How to Meal Plan with ChatGPT or Claude
AI assistants are good at the thinking part of meal planning: variety, leftovers, what fits a busy Tuesday. The trick is getting the plan out of the chat and into a calendar and a shopping list.
By the Only Recipes Team. Updated .
Step 1: give the assistant your constraints
A prompt that works well:
Plan 5 dinners for Monday to Friday for 2 adults. Weeknights under 40 minutes, one vegetarian night, and reuse ingredients so little goes to waste.
Step 2: plan from recipes you already like
With Only Recipes connected (ChatGPT or Claude), add “use recipes from my saved recipes where you can”. The assistant searches your recipe box before suggesting new ones.
Step 3: put it on the calendar
Say “plan these on my meal plan for this week, as dinner”. Each recipe is added to the day and meal. Ask “what's on my meal plan this week?” any time to check.
Step 4: shop for it
Say “add the ingredients for this week's meals to my grocery list”. Duplicates across recipes are merged into single lines.
Without connecting an app
You can still ask for the plan and a combined list in the chat and copy them out. You lose the calendar, the shared list and the ability to ask again next week from what you already have.