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Hey, it's Cindy 🤍 This is your no-more-what's-for-dinner resource: snap one photo of your fridge, paste the prompt, and get 16+ meal ideas back.

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This is your no-more-"what's-for-dinner" resource. Snap one photo of your fridge, paste the prompt below into ChatGPT, and watch it spit out 16+ meal ideas across different cuisines, sorted by how long they take and filtered for whatever way you eat. No meal planning brain freeze. No 7pm UberEats spiral. 💸

Use it for yourself, send it to a friend who hates cooking, or save it as a swipe file for one of your reels.

⚡ How to use this guide

Here's the 4-step flow 👇

1. 📸 Take one clear photo of your open fridge. Pull stuff forward so labels show. Open the crisper drawer too (that's where the forgotten zucchini lives). If you have a separate pantry/spice cabinet, take a second photo — the prompt accepts up to 3 images.
2. 📋 Copy the prompt below. The whole thing. Don't trim it — the structure is what makes the output good.
3. 🍽 Paste it into ChatGPT (use GPT-5 with vision — it reads images natively). Attach your fridge photo(s).
4. ✏️ Edit the bracketed bits at the top — your dietary needs, how many people you're feeding, and how much time you have. Then send it.

ChatGPT will reply with 16+ meals across at least 6 cuisines, sorted by cook time, with substitutions, missing-ingredient flags, and a "use these first" warning for anything about to spoil.

💡 Cindy's tip: If you cook for the same person every week (partner, roommate, kid), save your dietary preferences once at the top of the prompt and just swap the photo each week. Takes 10 seconds.

📋 The Prompt (copy this whole thing)

You are my personal AI sous-chef. I'm going to give you a photo (or
photos) of my fridge — and possibly my pantry — and you're going to
turn it into a full meal plan.

=== MY DETAILS (edit these before you send) ===
- Name: Cindy
- People I'm feeding: 2
- Dietary needs: [pick all that apply — vegan / vegetarian /
  pescatarian / gluten-free / dairy-free / nut-free / keto / paleo /
  low-FODMAP / halal / kosher / none]
- Allergies / hard nos: [e.g. shellfish, cilantro, mushrooms, "no
  organ meats"]
- Skill level: [beginner / intermediate / confident home cook]
- Equipment I have: [e.g. stovetop, oven, air fryer, rice cooker,
  blender, microwave]
- Cuisines I love: [e.g. Korean, Italian, Thai — leave blank for full variety]
- Cuisines to skip: [e.g. "no Indian today, had it last night"]
- Time I have tonight: [5 min / 15 min / 30 min / 45+ min / batch cook for the week]
- Spice tolerance: [mild / medium / spicy / send it 🔥]

=== STEP 1: READ THE FRIDGE ===
Look at every photo I've sent. Make THREE lists:

1. ✅ CONFIDENT INGREDIENTS — things you can clearly identify, with
   rough quantity if visible (e.g. "half a block of tofu", "3 eggs",
   "~200g spinach").
2. 🤔 BEST GUESS — things you think you see but aren't 100% sure about.
   Tell me what you think it is and ask me to confirm.
3. ⚠️ USE FIRST — anything that looks close to spoiling (wilted herbs,
   browning fruit, opened dairy, leftovers in containers).

=== STEP 2: GENERATE 16+ MEAL IDEAS ===
Give me at least 16 meal ideas, organized by COOK TIME. Within each
time bucket, give me variety across at least 6 cuisines (rotate
through Italian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian,
Mexican, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, French, American comfort,
Filipino, Ethiopian — pick what fits the ingredients best).

For EACH meal include:
- 🍽 Meal name + cuisine + 1-line description
- ⏱ Total time (prep + cook)
- 👥 Serves (scale to my "people I'm feeding" number)
- 🛒 Ingredients I have (from the fridge) vs ❌ ingredients I'd need
  to buy or substitute
- 📝 5–8 step recipe — short, clear, no fluff
- 🥗 Dietary tags (vegan, GF, DF, etc.)
- 🌶 Spice level
- 💡 One swap tip (e.g. "no soy sauce? use tamari + a splash of fish
  sauce")

=== TIME BUCKETS — minimum meals per bucket ===
- ⚡ 5-MIN MEALS (no real cooking — assembly only): at least 3
- 🔥 15-MIN MEALS (one pan, fast): at least 4
- 🍳 30-MIN MEALS (proper dinner energy): at least 5
- 🍲 45+ MIN MEALS (slow build, weekend vibes): at least 2
- 🥡 BATCH COOK (1 cook, 3+ meals): at least 2

=== STEP 3: BONUS LAYER ===
After the 16 meals, give me:
- 🛒 SHOPPING SHORTLIST — top 5 ingredients to buy that would unlock
  the most additional meals from what I already have
- 🔁 LEFTOVERS REMIX — for the 30-min and batch-cook meals, suggest
  how to turn leftovers into a different meal tomorrow
- 🥤 SIDES & SAUCES — quick sauces / dressings / dips I can make from
  what's in the fridge (chimichurri, gochujang mayo, tahini-lemon, etc.)
- 💸 WHAT NOT TO COOK — meals to skip given what I have, so I don't
  waste mental energy considering them

=== FORMATTING ===
- Use clear headers and emojis so this is scannable on my phone
- Group meals by time bucket, then cuisine
- Bold the meal names
- Keep recipe steps under 8 lines each
- End with the shortlist + leftovers + sauces + skip list
- DO NOT add disclaimers about "consult a nutritionist" or "I'm just
  an AI" — just give me the food

Ready? Here's my fridge 👇
[attach 1–3 photos]

🥗 Dietary preset cheat sheet

Pick the line that matches you and paste it into the Dietary needs field. You can stack them — "vegan + gluten-free" works fine.