How to Plan Your Thanksgiving Dinner Using AI

Halloween is over, and Thanksgiving only lasts four weeks. If you’re dreaming of the perfect turkey and side dishes, it’s time to start planning your menu if you’re the lucky host this year. And artificial intelligence is perhaps the best sous chef there is.

While Thanksgiving may be the most magical day of the year, it is also one of the most stressful. Thanksgiving memes are hilarious, but there’s nothing funny about slaving away in a hot kitchen from dawn to dusk just to make your aunt, who sees you twice a year, doubt the quality of your macaroni and cheese. “Who made this?” suddenly becomes a very loaded sentence on Thanksgiving.

One of the ways AI can help is by taking the guesswork out of planning an undeniably delicious Thanksgiving meal, no matter what the holidays have in store for you. Here’s how to use it.

Choose an AI tool and discover your skills

Because I would like to have the advantage of choosing certain ones recipes from anywhere on the web I use Microsoft’s in-browser, text-prompt AI tool, Second pilot. Copilot uses LLM (Large Language Model) processing and cited sources from the Internet to respond to conversational search requests, and can analyze web pages as you surf.

But make sure you give it the information it needs. If you can barely boil water, don’t ask an AI tool to design a multi-course French-Chinese fusion banquet with sous vide steaks and flat noodles made from scratch.

I let Copilot know that I was an amateur in the kitchen, and it gave me some easy-to-prepare recipes with easy-to-source ingredients and minimal steps and prep. One of the options even sounded fancy: green bean almond, which is literally just green beans with sliced ​​almonds.

Give AI a count of the number of people

Let the robot chef know how many hungry people will be attending your Thanksgiving meal. I used Microsoft’s Copilot to convert this New York Times gravy recipe for 20 people, and it seamlessly converted the measurements to a larger batch:

Adapt recipes to your needs

Not everyone wants raisins in their potato salad, and it’s best to avoid foods that could upset people’s stomachs or cause allergies if you’re all sitting close together at a dining table.

For example, Copilot was able to immediately give me some essential ingredient substitutions for removing onions from the green bean casserole.

Take your budget into account

Let the AI ​​tool know how much you have to spend on Thanksgiving dinner. Copilot was able to give me a list of low-cost, high-flavor dishes, including waiting for sales or discounts on turkey, buying a smaller turkey, and using regular potatoes, boxed stuffing, packets of gravy mixes, and ready-made ready-made cakes. crust and canned versions of beans, cream of mushroom soup, pumpkin and cranberry sauce.

Copilot estimated that my entire Thanksgiving meal would cost between $50 and $75, and included an itemized price breakdown of each ingredient I needed.

However, be sure to check your local prices. I’m not convinced you can still find real whipped cream for £2 a jar, as a quick search shows the price is closer to £4.50. However, something called “whipped topping” was on sale at Kroger for $1.79.

Let AI know what you’re working with

Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and one of those bad things could be not being able to use your oven during the Thanksgiving holiday. Copilot was able to swoop in with some solid suggestions for cooking a whole turkey without the aid of an oven. Please do not fry a frozen turkey.

I pressed Copilot even further and told the device that I only had a large pot to cook with, and it gave me a detailed recipe for poaching a whole turkey.

Whatever you’re working with on Thanksgiving, AI seems like a good kitchen companion.

Don’t let your judgmental relatives know that a robot helped you season the turkey.