Katharina Buczek
You should also consider if you have any limitations that will change your weekly meal prep schedule. For instance, does your child go to soccer on Wednesdays? If so, you may want to tell the chatbot that you need a one-pan dinner recipe to make those evenings easier each week.
On the flip side, if you have more time on Friday nights and would like to cook a romantic dinner for a stay-at-home date night with your partner, you can ask for fancier Friday recipes.
Other limitations may include what’s already in your kitchen. Perhaps you have ground beef in your fridge that you need to use before it goes bad, or you have some pasta in your pantry that you want to incorporate into a meal.
Finally, you’ll need to nail down more concrete guidelines for the AI to work with. This refers to the number and kinds of meals you are looking for.
Most people meal plan for the weekdays, as weekends tend to be more spontaneous (and we all deserve a little takeout in our lives, too). So, out of those five days, what meals are you searching for?
If you tend to get breakfast on the go and eat lunch at work, you may only want to prep dinners. Conversely, if you’re looking to spice up breakfasts for your kids before school, you might ask for new morning meal ideas.
When you define the meal, whether that’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a combination, you can also throw in other guidelines, such as making them allergen-free or avoiding certain foods your family doesn’t like.
AI Meal Plan Prompt Examples
Let’s pretend I’m a mom of four kids under 10 who’s just trying to feed my children some nutritious dinners they will actually eat. One of my children has a peanut allergy, and all of them don’t like carrots.
Additionally, on Fridays, we always get pizza after school, so we don’t need a dinner recipe for that day. Lastly, I have some chicken thighs in the freezer that need to be used by Thursday.
My prompt might look something like this: “Please create a four-day dinner meal plan for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week that’s well-rounded but still appeals to children under 10 years old. Avoid including any peanuts or carrots in the recipes. Also, incorporate chicken thighs into at least one meal idea.”
