Fed up with following the same old recipes? Me too. After stewing on the issue for a while, I decided to put together an appetizing prompt, and have Claude rustle up a personalized recipe generator app for me. In my mind’s eye, I could picture the tasty new dishes I would soon be preparing using my favorite techniques. So, Claude, let’s get cooking…

When I go out to brunch, I am always on the lookout for elaborately prepared, exotic variants on the venerable Eggs Benedict. Enterprising chefs view this classic menu item as a showcase for their culinary creativity. Some of them get pretty wild. 

Back in my own kitchen, my philosophy is different.

I enjoy cooking, and can turn my hand to a small repertoire of tasty dishes. But I like to keep it simple: most importantly, minimizing the number of utensils I use and then have to clean up. So, my two favorite strategies involve a slow-cooker, or baking on a sheet-pan. I usually cook fish, shrimp, and occasionally chicken.

Inevitably, these preferences limit the range of recipes to which I can turn. So, I figured it was time to get some help from my vibe coding partner, Claude. I had in mind an app which would generate new recipes for me, based upon what and how I liked to cook.

Monster prompt

The prompt I composed is easily the longest I have ever submitted, but previous experience suggested Claude could handle it. Having given it considerable thought, I had a clear picture of what I wanted: drop-down menus for cooking technique and primary and secondary protein choices, together with an option to choose from any combination of twenty different vegetables, plus whatever spices and seasonings were required.

Claude suggested we add a drop-down for cuisine/flavor profile. Smart. Claude also suggested that rather than scrape the web for existing recipes, it would be better to engage the Anthropic API to generate recipes from scratch, based upon the ingredient list. 

You can read my prompt, and dialog with Claude, below. But to skip to the punch line, here’s a screen shot of the app.

Persistance pays off

The first version of the app did not work. Neither did the second, nor the third. It seems this was a tricky task.

Eventually, ‘we’ figured out the problem. Claude revised the app-design strategy and we ended up with the following: an html-based app featuring a user interface which generated a specification prompt I pasted into the Claude app on my computer. This opened a new Claude chat, which presented me with the recipe.

The recipe comprises an ingredient list, cooking instructions, and some images of how the dish would look. Claude also offered some handy advice about cooking technique. The default recipe was for four servings, but that could be scaled via a drop-down. I am into batch cooking (high serving-to-utensil ratio) so perfect for me.

Off and cooking

I have tried out the app to create several examples of slow-cooker-based recipes and sheet-pan-based recipes. It works like a charm – sample recipe coming up.

Obviously, anyone can access a mind-boggling universe of recipes by searching the web. But, thanks to this app, I can now access a wealth of recipes specifically geared to what and how I like to cook.

I will still be on the lookout for new versions of Eggs Benedict whenever I go out to brunch though…

Observations

• Unlike previous ‘self-contained’ apps I have built, this one initiated ‘generative’ steps beyond the confines of the app itself.

• This introduced complications which took a number of iterations to solve.

• This time, creation of an app which delivered the results I was after felt more like a partnership – with me making suggestions and Claude evaluating them

• The solution we finally settled on is not quite as elegant as I had originally envisaged, but it is simple and works.

• I learned that persistence and flexibility are important when designing and building a brand-new piece of software.

Thai-Style Shrimp & Pepper Stew

A fragrant coconut-laced Thai stew with sweet bell peppers, slow-cooked in a lemongrass and red curry broth, finished with fresh shrimp. Servings: 4.

Ingredients

• 600 grams raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 3 bell peppers (mixed colours), deseeded and sliced
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 400 grams canned chopped tomatoes
• 400 milliliters coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons red Thai curry paste
• 2 lemongrass stalks, bruised and halved
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoons palm sugar (or brown sugar)
• 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoons ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoons ground coriander
• 0.5 teaspoons white pepper
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1 small bunch fresh coriander, to serve
• 1 fresh red chilli, sliced, to serve (optional)

Steps

1. Build the base: Add the 1 large onion, finely sliced (onion), 400 grams canned chopped tomatoes (canned tomatoes), 400 milliliters coconut milk (coconut milk), 3 bell peppers (mixed colours), deseeded and sliced (bell peppers), 4 garlic cloves, minced (garlic), 1 tablespoons fresh ginger, grated (ginger), 2 lemongrass stalks, bruised and halved (lemongrass), 2 tablespoons red Thai curry paste (curry paste), 1 teaspoons ground turmeric (turmeric), 1 teaspoons ground coriander (ground coriander), 0.5 teaspoons white pepper (white pepper), 1 tablespoons vegetable oil (oil), 2 tablespoons fish sauce (fish sauce), and 1 tablespoons palm sugar (or brown sugar) (sugar) into the slow cooker. Stir well to combine.

2. Slow cook the broth: Set the slow cooker to LOW and cook for 150 minutes 150:00 30 minutes, until the peppers are tender and the broth is fragrant and slightly thickened. Remove and discard the lemongrass stalks.

