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Recipes & food cost

Food cost is the part of a dish’s price that goes on ingredients. If a burger sells for 10 and the beef, bun and toppings cost 3, your food cost is 30%. Menulisa works this out for you so you can see, at a glance, which dishes actually make money.

How it works

  1. 1Add your ingredients as inventory items with a unit cost — see Inventory.
  2. 2Build a recipe for a menu item by listing the ingredients and how much of each it uses.
  3. 3Menulisa adds up the cost and shows the food-cost percentage against the selling price.

What you'll see

  • The cost to make each dish, and its profit margin.
  • An average food-cost percentage across your menu.
  • Which dishes are quietly eating your profit so you can re-price or re-portion them.

Where to find it

  1. 1Open Dashboard › Menu › Recipes & food cost.

Every option in the recipe dialog

  • Recipe for (the scope selector) — every recipe can have several layers: the Base recipe (stock every unit of the dish uses), one recipe per size / variant, and one per add-on option. Variant and add-on layers are additive: extra stock used only when that choice is picked, on top of the base. Each scope shows a badge with how many ingredients it holds.
  • Ingredient lines — pick any stock item and the quantity used, in that item’s own unit. Prep items count too: build the pizza from “tomato sauce (prep)” and the sauce’s real batch cost flows into the dish.
  • Removable — a per-ingredient toggle (base recipe only). Marked ingredients get a “No …” option on the POS; when removed, they’re skipped from stock depletion and the plate-cost snapshot, and print on the kitchen ticket.
  • Live costing — as you type, the dialog shows the plate cost, the food-cost percentage against the selling price, and the margin. The page header tracks costed dishes, your average food cost and items still needing recipes.

A worked example: Margherita

  1. 1Base recipe — 1 dough ball (a prep item), 120 g tomato sauce (a prep item), 90 g mozzarella, 5 g basil, ½ onion marked removable.
  2. 2Variant “Large 14″” — add ½ dough ball, 60 g sauce, 50 g mozzarella. Selling a Large depletes base + these extras.
  3. 3Add-on “Extra cheese” — 60 g mozzarella, only when the guest picks it.
  4. 4A Large with extra cheese and “no onion” now depletes exactly that — and its plate cost and nutrition match the bowl that left the kitchen.

What recipes unlock

  • Selling a dish deducts its ingredients from stock automatically — per size, add-on and removal.
  • Calories and macros roll up from ingredients wherever you haven't typed them by hand — feeding the guest menu and nutrition stickers.
  • The Profit report can rank dishes by what they actually earn.
A common target is keeping food cost around 28–35% of the menu price, but the right number depends on your concept. The point is to know it, then decide.

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Recipes & food cost · Menulisa