that agents can parse and act on directly.

### What are the rate limits for the spoonacular API?

Rate limits are not specified in the OpenAPI spec. Check the vendor documentation for current limits. Through Jentic, rate limiting is handled automatically with retry logic built into the execution layer.

### How do I search recipes through Jentic?

Install the Jentic SDK with pip install jentic, authenticate through Jentic One, the self-hosted execution layer, then search for 'search recipes'. Jentic returns the matching spoonacular API operation with its input schema. Load the schema and execute the call - credentials are injected automatically.

### How many endpoints does the spoonacular API have?

The spoonacular API exposes 99 endpoints covering ingredients, meal planning, menu items operations.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the spoonacular API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, your own rules decide which spoonacular operations and credentials the agent may use. Every endpoint here is read-only, so you can allow just the search and lookup calls the agent needs, such as GET /recipes/complexSearch or GET /recipes/findByIngredients, and nothing writes data back. Since spoonacular puts the recipe id in the URL path (GET /recipes/{id}/information), a rule can even pin the agent to reading a single recipe.