Mere listing... no. But once you add quantities and a specific order or preparation, a list becomes a copyrightable work. The mere list reference is to the simple content lists we see on product labels.
Even the quantities and order of preparation are not inherently copyrightable. Per parent comment's citation, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression.
"Fill pitcher with water, add lemon juice and sugar" is not going to pass muster as "substantial literary expression".
But if I republished your 5 page story about how your grandma used to make this lemonade and you remember drinking it on the porch of her cottage on Cape Cod, then I would be infringing on your copyright.
Just the ingredients, quantities, and procedure explained in a factual manner is explicitly not copyrightable in the US:
> A recipe is a statement of the ingredients and procedure required for making a dish of food. A mere listing of ingredients or contents, or a simple set of directions, is uncopyrightable. As a result, the Office cannot register recipes consisting of a set of ingredients and a process for preparing a dish.
Your explanations of why a process is followed, and other supplemental information beyond the instructions, can be copyrightable.
Substantial literary expression is old law, written when software was poorly understood by courts. Proceedures are now regularly copyrightable. They will find expression somewhere, even in a typo or apparant error (see the old phonebook and map cases). While one can pull and copy the facts, verbatum copying of every minutia is very dangerous.
Remember that a recipe isn't just an instruction set for making food. For purposes of copyright it is also letters on a page generated by a person.
Especially creative language describing the recipe might be. Like paragraphs of text about the cultural context or how much you like it, or even especially poetic langauge describing how to combine the ingredients.
But not the instructions for preparation themselves, not simple instructions of how combine things in what order. No matter how specific, they are considered to be facts rather than creative expression. "ideas, procedures, processes, systems, and methods of operation" are not protected by copyright -- no matter how useful, no matter how much energy went into making them, that is not the standard.
Other countries may have different legal status than USA
"Fill pitcher with water, add lemon juice and sugar" is not going to pass muster as "substantial literary expression".
But if I republished your 5 page story about how your grandma used to make this lemonade and you remember drinking it on the porch of her cottage on Cape Cod, then I would be infringing on your copyright.
Just the ingredients, quantities, and procedure explained in a factual manner is explicitly not copyrightable in the US:
> A recipe is a statement of the ingredients and procedure required for making a dish of food. A mere listing of ingredients or contents, or a simple set of directions, is uncopyrightable. As a result, the Office cannot register recipes consisting of a set of ingredients and a process for preparing a dish.
Your explanations of why a process is followed, and other supplemental information beyond the instructions, can be copyrightable.