The holiday season has arrived and, if you're planning to host a big feast for family and friends, it's time to start planning the menu so you have plenty of time to buy those ingredients. And artificial intelligence might be the best sous chef out there.
While it might be one of the most magical times of the year, it's also one of the most stressful. Holiday memes are hilarious but there's nothing funny about working in a hot kitchen from sunup to sundown only to have an aunt you see twice a year question the quality of your mac and cheese. "Who made this?" can be a very loaded question when you're hosting.
It can be a time to revel in the bounty of the season's most succulent offerings. But it's also when relatives dip too deep in the sauce and start arguments about pronouns at the dinner table.
One of the ways AI can help is by taking the guesswork out of planning an undeniably delicious meal, no matter what the holidays throw at you. Here's how to use it.
Choose an AI tool and get real about your skills
Because I'd like the benefit of choosing certain recipes from around the web, I'm using Microsoft's in-browser, text-prompt AI tool, Copilot. Copilot uses LLM processing as well as cited sources from the internet to respond to conversational search requests, and it can analyze web pages as you browse.
But make sure you give it the info it needs. As in, if you can barely boil water, don't ask an AI tool to design a multicourse French-Chinese fusion banquet with sous vide steaks and flat noodles made from scratch.
I let Copilot know I was an amateur in the kitchen and it gave me some easy-to-prepare recipes with simple-to-source ingredients and minimal steps and prep. One of the options even sounded fancy -- green bean almondine -- which is literally just green beans with sliced almonds.
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Give AI a headcount
Let the robot chef know how many hungry people will be in attendance for your holiday meal. I used Microsoft's Copilot to convert this New York Times recipe for gravy to accommodate 20 people and it seamlessly converted the measurements into a larger batch.
Alter recipes to your needs
Not everyone wants raisins in their potato salad and it's best to avoid foods that might upset people's stomachs or inflame allergies when you'll all be at a dinner table in close proximity.
For instance, Copilot was able to give me some critical ingredient substitutions on the fly 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 dinner. Copilot was able to provide me with a list of dishes that were low on cost and high in flavor, including waiting for sales or discounts on turkey, getting a smaller turkey, and using plain potatoes, boxed stuffing mix, gravy mix packets, premade pie crust and canned versions of beans, cream of mushroom soup, pumpkin and cranberry sauce.
Copilot estimated my entire meal to cost between $50 and $75, and included an itemized price breakdown of every ingredient I'd need.
Be sure to double-check your local prices, though. I'm not convinced you can still find genuine whipped cream for $2 a container, as a quick search reveals the price to be closer to $4.50. Something called "whipped topping," however, 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 might include losing the use of your oven during the holidays. Copilot was able to swoop in with some solid suggestions for cooking a whole turkey without the aid of an oven. Just please don't deep-fry a frozen turkey.
I pressed Copilot further, letting the tool know I had only a large pot to cook with and it gave me a detailed recipe for how to poach a whole turkey.
Whatever you're working with, AI appears to be a decent kitchen companion.
Just don't let your judgmental relatives know a robot helped you season the turkey.