How do we want to cook this week?
1–30 days, shared or individual dishes, daily or batch cooking, 15+ cuisines, quick or gourmet complexity. One plan, one shopping list for the whole household.
Plan configuration is the blueprint for a single generation run. It ties participants and their nutrition profiles to duration, dish mode, cadence, complexity, budget, cuisine and free-text notes. One meal plan always yields one AI-generated plan with one shopping list.
Job-to-be-done
When I want a 5-day keto plan where Monday–Wednesday is meal-prep cook-once and Thursday–Friday is quick dinners under $15 per person, I want to express all of that in one form.
Dish modes — the multi-person logic
How the LLM structures dishes when more than one person is on the plan.
SHARED — same dish, scaled portions
One recipe per meal. Portions are distributed per person using a smart macro-priority algorithm: if someone’s profile is protein-heavy (>35 %), protein-rich ingredients go to them first.
Pick when: couples or families that want to cook once and serve everyone from the same pan.
INDIVIDUAL — unique dishes per person
A different recipe for every participant at every meal. Ideal when dietary constraints diverge (one keto, one vegan, one gluten-free).
Pick when: participants have incompatible diets or very different taste preferences.
HYBRID — mix both per person
You choose which participants are in the SHARED group and which are INDIVIDUAL. Requires explicit dishModeGroups configuration.
Pick when: parents share dinner but kids get age-appropriate meals.
1 meal plan = 1 AI-generated plan = 1 shopping list
Even with 5 people eating 5 different dishes, the result is a single record.
Household shopping list merges all ingredients
One weekly calendar for everyone
Regenerate a day or a single meal without rebuilding the whole plan
Plan-wide settings
The everyday knobs. All optional, sensible defaults shipped.
Duration
1–30 days. Default 7. Tier-limited: free up to 3 days.
Plan language
English, Ukrainian, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish.
Cooking cadence
DAILY or BATCH 3–7. LLM plans leftovers and storage-friendly recipes accordingly.
Meal-prep days
Mark specific weekdays. The LLM concentrates cooking effort and generates lighter assembly meals for the rest.
Cooking complexity
QUICK (≤20 min) · STANDARD (30–45 min) · GOURMET (weekend-style).
Budget
LOW · MEDIUM · HIGH. LLM favors cheaper staples when LOW.
Cuisine
Italian, Asian, Mexican, Mediterranean, Indian, American, French, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Greek, Spanish, Middle Eastern.
Diversity & repeats
diversity: LOW/MEDIUM/HIGH. allowRepeatDishes: whether the same recipe can appear twice.
Plan comments
Free text passed to the LLM as additional context.
Questions people ask
Short answers.
Can I change dish mode after generation?
Yes. Edit the plan configuration and regenerate. The previous generation is archived (isLatest=false).
What if I plan for just one person?
Dish mode and dish groups are hidden. A single participant defaults to INDIVIDUAL automatically.
How does batch cooking work?
Set cadenceMode=BATCH and batchDays (1–7). The LLM writes recipes that scale cleanly and store well.
Is the budget tag exact?
It’s a soft constraint for the LLM, not a ceiling enforced per ingredient. Use it as a steering signal.
Can I mix cuisines?
Select a single primary cuisine in the form. For a mix, leave the field empty and describe the preference in plan comments.
- Reviewed by
- Melio Nutrition & AI Platform Team
- Last updated