The invention discloses a system for making a shopping list. The system comprises a discount coupon list generation module, a discount coupon selection module, a recipe list generation module, a recipe selection module and a shopping list addition module, wherein the discount coupon list generation module is used for reading discount coupon data from a discount coupon database and generating a discount coupon list; the discount coupon selection module is used for selecting a plurality of discount coupons from the discount coupon list; the recipe list generation module is used for retrieving a recipe which comprises a food material from a recipe database according to the food material which corresponds to each selected discount coupon, and generating a recipe list; the recipe selection module is used for selecting a plurality of recipes from the recipe list; and the shopping list addition module is used for adding the food materials which are included in each selected recipe and the quantity of the food materials into the shopping list. The invention also discloses a method for making the shopping list. According to the technical scheme of the invention, a consumer can conveniently select the food materials having the discount coupons, select foods which can be cooked according to the selected food materials, and generate a complete food material purchasing list.