The Degchi App Guide: Every Feature, Explained Step by Step

What Degchi is, in one paragraph

Degchi is a free kitchen app for one very ordinary question: what can we cook today? You tell it what is in your pantry, and it shows the dishes you can make right now, the ones you are one or two items short of, and a shopping list for the gap. Then it walks you through the recipe, with timers, in your own language.

It is built for South Asian and Gulf home cooking, so it knows the common names of your ingredients across English, Urdu, Hindi, Bangla and Arabic, and it has more than 200 recipes from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the Gulf, each with metric and US measurements. Degchi is in beta at the moment, and we are still improving it.

Who it is for

• Busy households that stand at the fridge at 6 pm and cannot think of a thing to cook.
• Families who split the work, where one person shops, another cooks, and everyone has opinions about dinner.
• South Asian and Gulf families abroad, who want familiar dishes in US or UK cups and ounces.
• New cooks who want a recipe that holds their hand, timer by timer. Good first dishes are Split Chickpea Lentils, Egg Curry and Rice and Lentil Porridge.

If you already plan every meal a week ahead in a spreadsheet, Degchi may not change your life. If you improvise, it probably will.

The guide, one feature at a time

Each post below covers a single screen or idea, using the real button names you will see in the app. You can read them in order, or jump to the one you need.

1. How to Set Up Degchi in Five Minutes: language, kitchen, household and your starting pantry.
2. How to Track Your Pantry with Have, Low and Out: the three-tap way to keep your pantry honest.
3. How Degchi Works Out What You Can Cook Today: Ready to cook, Almost there and why a dish shows up.
4. Reading a Degchi Recipe: Metric, US Cups and Servings: switch units and scale a recipe for guests.
5. Cook Mode in Degchi: Step-by-Step Timers That Ring: hands-free cooking with a screen that stays on.
6. Your Shopping List, Built from Your Pantry: what you run out of lands on the list by itself.
7. How to Set Up Your Family in Degchi: invite everyone and share one pantry and list.
8. How to Settle "What's for Dinner?" with a Family Vote: put two to five dishes to a vote.
9. Dish Requests and Weekly Helpers: Getting Everyone Involved: ask for a favourite dish and thank the people who help.
10. Meal Times and Reminders: Never Wonder at 6 pm Again: a gentle nudge with the answer already inside.
11. Add Your Own Family Recipes to Degchi: keep Nani's recipe somewhere safer than a notebook.
12. Degchi in Urdu, Hindi, Bangla and Arabic: the whole app in your language.
13. Guest Mode, Google Sign-In, Backup and Privacy in Degchi: what you get with and without an account.
14. Cook Your First Dish in Degchi: Split Chickpea Lentils (Chana Daal): a full walkthrough from pantry to plate.
15. Five Weeknight Dishes You Can Cook from a Small Pantry: real recipes that need very little.

Why it starts from your kitchen

Most food apps start with a recipe and send you shopping. Degchi starts with the kitchen you already have. That one change removes most of the daily friction: you stop buying duplicates, you waste less, and the question "what are we eating?" gets an answer in a few seconds instead of a ten-minute debate.

For families it goes one step further. Everyone sees the same pantry and the same shopping list, and dinner can be a vote rather than an argument.

Two things we promise about how the app behaves. It is free, supported by two small labelled "Sponsored" spots. And you will never see an ad while you are cooking.

Try it

Start with the first guide, or just try the app. Degchi is in beta, and the way in is a Gmail address on the homepage form. Join the Degchi beta and tell us what is missing. We read every message.