AI in the kitchen: meal plans, recipes and less waste
Plan a week of meals to a budget, turn the odds and ends in your fridge into dinner and adapt any recipe. Here’s how, plus what to check yourself.
Video transcript
Meal plans, shopping lists and what to do with half a leek. Here’s how AI can help you eat well, spend less and waste less.
Start with a plan. Tell it who’s eating, your budget, any dietary needs and how long you’ve got on weeknights. It will plan the week and write the shopping list, grouped by aisle.
Stuck for dinner? Take a photo of your fridge and ask what you can make. Most assistants understand photos now, so they can see what you’ve got and suggest something quick.
It’s handy with recipes, too. It can halve one that serves six, find a swap when you’re missing something, and turn tonight’s leftovers into tomorrow’s lunch.
But some things you always check yourself. Read the allergens on the label, every time. And take food safety advice from the Food Standards Agency or the NHS, not from a chatbot.
So try it this week. Plan five meals, get the shopping list by aisle, check the labels, and on Friday, snap the fridge and use up what’s left.
Read the full guide below for a meal planning prompt you can copy into any assistant.
In 30 seconds
- Give AI your budget, who’s eating and how much time you have, and it will plan the week.
- Snap your fridge and ask what to make: it’s great for using up leftovers.
- Check allergens on labels yourself, and get food safety advice from the Food Standards Agency or NHS.
It’s half past six. The fridge holds three eggs, half a leek and some cheddar that needs eating, and a takeaway is calling. An Jargon busterAI assistant: A chat app such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini that answers questions and does tasks you describe in plain language. can’t cook for you, but it’s good at this moment, and at the planning that makes it rarer.
Plan the week, and the shop
Tell it who’s eating, your budget for the week, any dietary needs and how long you have on a weeknight. The more it knows, the better the plan. Ask for meals that share ingredients, so half a bag of spinach gets eaten, not binned.
Then ask for the shopping list, grouped by aisle and minus what’s already in the cupboard. No more zigzagging round the supermarket, or coming home with a third jar of paprika.
Plan a week of dinners for [two adults and two teenagers] on a budget of about £[amount]. Dietary needs: [one vegetarian, one dairy-free]. Build it around [two] cook-once, eat-twice meals, so some nights are just reheating, and keep the other nights under [40] minutes. Reuse ingredients so little goes to waste. Then give me a shopping list grouped by aisle, with quantities, leaving out what I already have: [list].
What can I make with this?
Take a photo of your fridge or cupboard and ask. Most assistants, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, are Jargon busterMultimodal: An AI that understands more than one kind of input, such as text, pictures, sound and video.: they understand photos as well as text. Say how long you’ve got and what you fancy.
You: Here’s my fridge. What can I make tonight in 30 minutes? I’ve also got rice, tinned tomatoes and spices.
AI: I can see eggs, half a leek, a red pepper and cheddar. Try a leek and pepper frittata with cheddar on top, about 20 minutes, and a quick tomato rice on the side. Want the method?
Here’s a photo of my fridge. Suggest three meals I could make tonight in under [30] minutes, using mostly what you can see plus these cupboard basics: [rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes]. Keep it [vegetarian], and tell me if you’re unsure about anything in the photo.
A patient recipe helper
- Scale itHalve a recipe that serves six, or double it for guests, with the quantities worked out.
- Swap itNo buttermilk? Ask what to use instead, and how it will change the result.
- Use it upTurn Sunday’s leftover roast chicken into Monday’s lunch instead of binning it.
- Adapt itMake a favourite recipe vegetarian or dairy-free, then check the labels yourself.
What to check yourself
Take food safety advice, such as cooking temperatures, how long leftovers keep and reheating rice, from the Food Standards Agency or the NHS. AI often gets it right, but a confident mistake, called a Jargon busterHallucination: When AI states something false as if it were true, because it predicts plausible words rather than checking facts., could make someone ill.
Give scaled quantities a quick sense check, too. AI can slip on sums, and a tablespoon of salt where the recipe needs a teaspoon is worth catching before it hits the pan.
Start with one meal plan this week. For sharper results, read how to write a good prompt, and for more everyday ideas, see five things to try with AI.
Check yourself
3 quick questions nothing is savedTools in this guide
Spotted a mistake? Tell us and an editor will check it.
