Questions & Answers

All nutritional information provided on Mama Santelli’s Recipes is based on third-party data and calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional values may vary depending on the specific ingredients and brands used, ingredient substitutions, preparation methods, measuring techniques, and serving or portion sizes.

Nutritional information can also vary naturally between individual ingredients. For example, the size, variety, freshness, and preparation of fruits, vegetables, meats, and other foods may affect their nutritional content.

The nutritional information provided with our recipes is intended as a helpful general guide and should not be considered medical or dietary advice. If you have specific dietary requirements, food allergies, health concerns, or need precise nutritional information, please verify the ingredients and nutritional values independently and consult a qualified healthcare or nutrition professional when appropriate.

No. An account is not required to browse Mama Santelli’s Recipes. You can search, view, and print any public recipe without registering.

An account is only required if you would like to create and save your own recipes, create daily menus, maintain a Favorites list, keep recipes private, or participate in the community by adding comments and submitting requests.

Creating an account is free and gives you access to these additional features.

No. There is no charge to use Mama Santelli’s Recipes. The website was created to help people discover enjoyable recipes while making healthier and more informed choices about the foods they eat.

You are welcome to browse recipes, use the nutritional information, create an account, and use the website’s features at no cost.

Although Mama provides the recipes and website without charge, there are expenses involved in keeping the site online, maintained, and available to everyone. Donations help with those costs and allow Mama Santelli’s Recipes to continue growing.

If you enjoy the site and would like to contribute, your support is sincerely appreciated. If not, that’s perfectly fine too — just enjoy the recipes, eat well, and maybe share Mama Santelli’s with a friend.

Most of the nutritional information used by Mama Santelli’s Recipes comes directly from food and ingredient nutrition labels. When label information is not available or additional information is needed, we use nutritional data from the USDA.

Whenever possible, we use information for basic, organic, or minimally processed ingredients rather than information from a specific manufacturer or brand. This helps provide nutritional values that are useful across a wide variety of commonly available products.

Because nutritional values can vary between brands, varieties, growing conditions, and preparation methods, the information provided should always be considered an estimate rather than an exact value.

When creating your own recipe, you can specify the number of servings the recipe makes. This allows Mama Santelli’s Recipes to calculate the nutritional information based on the serving size you provide.

For consistency and easy comparison, nutritional values are displayed per serving on both the recipe display page and the printed recipe.

If a recipe makes four servings, for example, the nutritional information shown represents one of those four servings.

Yes. When creating a recipe, you can choose US, UK, or Metric measurements. Mama Santelli’s Recipes uses the measurement system you select when calculating ingredient quantities and nutritional values.

When a volume measurement must be converted to weight for nutritional calculations, an average food density is used. Because foods have different densities, the density used is based on the food group or ingredient category selected.

These conversions provide a practical nutritional estimate, but actual values may vary depending on the specific ingredient and how it is measured or prepared.

Yes. When creating your own recipe, you can choose the ingredients you want to use and make substitutions to suit your taste or dietary preferences.

If an ingredient you need is not already in the ingredient list, you can add it. Newly added ingredients are initially available only to you while their nutritional information is reviewed. Once approved, the ingredient becomes available for general use by other members of Mama Santelli’s Recipes.

This helps us maintain consistent and reliable nutritional information while still allowing you the flexibility to create recipes your way.

Once you are logged in, select Create Recipes from the Kitchen menu.

Fields marked with an asterisk (*), along with a recipe photo and at least two ingredients, are required before your recipe can be finalized. The Finalize button will automatically become available once all required information has been completed.

You can choose to make your recipe Public or Private. Private recipes are available only to you and can be updated whenever you wish. Public recipes can also be edited while awaiting approval, but once a public recipe has been reviewed and approved, it can no longer be modified.

You do not have to complete your recipe in one sitting. Your information is automatically saved as you work, allowing you to return and continue creating the recipe whenever you have time.

Only one unfinished recipe can be created at a time. Once the current recipe has been completed and finalized, you can begin creating another one.

Select any public recipe, or one of your own private recipes, to open the recipe page.

At the top of the recipe you will see the available recipe icons. If you are not logged in, only the Print icon is available. When logged in, four options are available: Print, Like, Favorite, and Comment.

Print lets you create a printer-friendly copy of the recipe. Like lets you show that you enjoyed the recipe. Favorite saves the recipe to your personal Favorites list so you can easily find it again. Comment allows you to share a comment about the recipe.

To keep the ratings and saved information meaningful, each logged-in member may Like or Favorite a particular recipe only once. Comments are also limited to one per member for each recipe.

Once you are logged in, select Add Request from the Kitchen menu. You can post a question or request in one of several categories, including Cooking, Diabetic, General, Ingredients, Recipes, and Vegetarian.

Your request will be available for other members to read and reply to for 30 days. Selecting the title of a request will display the original request along with any replies from other cooks.

To quickly find questions you have posted, select My Requests. This displays all of the requests you have created during the past 30 days, regardless of which category they were posted under.

Requests and their replies are automatically removed after 30 days, helping keep the community area current and focused on active discussions.

Select Contact Mama from the Pantry menu, or choose Contact at the bottom of any page.

Mama is here to help and welcomes your questions, comments, suggestions, and concerns. We’ll do our best to respond within 24–48 hours.

Please be patient if it takes a little while to hear back. Mama may be retired, but the kitchen still needs cleaning and the dishes aren’t going to wash themselves!

Anyone can share a recipe with Mama Santelli’s Recipes—you do not need an account.

Email your recipe as an attachment to mamasantelli@hush.com. Your recipe will be reviewed before being posted publicly, and the author will receive credit.

If you have a photo of the finished dish, please include it. Photos are preferred, but not required.

Once approved, the recipe will be added to Mama Santelli’s Recipes for everyone to enjoy.