AI Skill: Photo input
The Scenario: That 5pm moment when you’re staring into the fridge with no plan. AI can look at what’s actually in there and suggest dinners you can make tonight.
What you need
- ChatGPT (the free version works fine) on your phone
- A fridge with some stuff in it
- About three minutes
How to do it
- Open the fridge — and the cupboard if useful, since many staples live there.
- Open the ChatGPT app, tap the + icon, and choose Camera or Photo Library.
- Take a clear photo showing what’s inside.
- Paste the prompt below and add the photo(s). Change the details in the square brackets.
Here’s a photo of what’s in my fridge. Suggest three dinner ideas for [number of people, ages] that I can make tonight using mostly what’s here. Assume I have basic staples (oil, salt, pasta, rice, eggs, onions). Each one should take under [40] minutes and need no more than one trip to the corner shop for one or two missing items.
5. Pick whichever looks best and start cooking.
Good to know
- Privacy: Photos of the fridge don’t usually contain anything sensitive. But if there are personal notes, photos, or letters magnetised to the door, keep them out of frame.
- Accuracy: AI can miscount or misread labels. Double-check the suggestions against what’s actually there before you commit.
- Flexibility: Works just as well for the cupboard, the freezer, or both photographed together.
Take it further
- Ask for a meal plan that uses up specific items before they expire (“the cheese needs eating today”).
- Photograph what you’ve got in for packed lunches and ask for ideas the kids will actually eat.
- Use the same approach to plan a meal from a hotel mini-fridge on holiday.
- Photograph the receipt from a big shop and ask for a week of dinners that uses everything you bought.
- Try with a different AI and see how different the recipes are.