3. Add the shrimp: Add the 600 grams raw shrimp, peeled and deveined (shrimp) to the slow cooker, stirring them gently into the broth. Replace the lid and cook on LOW for a further 20–22m 30s 22:30, until the shrimp are just pink and cooked through. Do not overcook — shrimp turn rubbery quickly.

4. Finish and season: Stir in the 1 lime, juiced (lime juice). Taste and adjust seasoning — add more fish sauce for saltiness, sugar for sweetness, or lime for brightness.

5. Serve: Ladle into bowls over steamed jasmine rice. Top with a small bunch of fresh coriander leaves, to serve, and 1 fresh red chilli, sliced, to serve (optional) if using.

Notes

Slow cooker tip: Shrimp are added late deliberately — putting them in at the start would make them tough and overcooked. The 20–25 minute window at the end is all they need.

Make it milder: Use 1 tbsp curry paste instead of 2, and skip the fresh chilli.

Serving suggestion: Jasmine rice is ideal, but rice noodles or crusty bread also work well to soak up the broth.

One small note on the shrimp: with a slow cooker, the key is adding them in the final 20–25 minutes only — they’ll be perfectly tender that way. The broth and vegetables do all their work in the first 2.5 hours and develop a lovely depth of flavour before the shrimp go in.

Keith’s original prompt

I enjoy cooking, and have perfected a small repertoire of dishes that I cook on a rotation over the course of several weeks. I use a slow cooker to make batches of stews, curries and chilis, and a sheet pan to bake dishes in the oven. I try to minimize the number of utensils I use, thus minimizing clean up afterwards. I limit the protein content in these recipes primarily to fish and shrimp, but occasionally include chicken. Although my system works well, I would like to diversify and expand the range of dishes I cook, while retaining my cooking approaches and protein sources. I would therefore like to build an app that would suggest a new recipe for me to try, each time I use it. I have a few ideas for how this could work, which I will now share, but I am also open to alternative suggestions. Unlike previous apps you have built for me, which have been self-contained calculators or converters, the app I have in mind would need to connect to the internet to track down ingredients and cooking instructions. The input fields for the app could include the following: cooking method (slow cooker or sheet pan bake), protein source 1 and optional protein source 2, vegetable options (could be a drop-down menu containing 20 listed vegetables, allowing selection of multiple options). The output fields would be an ingredient list, including required spices and seasonings, and cooking instructions. I would like a different recipe every time I use the app. Are these instructions clear enough, and is this something you could build?

Claude’s response

Yes, your instructions are very clear, and this is absolutely something I can build! The concept is well-suited to an AI-powered app that calls the Anthropic API to generate a fresh recipe each time based on your inputs.

A few quick thoughts before I build:

What I'll implement as described:

• Cooking method selector (slow cooker / sheet pan)
• Primary protein + optional second protein (fish, shrimp, chicken)
• Multi-select vegetable dropdown (20 vegetables)
• Generated output: full ingredient list (with spices/seasonings) + cooking instructions
• A different recipe every time, thanks to the AI generation

One suggestion I'll add: A cuisine/flavor profile selector (e.g. Asian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Indian, American) — this gives the AI a meaningful creative constraint that helps vary the recipes in interesting ways, without adding complexity for you. I can leave it out if you'd prefer to keep it minimal.

On the "connect to the internet" point: the app will use the Claude AI API to generate recipes with ingredient lists and instructions from scratch — this is actually better than web-scraping recipes, since it can tailor results precisely to your inputs (your cooking method, your proteins, your chosen veg). It won't pull from a recipe website, but the output will be equivalent or better. If you'd specifically like it to source from real recipe sites, that's also possible but more complex.

Shall I go ahead and build it with the cuisine selector included?

Keith

Yes please! great suggestion on the cuisine/flavor profile selector. I am happy to follow the approach you recommend.

Claude

Reading frontend design skill

Your recipe finder is ready! Here's what it does:

• Cooking method — toggle between slow cooker and sheet pan bake
• Cuisine selector — 10 profiles plus an “any cuisine — surprise me” option
• Protein — primary plus an optional second protein, covering your fish, shrimp, and chicken options
• Vegetables — all 20 chips to tap; select as many as you like
• Generate recipe — hits the Claude API each time and returns a completely fresh recipe with a full ingredient list (including spices and pantry staples) and step-by-step method

A random seed is passed with every request so you'll get a genuinely different recipe each time you hit the button, even with identical inputs. Give it a try!

Keith

I tried it and received a message saying something went wrong. When I press the button to select the cooking method, for example, slow cooker, the button does not indicate that it has been selected.

[What followed was a long discussion with Claude about how to make the app work. The entire dialog with Claude, which eventually resulted in a fully functional app, would be too long to include in this article, but I would be happy to supply it upon request]