Custom items

Add anything to your grocery list that isn’t tied to a recipe — household supplies, one-off purchases, a bottle of wine for dinner.

Add an item from the Groceries page

Type into the Add to the list… field below the list on the Groceries page.
Press Enter or tap the +.

The item shows right away at the bottom of the list, just above the field. It sits under its own Adding heading, with a small adding… pill. It waits there until Mirepoix has added it. You can’t cross it off yet, and it has no ⋮. Then it shows in its aisle. If you’d closed that aisle, it opens. A name Mirepoix already knows goes to its usual aisle. A name your kitchen doesn’t have yet can go to the aisle you’d most likely find it in. Anything Mirepoix can’t place goes to Miscellaneous (see below).

If you’ve set up stores and you’re shopping one of them, the new item is also placed at that store — so it’s ready to buy on this trip. See Grouping by store for choosing which store you’re shopping.

Add an item from anywhere in the app

Press / (or tap the search icon) to open the search overlay. Type what you need, then tap a row under Add to grocery list.

If the name matches an ingredient Mirepoix knows, it joins your list as a tracked item — like a recipe ingredient. An unfamiliar name joins as a custom item instead. Either way you stay on the page you started from.

Place an item in an aisle

An item you add finds its aisle in this order:

The aisle Mirepoix already knows for it. Your kitchen remembers the aisle of every item it has, so adding the same name again, from the Groceries page or the search overlay, puts it back there.
A suggested aisle. For a name your kitchen doesn’t have yet, Mirepoix can ask an outside AI service which of its built-in aisles a shopper would find it in. When the answer is fairly sure, the item lands there. The name goes with the names of the built-in aisles to choose among, and nothing else from your list or your kitchen.
Miscellaneous. Otherwise — the answer isn’t sure enough, or none comes back — the item lands in Miscellaneous.

Move the item once with its ⋮ menu and that aisle is remembered — every future add of that name lands where you put it. A suggestion never moves an item your kitchen already has: one sitting in Miscellaneous stays there for as long as your kitchen keeps it (see How custom items behave).

The suggestions come only from Mirepoix’s built-in aisles, never from aisles you’ve made yourself. So if “Cascade” lands in Miscellaneous the first time, move it to “Cleaning Supplies” once, and every future “Cascade” you add goes straight to Cleaning Supplies.

A suggested aisle is the item’s usual aisle, so a store you’ve set up shows it the way it shows any other. If you’ve told Mirepoix that Baking is 18A at a store, a new item suggested into Baking shows under 18A there.

In the search overlay, a small pill on the right of a row shows the aisle Mirepoix already has for that name. Miscellaneous is left blank. A name Mirepoix doesn’t know shows no pill, but it can still land in a suggested aisle once you add it.

Move an item to a different aisle

A custom item moves like anything else on the list — open its ⋮ menu and set the aisle there. See Move one item to a different aisle for the steps, and for how that menu changes once you’ve set up stores.

How custom items behave

A custom item sits on your Groceries list until you tap it off. It stays crossed out for an hour, then drops off. Tap it again within the hour, or add the name again, to put it back on the list.

If you add a name that’s already on the list — because a checked recipe calls for it, or because you already added it yourself — your second add folds into the existing row. Adding “olive oil” twice doesn’t create two lines, and leaving off the accents doesn’t either: jalapeno joins the Jalapeño row.

If a second add of a custom item uses a different capitalization of the same name, the new capitalization wins — re-add it with the case you want to fix it. A re-add typed without accents is the exception. It never strips the accents from a custom item: add cafe bustelo and your Café Bustelo keeps its spelling. To add accents a custom item lacks, re-add it with them. A name in Mirepoix’s catalog always shows on the list as the catalog writes it. See how a name is capitalized.

A different name usually makes a different item — but not when Mirepoix recognizes it. A name it knows lands on the row you’d buy it under, however you typed it, and the row shows Mirepoix’s name for it. Lemons joins the Lemon row, and so does lemon zest: see Parts you don’t buy on their own. Scallions joins as Green onions, and the row’s ⋮ keeps what you typed under You added. A name it doesn’t know is its own item, so typing a different one makes a new row.

To take a custom item off the list without checking it off, open its ⋮ menu and tap Skip this trip. The row leaves the list right away, with no confirm. Unless something on your Menu calls for it, nothing asks about it later — the Pantry only asks about what your Menu calls for — so add it again whenever you need it.

After you check a custom item off, it stays in your kitchen’s records even after it disappears from the page — so the same name is remembered if it comes back. A plain one-off you’ve never placed is forgotten 45 days after you last added it. Checking it off doesn’t restart that count, and it goes even if it’s still on the list by then. That includes one sitting in a suggested aisle: Mirepoix picked that aisle, not you. One you’ve placed in an aisle (or at a store) is kept for as long as that placement stands, so its remembered aisle is there whenever you add it again. Moving a suggested item with its ⋮ menu counts as placing it. One that a line in a recipe or QuickBite is matched to is kept too, for as long as that line stays matched to it.

Custom items and the ingredient catalog

A custom item stays a custom item, even after Mirepoix’s built-in catalog later recognizes its name. It can pick up nutrition data from that match — see where the figures come from — though it keeps the aisle you gave it. And a catalog match never moves it into your Pantry reminders on its own.

The only way an item joins the reminder cycle is by also appearing in one of your recipes or QuickBites. Once it’s on your Pantry, pick a length under After I buy, ask again in… in its ⋮ menu, and each buy after that restarts its clock by that length — see Set how often an item is checked.