Ordering takeout is easy, but it destroys your bank account. Cooking at home is better, but after weeks of recycling the same repetitive recipes (spaghetti losing its charm after the fourth night in a row), I hit a wall. I needed new, budget-friendly meals that would yield plenty of leftovers without burning me out.
To shake up my kitchen routine, I turned to AI. These five ChatGPT prompts completely refreshed my weekly meal prep, helped me discover new recipes, and finally cured my dependency on food delivery apps.
Uncovering new approaches to cooking nighttime cuisines
With my mind full of images of domestic and international dishes I’ve gotten used to eating at restaurants, I went to ChatGPT with hopes of finding similar dishes and more through its recipe-curating expertise.
With these prompts, I found a wealth of dishes that kept me from eating grilled chicken and white rice for the umpteenth time over the course of several weeks:
- The Personal Chef Prompt: Act as a world-class chef and food critic. Based on my preferences, recommend [number] recipes I would probably love but have never heard of. Explain what makes each dish special, what it tastes like, and why it matches my tastes. My favorite cuisines are: [list]. My favorite ingredients are: [list]. The foods I dislike are: [list]
- The "Hidden Gems" Prompt: Recommend [number] hidden-gem dishes from around the world that deserve more attention. Avoid famous dishes like pizza, tacos, ramen, sushi, burgers, and pasta. Focus on dishes locals love that most Americans have never tried.
- The "Travel Through Food" Prompt: Create a [number]-day culinary world tour. Every day, recommend a recipe from a different country. Prioritize authentic local favorites over tourist foods. Include the cultural significance of each dish.
- The "Chef's Secret Menu" Prompt: Imagine you're a Michelin-star chef creating a secret menu for adventurous home cooks. Recommend [number] dishes that feel impressive, unique, and memorable but are achievable in a home kitchen.
- The "What Am I Missing?" Prompt: Based on the foods I eat regularly, what cuisines, ingredients, and cooking styles am I overlooking? Recommend recipes that would expand my palate while still fitting my existing tastes. [list foods you eat regularly]
Putting on extra pounds thanks to ChatGPT
I took that first prompt and ended up diving into a world of recipes I’d either had when I ordered them from a classy joint or never even heard of before.
For favorite cuisines, I mentioned Jamaican, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mexican, and Italian. I listed my favorite ingredients as chicken breasts, steak bites, steamed carrots, steamed broccoli, yellow rice, jasmine rice, penne pasta, tomato sauce, Teriyaki sauce, jerk sauce, green curry, yellow curry, red curry, and tortillas (pretty long list, I know).
And finally, I brought up salmon, oysters, dumplings, peas, onions, and quinoa as my most disliked foods.
ChatGPT responded at first with this statement: Based on your favorite cuisines and ingredients, I'd skip the obvious choices (jerk chicken, chicken teriyaki, tacos, chicken parm, etc.) and point you toward dishes that sit just outside the mainstream. These are the kinds of recipes that make people ask, "How have I never heard of this before?"
The five dishes the chatbot recommended to me (that ended up as a permanent part of my weekly dinner plans) were Three Cup Chicken (Chinese), Panang Curry Chicken (Thai), Bistec Encebollado Without Onions (Caribbean), Pollo Alla Calabrese (Italian), and Jerk Chicken Rasta Pasta (Jamaican).
The takeaway
If you’ve reached a point in your life where you’re tired of eating the same dishes for days on end, it might be time for you to take ChatGPT for a spin and tell it to find you new delicacies worth cooking on your own. Buying all the appropriate ingredients, looking up how-to videos & recipes breakdowns, and making those new foods to the best of your ability feels so gratifying. Let AI start you on the road to home-cooked cuisine.
More from Tom’s Guide
- I gave ChatGPT my Dad’s hobbies and asked for Father’s Day Ideas — these recommendations were better than expected
- I used ChatGPT every day for a year. These 5 habits get me better answers than any new model upgrade
- I asked ChatGPT to make cleaning less overwhelming — these 7 prompts actually helped
