Menus
Plan any occasion — from a casual Sunday supper to a full holiday feast — with shopping lists and AI-powered cooking timelines.
Creating a menu
Go to Menus → New Menu. Give your menu a name, then optionally set:
- Event date & time — required for the Day Of planner. Times are stored in your local timezone.
- Location — a venue or address so everyone knows where to be.
- Guest count — used to help Sage estimate quantities when building your shopping list.
- Guests — add family contacts who'll be attending.
"Christmas Dinner 2026 — Baker house, December 25 at 6:00 pm, 14 guests." Set it up in under a minute, then spend the next few weeks adding recipes as you plan the menu.
Adding recipes to a menu
Inside any menu, open the Recipes tab and click Add Recipe. Search your family's collection and select any recipe to add it.
- Servings: Set how many servings you need for this specific event — different from the recipe's default.
- Course: Assign a course (Appetizer, Main, Side, Dessert, etc.) to organize your menu and help Sage plan the cooking sequence.
- Planner notes: Add hints for Sage — anything that affects timing or preparation for this particular event.
You're making Thanksgiving dinner for 18 people. Your turkey recipe defaults to 8 servings — set it to 18 on the menu and the shopping list scales up automatically. Add a planner note: "Turkey is frozen — allow 3 days to thaw in the fridge." Sage will factor this into the Day Of timeline.
You can also add recipes directly from the recipe detail page using the + Add to menu button — it shows a dropdown of your active menus.
Generating a shopping list
Open your menu and go to the Shopping List tab. Click Show and Sage will build a consolidated list from every recipe on the menu.
Sage automatically:
- Merges duplicates — "1 cup milk" and "½ cup milk" from two different recipes become "1½ cups milk."
- Groups by department — Produce, Dairy, Meat & Seafood, Pantry, Spices, and more.
- Suggests retail quantities — "5 cups flour" becomes "1 × 5 lb bag"; "8 eggs" becomes "1 dozen."
- Shows recipe breakdown — expand any ingredient to see which recipes need it and how much.
Your menu has six recipes. Three of them need garlic, two need heavy cream, and four need butter — in different amounts. Instead of six separate lists you'd have to cross-reference by hand, Sage gives you one clean, grouped list with the totals worked out. Print it or pull it up on your phone at the store.
If you edit the menu or change servings, click Regenerate on the Shopping List tab to get an updated list.
Day Of planning with Sage
The Day Of planner is Sage's most powerful feature. Open your menu, go to the Day Of tab, and click Ask Sage to plan. Sage reads every recipe on the menu — including your planner notes — and builds a reverse-engineered cooking timeline so everything is ready at the same time.
Sage considers:
- Cooking times and temperatures — sequencing steps to avoid oven conflicts.
- Make-ahead opportunities — highlighting steps that can (or should) be done days in advance.
- Your planner notes — constraints like frozen ingredients, equipment limits, or dietary adjustments.
The plan is saved to your menu. If your schedule changes or you adjust a recipe, click Regenerate with Sage to build a fresh timeline.
You're cooking a 5-course Christmas dinner: a starter, roast turkey, three sides, and a pudding. Dinner is at 6 pm. Sage works backwards from 6 pm and tells you: start the pudding at 10 am, put the turkey in at noon, prep the sides from 3–4 pm, and time the starter for 5:30 pm. No more last-minute panic about the gravy.
Sharing & archiving menus
Sharing: Use the Share option on a menu to generate a link you can send to guests or other family members. They can view the menu and the recipes without needing an account. The shopping list and Day Of plan are private to your family — guests see the meal, not the logistics.
Archiving: Once an event is over, archive the menu to keep your active list tidy. Archived menus are still accessible — they just move out of the default view. You can unarchive at any time.
Your Sunday roast menu from last month is done and dusted. Archive it so your Menus page only shows the upcoming Easter menu and the summer barbecue you're already planning. Next November, unarchive the Sunday roast and use it as a starting point for Christmas.