What can I make?
Tap the protein, answer a question or two, and the meals you can cook tonight are counted as you go. The basics are assumed, the gaps are named, and you can stop the moment the number looks good.
228 meals · 162 ingredients on 8 shelves · 7 assumed · saved on this device
2 in reach · 0 ready · 7 tapped
Show meals ↓You have the basics — salt, black pepper, garlic, butter, garlic powder, olive oil, onion
1 · Protein
What protein is in the house?Tap any. This is the one that changes everything.
No meat tonight? Skip this — the veg meals are already in the count.
2 · What moves the most meals
Any of these?Picked because they split the 41 meals in play nearly in half.
Skipping is fine — they only move meals between the two lists, never out of them.
2meals in reach from what you tapped·0 with nothing missing
How it decides
- 01
Protein first, because it changes the most
One tap on chicken cuts the list to the chicken meals. No chicken tapped means no chicken meals. A thigh recipe stays in view for someone with breasts, marked as short the thighs.
- 02
Then whatever splits what is left
The next chips are the ingredients used by closest to half of the meals still in play, so each tap moves the most meals. Nothing used by fewer than 4 meals is ever asked about; it shows up as a named gap instead.
- 03
The basics are assumed
Anything in a quarter or more of the recipes — salt, black pepper, garlic, butter, garlic powder, olive oil, onion — is ticked from the start. Untap what you're out of and the count adjusts.
- 04
Anything the dish is named for is non-negotiable
No lemon, no lemon garlic butter shrimp. Everything else is leeway: a meal missing up to 3 supporting ingredients still shows, with the gaps listed. Whether no mayo is a problem is your call.
- 05
Swaps count
Garlic powder stands in for fresh garlic, lime for lemon, neutral oil for olive oil, yogurt for sour cream. A swap never hides a meal.
- 06
It remembers
Your taps are saved on this device. Next time it asks one question: same fridge as last time?
Frequently Asked Questions: Pantry Inventory Matching
01.How does the pantry recipe matching algorithm determine dinner options?
The engine uses an inverted ingredient index matching your selected items against 228 verified recipes. It executes a hierarchical tree: (1) Primary protein filter, (2) High-information-gain split questions that divide remaining candidates closest to 50/50, and (3) Tolerance ranking allowing up to 2 minor missing ingredients so you can evaluate near-misses.
02.Which kitchen staples are automatically assumed to be in stock?
Ingredients present in 25% or more of all recipes are pre-selected as universal household staples (including salt, black pepper, neutral cooking oil, olive oil, and butter). If your pantry is completely bare of any staple, tapping to uncheck that ingredient instantly recalculates the valid recipe pool.
03.Are common culinary ingredient substitutions factored into the match?
Yes. The algorithm maps standard culinary equivalencies. For example, dried garlic powder substitutes for fresh garlic cloves, lime juice for lemon juice, and sour cream for plain Greek yogurt. These functional culinary swaps satisfy recipe requirements without flagging false missing gaps.
04.How does pantry-first cooking reduce annual household food waste?
The USDA estimates that average American households discard 30% to 40% of purchased food, costing roughly $1,500 annually in spoiled produce and proteins. Matching meals to existing inventory prioritizes perishable items before their bacterial expiration windows, reducing grocery waste and preventing impulse takeout orders.
05.Can I prioritize fast weeknight meals or specific appliances with my pantry items?
Yes. Every matched recipe retains its appliance tags (Air Fryer, Cast Iron, Instant Pot, Sheet Pan) and prep time flags. Once your pantry results appear, you can filter directly by cooking duration (such as 15-minute meals) or hardware.