Please be aware some links contained within this blog are affiliate links, and I will earn a few pennies for every click, you do not need to purchase the product. Thank you for clicking!
Meal planning can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re juggling a family, work, and about a million other things. But here’s the exciting part: you don’t have to do it all yourself anymore.
With the rise of Generative AI (like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot), it has never been more accessible and simple to create weekly meal plans that fit your family’s tastes, your fridge contents, and your nutrition goals — all in minutes… and the best part?! Next week all you need to do is ask it to repeat the task!
Using GenAI sounds so scary, but its really nothing to be affraid of. It’s all about (the bass? Just kidding 🤣) creating the right prompt to get a quality output, right first time. With time, we will all be wondering what we were so scared of!
So with all that in mind, here’s how to use GenAI as your kitchen assistant and finally take the stress out of meal planning.
💡 Pro Tip: Keep lists in your phone notes or in an excel spreadsheet for the below sections, that way you can copy-paste super quickly every time you want to rebuild your prompt.
1. Tell It What You’ve Already Got
Instead of starting from scratch every week, give AI a list of what’s in your fridge, freezer, and cupboards. This helps reduce food waste and keeps costs down.
🤓 How to include this in your prompt?
” Things I have in my freezer includes “[paste list]” Things I have my my cupboards include “[paste list]” Things I have in my fridge include “[paste list]” “
AI can then suggest meal ideas using what you already own — saving you a trip to the shops.
2. Include Your Family’s Favourites
If you’ve got kids (or a partner!) who only like certain meals, you can tell AI what works and ask for similar suggestions.
🤓 How to include this in your prompt
” Meals my family enjoy are “[paste list]” so please consider these and suggest meals of a similar style. “
This way, you get variety without the risk of dinner-time meltdowns.
3. Focus on Nutrition (High Protein = Full Bellies)
You can ask AI to prioritise nutritious, high-protein meals to keep everyone fuller for longer — especially helpful if you’re juggling long days, packed schedules, or trying to eat healthier as a family. Extra helpful, if like me, you’re balancing all of this with ADHD.
🤓 How to include this in your prompt
“ Please make sure meals are nutritious and high in protein, meals should include lean proteins and include fruit and vegetables (even if they’re hidden) for balance.”
This ensures you’re getting the best and healthy meals for your family every time.
4. Build in diertary requirements
Whether you’re catering for vegetarians, vegans, religious requirements or if (like us) you’re balancing a food intollerance or allergy, it can become very tricky to eat a varied diet. I often found myself turning to the same safe options out of ease, because I couldn’t think of something new and exciting.
🤓 How to include this in your prompt
” Please consider the following dietary requirements “[paste list]” “
While this can be a great thing to include, I’d always say that you should double check the results and recipies to be absolutely sure it caters for your needs.
5. Exclude Ingredients You Don’t Like
We’ve all been there: an amazing-sounding recipe that’s ruined because it contains something no one will touch. AI makes it easy to filter meals to suit your family’s needs.
No wasted meals. No wasted money.
🤓 How to include this in your prompt
“ Please exclude recipies containing the following ingredients “[paste list]” ”
6. Don’t stop there!
✅️ Need a shopping list – not a problem!
✅️ Want the links to all the recipies – piece of cake!
✅️ Need it printer friendly – done in a jiffy!
Pulling it all together – The Ultimate Meal Plan Prompt
So now you’ve gathered all the inputs you’re going to need, here is how to put the ultimate meal plan prompt together:
- Give it a role
- “Act as the ultimate kitchen assistant”
- Give it some context – here’s mine!
- “We are a family of 3 living in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. We consist of 2 adults and a toddler. Me and my husband work full time, my husband is office based and I have a hybrid role where part of the week is in office and part of the week is at home.”
- “I enjoy cooking, and follow a lot of TV Programmes by James Martin and Jamie Oliver.”
- “I usually do my weekly shop at aldi, with top ups from larger stores including asda and tesco. I buy most of my meat in bulk from costco.”
- Set boundaries
- Things I have in my freezer includes “[paste list]” Things I have my my cupboards include “[paste list]” Things I have in my fridge include “[paste list]”
- Meals my family enjoy are “[paste list]” so please consider these and suggest meals of a similar style.
- Please make sure meals are nutritious and high in protein, meals should include lean proteins and include fruit and vegetables (even if they’re hidden) for balance.
- Give specific requirements
- Please consider the following dietary requirements “[paste list]”
- Please exclude recipies containing the following ingredients “[paste list]”
- Task Description – Tell it what you want it to do (or not do!)
- “I want you to create a 5 day budget-friendly meal plan including recipe links, using as many of the ingredients I have in my home.”
- “Please create me a shopping list for any ingredients I haven’t included above.”
- “Please include breakfast lunch dinner and snacks. Lunch and snacks will be eaten on the go, breakfast and dinner will be eaten at home.”
- Add Reasoning
- “Make sure the recipes are simple, balanced, and easy to cook during busy weeknights. Evening meals need to be ready in under 30 minutes, unless they are made using a slow cooker.”
- “Explain why you’ve chosen this for us” this helps to understand what to ask it to exclude next tims
💡 Pro Tip: If you don’t have time to rebuild your prompt every week and keep similar things stocked in your home OR you don’t like the ideas it generates, just go into the same chat and ask it to generate 5 more ideas!
Final Thoughts
See, that wasn’t scary at all! Meal planning doesn’t have to be a chore. By combining your family’s preferences with the power of GenAI, you’ll cut down food waste, save money, and enjoy more stress-free dinners.
The first time you do this will be a bit labour intensive, but it gets better from there on out. I hope this has inspired you to let GenAI take some of the pressure off your week
💡 Pro Tip: Play around with the different free GenAI tools amd find one you like best. I use different tools and differemt profiles depending what I’m looking for, so it trains each AI for my different “hats”
Love, Jo-Anne x
✨ Want more practical hacks like this? Sign up to my free newsletter where I send monthly tips on how to get organised, straight to your inbox.
Click here to subscribe
P.S. I’ve set up a ‘Buy me a coffee‘ link, if you’ve found my content useful ❤️