My First AI-Powered Recipe: A Taste of Korea
After living in Korea for 7 years, I get major cravings for Korean food, so the adventure had to start here. There was a time when I would eat kimchi and rice for breakfast, and I’ve been known to go through packs of dried seaweed like they’re going out of style. Let’s see how ChatGPT fared with creating a customized Korean recipe for me and my tastebuds.
Harnessing the Power of ChatGPT for Personalized Meal Planning and Recipes
I started a new chat in ChatGPT, and I’m planning on keeping all of my meal plans and recipes in this same chat. By feeding it information about my allergies, my dislikes, my daily calorie goals, and other information about my ideal diet, ChatGPT will be able to remember these guidelines for every recipe it creates for me. If you are brand new to ChatGPT, let me know if you need help getting started!
Expanding Resources: Blog and Newsletter Updates
In the future, I plan to create resources for this blog and my email newsletter to help you implement these steps at home. As of May 2023, when this post was written, ChatGPT version 3.5 is free to try. I did use the free version for a month or so before upgrading to ChatGPT Plus, which uses language model GPT-4 and currently costs $20/month. I knew that I would be using this technology in my businesses, so I felt the upgrade was well justified.
Crafting the Perfect Weekly Meal Plan
I was feeling in the mood for lots of flavorful foods from around the world this week, so I asked ChatGPT to create a weekly meal plan with cuisines such as Korean, Japanese, Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, and more. I live by myself and don’t really like to cook, so the first output gave me way too many different meals. I then chose my 4 favorite meals from the meal plan and asked ChatGPT to recreate the meal plan where the recipes are repeated 2-4 times throughout the week. This did the trick.
Speedy Meal Planning and Shopping Lists with ChatGPT
Once I had my 4 recipes, I asked ChatGPT to create the list of ingredients for 4 servings of each recipe along with cooking instructions. I also asked it to create a shopping list for me with all of the recommended ingredients. If you’ve ever planned meals for a week before, you know how long this process can take. Imagine getting it all done in about 10 seconds!
Ingredient Round-Up
Now for my ingredient round-up! I’ll tell you right now that I almost always forget at least one ingredient at the time that I take photos for the ingredient round-up. Perhaps I should make it a game of “spot the missing ingredient!” (Here it was a medium onion.) You’ll also see some substitutions and lazy hacks when I cook, like my jars of minced garlic and ginger, or an opposition to any action with a knife that takes more effort than “chopped” or “sliced.” That slow cooker cooking away in the background.. that has nothing to do with this recipe. Ignore it for now, and read more about it in the next recipe: Mexican Chicken Avocado Lime Soup!
The Joy of Stir-Frying
I am clearly skipping some of the actual preparation steps for a recipe blog, but learning how to blog is all part of this process for me. No, sadly AI didn’t do the cooking for me, but here’s what I came up with after a bit of time in the kitchen:
Taste Test: Success or Flop?
Was it the most authentically Korean meal? Nah. Was it delicious? I thought it was pretty tasty! Check out the recipe below, and give it a try yourself!
Korean Spicy Chicken Stir-Fry
Equipment
- 1 Large skillet or wok
- 1 Mixing bowl
- 1 Knife
- 1 Cutting board
Ingredients
- 2 lbs chicken breast cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 medium bell peppers sliced
- 2 medium zucchinis sliced
- 4 green onions chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp sesame oil
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat.
- Add the chicken pieces to the skillet and stir-fry until they're cooked through, about 5-7 minutes. Remove the chicken from the skillet and set it aside.
- In the same skillet, add the bell peppers, zucchinis, green onions, and garlic. Stir-fry for another 5 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender-crisp.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, gochujang, and sesame oil.
- Return the cooked chicken to the skillet with the vegetables. Pour the sauce over the top and stir well to combine.
- Continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes, until everything is heated through.
- Serve the stir-fry hot, garnished with additional green onions if desired.