Which tool to choose
Three profiles, three choices.
You want total flexibility and zero cost: use ChatGPT (even on the free plan) or an equivalent assistant like Gemini or Claude. It's the right route if you cook for a family with specific constraints (allergies, tight budget, leftovers to reuse) and want a menu that changes every week without paying anything. Write the prompt, get the menu and list, modify with a message. What used to take hours now takes ten minutes, shopping list included.
You want a system that remembers your recipes and generates the list automatically every week: choose a dedicated app. Plan to Eat generates the shopping list based on previously saved recipes too. Bear in mind that apps like Plan to Eat or PlateJoy work in English and are paid after the trial. For Italian there's YouMealPlan, which creates weekly menus, manages recipes and generates automatic lists.
You cook starting from recipes found online: use Paprika Recipe Manager, which organizes recipes, imports them from sites, plans meals and accounts for leftovers: you create the plan, select the recipes, and the ingredients end up in a single shopping list.
For most readers, ChatGPT free is the answer: no subscription, no recipes to enter first, and it handles Italian without problems. The rest of the guide works on this.
How to do it
From computer or phone the path doesn't change: go to chat.openai.com (or open the ChatGPT app) and paste the prompt.
Gather your constraints before writing. How many people, for how many days, which meals (only dinners? everything?), maximum budget, allergies or banned foods, the time you have to cook on weekdays. The more precise you are, the less you'll have to correct afterward.
Paste this prompt and replace the data in quotes with yours:
Create me a weekly menu for 4 people, Monday to Sunday,
for dinners only. Constraints: no peanuts or seafood
(allergy), maximum budget €70 a week, maximum 30 minutes
of cooking on weekdays. Italian cuisine with a few simple
international dishes. For each dinner indicate the name of the dish,
ingredients with quantities and prep time.
At the end generate the shopping list grouped by supermarket
aisle (fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, dairy,
pantry, frozen) and flag the ingredients I probably
already have at home, like salt, oil and spices.
Check the grouped list. This is the real strength. ChatGPT doesn't just make the list, it orders it by aisle: fruit and vegetables, pantry, proteins and the like. At the supermarket you walk down the aisle without backtracking.
Correct with a message, without redoing everything. If a dish doesn't convince you, write only what to change:
Great, but remove Wednesday's tofu and replace it with other
proteins. Also update the shopping list accordingly.
- Save the plan that works. Copy it into your phone notes or a document. Next week you don't start from scratch. Keep track of the menus you liked, then write:
Use week 3's plan as a base, but make it seasonal.
Keep the structure and bring it to a €60 budget.
The AI readjusts portions and ingredients while keeping the framework that already worked.
A concrete example
A family of three, two working parents and an eight-year-old child, weekly budget for dinners around €60, no allergies but the child refuses fish. The real problem: every evening "what do we cook?" and the shopping done three times a week, always in a rush.
Prompt used: a menu of seven dinners, maximum 25 minutes on weekdays, one new dish a week to break the routine. Against the boredom of the usual five dishes, an explicit request works:
Add to this week's plan a dinner from a cuisine we've
never tried, but using ingredients easy to find
at the supermarket and liked by an 8-year-old child too.
Result: seven dinners with a list split by aisle, the surprise dish was a mild chickpea curry that the child ate without a peep. The shopping became a single Saturday outing. Time spent on planning: less than ten minutes, against the half-hour of arguing in front of the fridge every evening.
When it does NOT work (and how to fix it)
If the AI invents wrong quantities or prices
ChatGPT estimates, it doesn't weigh. The quantities for the portions are reasonable, but the prices are indicative and vary by supermarket and city. Don't take the "€70" total as exact: treat it as an order of magnitude. For the real budget, ask for the list and then check the prices on the flyer or your supermarket's app before you go.
If the dishes are repetitive or bland
This happens with vague prompts. A request like "give me a cheap plan" produces generic results. Fix: add concrete constraints and ask for variety in cooking methods.
Rewrite the menu with these rules: a different cuisine every two
days, one legume used 3 times a week in different dishes,
no repeating a cooking method two nights in a row.
Avoid the dishes already present in the previous plan.
If you need to meet precise nutritional values or a medical diet
Here the AI only provides the draft. For conditions, pregnancy or clinical diets, have the menu validated by a nutritionist: the AI writes the first version, the professional corrects it. Don't use it as the ultimate source on requirements, but as an accelerator of the operational part (recipes, rough quantities, list). The clinical decision stays with whoever is qualified to make it.
If the list doesn't match the menu
Sometimes ingredients mentioned in the recipes are missing or unrelated ones appear. Immediate fix:
Recheck that every ingredient of every recipe is present
in the shopping list, remove those not used and merge
duplicate items by summing the quantities.
A tip from someone who actually uses it
Start the planning from the proteins on sale, not from the recipes. Before asking for the menu, look at your supermarket's flyer and report it to the AI:
These are the proteins on sale at my store this week: [list
with price per kg]. Tell me which 3 are worth building the dinners around for the
lowest spend and most variety, then propose the menu around those.
It's the fastest way to cut the bill without always eating the same things.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to pay for ChatGPT to plan meals?
No. The free plan covers generating weekly menus and shopping lists. The subscription is needed for intensive uses or advanced features, but for the family shopping the free version does all the work described here.
Do I have to rewrite everything from scratch every week?
No. Build a couple of menus you like, save them in your notes, in Notion or in a document, and when you reopen ChatGPT ask it to start from one of those, adapting it to the season or budget. Update the old menu instead of regenerating it from scratch.
Can I also plan children's meals?
Yes. Indicate the child's age and tastes in the prompt: no fish, smaller portions, dishes the adults can eat too so you don't cook twice. The more details you give on refusals and preferences, the more usable the menu actually is.
Can the AI order the groceries for me?
Not directly from ChatGPT's free app, but you can get close. Ask for the structured list with the same categories your delivery service or supermarket app uses, then paste it into the service's "list" or "shopping notepad" feature and check off the items as you go. The concept: the AI prepares a list already in the order in which the service shows the products, you transfer it and confirm the order.
Isn't it safer to keep going with pen and paper as I always have?
Pen and paper still make you forget what you have in the pantry and rebuy the same onion. The advantage of AI isn't the speed in itself: it's that it forces you to start from a coherent menu, and from there the list comes out complete and without duplicates. You buy only what you need, cut waste and stop rebuying what you already have. The pen stays useful for checking off at the supermarket; the heavy lifting is best given to the AI.