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AI chatbotslikeChatGPThave soared in popularity, but we’re still figuring out the practical uses. One thing ChatGPT is particularly good at is making recipes for anything you ask for, but are the recipes any good? Let’s get cooking.
Your Own Personal Recipe Writer
Among themany things ChatGPT can do, it’s particularly useful as a cooking assistant. It’s like having the mind of a cookbook writer at your disposal. You can be super vague and simply ask “what should I make for dinner?” Sometimes you’ll get a recipe with ingredients and instructions, other times you’ll get a list of ideas.
It’s even more impressive if you get specific with your requests. For example, I asked for a dish that combines German and Mexican cuisine. ChatGPT gave me a recipe for “Sausage and Potato Tacos with Spicy Sauerkraut Slaw.” I wasn’t able to find a similar recipe online, so it seems to be a somewhat unique idea.
Perhaps the most practical use is including the ingredients you have on hand. Let’s say you have some chicken, sweet potatoes, rice, and cashews. I asked for a recipe that included those ingredients, and ChatGPT spit out a recipe for “Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry with Cashews and Basmati Rice.”
Now, all of these recipes sound good in theory, but that’s the tricky thing about ChatGPT—it’s very good at being confidently wrong. Are these recipes actually any good in real life? Let’s find out.
Cooking with ChatGPT
To put ChatGPT’s recipe-writing skills to the test, I wanted to challenge it with a real-world situation. The first thing I did was ask for four random ingredients. ChatGPT gave me:
Sold. Then I asked, “What’s a recipe that uses those ingredients?” The result was a recipe titled: “Coconut Chickpea Curry with Red Bell Pepper and Cinnamon.” Admittedly, that’s not terribly inventive, but it sounded good. I decided tohead to the kitchenand give it a try—sticking very close to the recipe instructions.
Chickpea and Red Pepper Curry with Coconut Milk and Cinnamon
Ingredients:
Instructions:
Enjoy your delicious and flavorful Coconut Chickpea Curry with Red Bell Pepper and Cinnamon!
I’m happy to report the recipe was easy to follow and the dish was pretty good! Cinnamon was the wild card, and it blended in okay. I think a little less would have been better. Some tomatoes in the sauce would have been nice, too. I was pleasantly surprised by how spicy it came out, though. Overall, this is a super solid, easy recipe that would be a perfect weeknight dinner.
This is exactly the type of thing I can actually see myself using on a regular basis. It’s incredibly handy to be able to ask for a recipe that incorporates ingredients you already have on hand, or for a specific type of food you’re in the mood for.
Search engines and some recipe websites can do this too, but ChatGPT has a few advantages. It’s easier to ask for a recipe with conversational language, and it eliminates the indecision that comes with wading through hundreds of results. If you find that as useful as I do,you should give it a try.
