Meal Planning

Meal Planning

Generate meal plans, shopping lists, and nutritional summaries from recipes in ./recipes/.

Generating a Weekly Meal Plan

1. Understand preferences (ask if not provided):

   • Meals per day (default: 3 — breakfast, lunch, dinner)
   • Dietary restrictions
   • Cuisine preferences
   • Difficulty preference (weeknight = easy/medium)
   • Servings per meal

2. Check recipe availability:

   • Glob ./recipes/*.md to inventory all existing recipes
   • Only use existing recipes — never invent or generate placeholder recipes for the meal plan
   • If fewer than 5 recipes are available, stop and ask the user if they'd like to brainstorm and add new recipes before creating a meal plan
   • If enough recipes exist, proceed to selection

3. Select recipes from the available collection:

   • Vary cuisines across the week
   • Mix difficulty levels (simpler on weekdays)
   • Respect dietary restrictions
   • Reuse ingredients across meals to reduce shopping

4. Format the meal plan (reference recipes by title only — do not include full recipe content):

# Meal Plan: March 22 - March 28, 2026

| Day | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner |
|-----|-----------|-------|--------|
| Mon | ... | ... | ... |
| Tue | ... | ... | ... |

5. Save to ./meal-plans/YYYY-MM-DD-to-YYYY-MM-DD.md if user wants it persisted. Each entry should reference the recipe file path (e.g., ./recipes/chicken-tikka-masala.md) so the user can look up the full recipe.

Shopping List Generation

From a meal plan or user-specified set of recipes:

1. Read the Ingredients section of each recipe.
2. Parse quantities and units.
3. Combine duplicates, summing quantities where units match.
4. Group by category:
   • Produce
   • Meat & Seafood
   • Dairy & Eggs
   • Pantry / Dry Goods
   • Spices & Seasonings
   • Other
5. Present the list and optionally save to ./shopping-lists/.

Reference: @${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/meal-planning/references/nutrition-guidelines.md

Nutritional Summary

Provide rough nutritional overview per meal and per day (estimates based on common knowledge):

• Approximate calories per serving
• Protein / carbs / fat balance
• Notable nutritional highlights (high protein, high fiber, etc.)

Always note these are estimates, not precise values.