AI meal planner: how to ask for a weekly menu and where it stops

With a general AI assistant you get four or five dinners with quantities and a shopping list sorted by aisle, as long as you tell it who is eating, when you cook and what is already at home. What is missing is this week’s promotions: the assistant was trained on data that stops months before you use it, and at the three big Swiss supermarkets the promotions change every Thursday. The AI brings order, you bring the promotions, and you check the menu before you go out.

Updated October 2026. Sources: promotions pages of three chains; model documentation from Anthropic and OpenAI; Claude Help Center (web search); Gemini Apps Help (answers, sources); Budgetberatung Schweiz, budget examples 2025/2026; foodwaste.ch, based on ZHAW for the FOEN (all viewed on 13 October 2026).

Can you plan a week of meals with an AI assistant?

Yes. An AI meal plan is a weekly menu that a general AI assistant (for example ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) builds from what you tell it: people, cooking evenings, what you do not want on the table, time and stock. Its strength is structure: a few sensible dinners, ingredients that come back in several dishes, and a list already sorted by aisle.

It has three limits: it cannot see your fridge, it does not have current Swiss promotion data by itself, and it can be wrong. In the Gemini Apps Help, Google warns that answers can present inaccurate information as fact. An AI menu is therefore a draft to check. The method without AI is in the guide to meal planning in Switzerland.

How do you ask an AI assistant for a menu for your family?

Give the assistant the facts before you ask for the menu: the more concrete the prompt, the less the assistant has to invent.

1. Write down your constraints and your stock. How many people eat, which evenings you really cook, how many minutes you have, what stays off the table, and three to five items to use soon.
2. Ask for four or five dinners, not seven. Leave two evenings free for leftovers and surprises and ask for the same ingredients to come back in several dishes: the list stays short.
3. Give a budget as a guideline, without prices. Write it as a weekly amount and ask for simple dishes; the assistant does not have current prices by itself.
4. Paste the promotions you want to use. Copy five to ten items you really need from the promotions page, with their validity dates, and ask the assistant to use only those: it works with what you give it, not with what it remembers.
5. Ask for one single list and check it. By aisle, with the quantities for the week, without prices or brands; then cross out what you already have. More prompts are in the guide to the AI grocery list.

As a starting point for the budget, Budgetberatung Schweiz gives guideline values for 2025/2026 for food and non-alcoholic drinks: CHF 550 to 700 per month for a couple and CHF 850 to 1'100 for a family with two children, depending on net income (plus CHF 50 to 100 per teenager from 12), without eating out, guests and alcohol. For a week, multiply by 12 and divide by 52: about CHF 127 to 162 for the couple, about CHF 196 to 254 for the family.

• Prompt 1, the basic request: "Prepare the dinner menu for next week for [NUMBER] people ([ADULTS] adults, [CHILDREN] children). We cook on [NUMBER] evenings, at most [MINUTES] minutes per evening. Diet and ingredients to avoid: [LIST]. We already have: [LIST]. The weekly budget is only a guideline ([AMOUNT] francs): simple dishes with ingredients that come back in several dinners. For each dinner give the dish, the ingredients with quantities for [NUMBER] people and the time. Do not give prices, shops or brands. If you are not sure about a quantity or a time, say so."
• Prompt 2, promotions and list: "Here are the promotions of this week that interest me, with their validity dates: [PASTE 5 TO 10 ITEMS]. Revise the menu using these items only where they make sense, without adding promotions I have not given you. Then write one single shopping list by aisle, with the total quantities for the week and without what I already have."

Why does an AI-made menu not follow the promotions?

Because the promotions (called "Aktionen" in German) change on fixed days every week, and a general AI assistant has no current data on Swiss promotions by itself. It has the knowledge from its training, which ends at a cutoff date: as of October 2026, the model pages of Anthropic and OpenAI put it between April and June 2026 for their latest models. Web search adds a few pages, but the answer depends on what it finds: the Claude Help Center explains that Claude uses it when current information helps and gives its sources, and Google notes that not every Gemini answer shows sources.

So a promotion week straddles two calendar weeks: if you write the menu on Sunday, you work with promotions that end on Wednesday; if you write it between Wednesday evening and Thursday, you start from the new ones. How an AI assistant gets to promotions is explained in the guide to ChatGPT and grocery deals.

AI meal plans: the most common mistakes

Most of the time the mistake is in the method, not in the tool.

1. Accepting seven different dinners. Seven dishes with different ingredients lengthen the list and leave leftovers: in Switzerland each person throws away about 80 kg of food a year at home (2024 estimate, ZHAW for the FOEN, via foodwaste.ch). Four or five dinners with recurring ingredients are better, as in the guide to a weekly meal plan on a budget.
2. Trusting prices and "promotions" written by the assistant. They are only text: check them on the promotions page and ask for a menu without prices.
3. Not checking the quantities. Redo two or three lines by hand, for example pasta or rice per person: the assistant can get the sums wrong.
4. Using it for dietary advice. For allergies, coeliac disease or medical diets it does not replace a professional; read the product labels.

From menu to shopping list with this week’s promotions: how to do it now

Today it takes three steps: write the menu (alone or with an AI assistant), turn it into a list and compare the list with the week’s promotions, between Wednesday evening and Thursday. For recipes, see the guide to turning recipes into a shopping list; to compare tools, the one on meal planning apps.

Rappn is a free Swiss app (iOS and Android) that compares the current promotions of seven Swiss retailers and turns receipts into a spending overview. It does not write the menu: you decide the dinners, with or without AI, and the app covers the next step. The promotions are updated daily as the chains publish them; the list shows an estimated price and, for each item, products with prices by store (prices are indicative); you share the list with your household and edit it together; and you get an alert when a product you follow goes on offer. Rappn covers groceries only, not rent, insurance or taxes, and has no subscription. Rappn is building an AI assistant for groceries: you can join the waitlist.