How to make ChatGPT your sous chef

Zoom in: Inspired by Instagram, I've started asking ChatGPT to brainstorm dinner ideas or whip up a recipe using ingredients already in my fridge or pantry.

How I do it: I start my prompt with "You are a recipe developer," then add my instructions from there.

For example: On Sunday, I asked for a recipe for muffins that used one ripe banana, one egg and greek yogurt for extra protein.

• After that, I asked the bot to help me make meatballs with grated Japanese sweet potato for added veggies but no eggs (since I had cracked my last one into said muffins).
• The suggested solution — use tahini as the binder — turned out great.

Plus: If I'm in a rut, I'll ask for five ideas for healthy dinners using a protein or other ingredients in my fridge.

• You can specify a time length (i.e. ready in 30 minutes or less), cuisine style or number of ingredients.

The catch: AI bots can and do hallucinate. While I haven't run into any issues, it's a good idea to read through the whole thing before you get started.

The bottom line: The results were delicious, and saved me the time I would have spent sifting through recipes online to find something that worked.

📢 Weigh in! We want to hear the most unusual ways you're using ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Meta AI, xAI or any other generative AI tool in your daily lives.

• Email us at [email protected] before Dec. 13 with your name and city, and you could be featured in a future story.