The best AI recipe generators in 2026

For a whole dinner written from what’s in your fridge, with no account, Create & Cook (ours), DishGen and Let’s Foodie are free. To find a published recipe that uses exactly what you have, SuperCook is free. Samsung Food is the best free planner but doesn’t write recipes. Mealime and Plant Jammer, still on many lists, are gone.

Checked October 28, 2026 by the Create & Cook kitchen. We make Create & Cook, one of the tools below. Every other tool’s free limits, prices and features were checked on its own website the same day, and each section links to the pages we read.

The short answer

Best free one for family dinners from what you have: Create & Cook (ours). Writes a whole dinner from typed ingredients or a fridge photo with no account, counts calories and protein from USDA data, and comes with a free meal planner.
Best for talking a recipe into shape: DishGen. A chat that writes a recipe and changes it when you ask. Free without an account; 15 a week on a free account.
Best for finding an existing recipe that uses only what you have: SuperCook. Completely free, and it only shows published recipes you can make right now. It doesn’t write new ones.
Best free meal planner and shopping list: Samsung Food. A free planner, shared lists and nutrition on most of its 240,000 recipes, though the recipes aren’t written for your ingredients.
Best for an unusual request: ChatGPT. Free for text and good with complicated constraints, but it has no recipe layout and its numbers have no source.

Side by side

Tool	Writes a new recipe	Free	Paid	Account	Fridge photo
Create & CookOurs	Yes	20 recipes an hour, 3 meal plans and 2 fridge photos a week	Plus: $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year	Not needed	Yes
DishGen	Yes	Works without an account (those recipes aren’t saved); a free account gets 15 credits a week, one per recipe or meal plan	Premium $7.99 a month or $72 a year; Pro $15.99 a month or $159 a year	Not needed	No
SuperCook	No, finds existing ones	Everything, with ads on the website	None	Not needed	No
Samsung Food	No, finds existing ones	Ingredient search, 14 diet filters, a meal planner, shared shopping lists and nutrition on most recipes	Samsung Food+: $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year, bought in the phone app	Not needed to browse recipes	No
From Your Fridge	Yes	3 recipes a day without an account; a free account removes the daily limit	None found	Not needed for 3 a day	No
Let’s Foodie	Yes	Free, no limit stated, with ads	None	Not needed	No
FoodsGPT	Yes	Free to start without an account; there’s a daily cap, but the number isn’t published	PRO adds unlimited recipes and shopping lists; the price only shows after you sign in	Not needed	No
ChefGPT	Yes	Its App Store listing says the features need a paid subscription; free limits aren’t published	No pricing page; the US App Store lists purchases from $2.99 to $89.99, such as $4.99 a week	Needed	No
ChatGPT	Yes	Unlimited everyday text chats on the free tier, per OpenAI; photo uploads have their own limits	Plus: $20 a month	OpenAI’s help pages no longer say	Yes

Create & CookOurs

Best for: Weeknight family dinners from what’s already in the fridge

You give it: Typed ingredients, a photo of your fridge, or the name of a dish
You get: A complete dinner recipe written for your ingredients: quantities, timings, steps, safe temperatures, picky-eater notes and swaps
Free: 20 recipes an hour, 3 meal plans and 2 fridge photos a week
Paid: Plus: $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year
Account needed: Not needed
Nutrition: Calories and protein counted from the ingredients with USDA data
Meal planning: Free meal planner with one grocery list sorted by aisle
Works on: Web, on phones and computers

What it does well

Marks every ingredient as one you have, a pantry staple or something to buy, so you know before you start whether you need the store. Filters for kid-friendly, high-protein, GLP-1 friendly and the common allergies.

What to watch for

Recipes are written by AI and aren’t tested in a test kitchen. There’s no app in the app stores yet.

Checked October 28, 2026 on createandcook.com/pricing and createandcook.com/about.

DishGen

Best for: Talking a recipe into shape

You give it: Ingredients, an idea or a dish name, typed into a chat
You get: A new recipe written for you, which you can change by chatting with it
Free: Works without an account (those recipes aren’t saved); a free account gets 15 credits a week, one per recipe or meal plan
Paid: Premium $7.99 a month or $72 a year; Pro $15.99 a month or $159 a year
Account needed: Not needed
Nutrition: Paid plans only, as AI nutrition labels DishGen says aren’t a validated labeling service
Meal planning: Meal plans, with an advanced planner on Premium
Works on: Web; its iOS and Android apps were last updated in 2023 and 2024

What it does well

It really writes a recipe, and you can reshape it by asking (“make it dairy-free”, “less spicy”). You can try it without signing up.

What to watch for

The free account stops at 15 recipes a week, nutrition is paid, and the phone apps are out of date.

Checked October 28, 2026 on dishgen.com and dishgen.com/premium.

SuperCook

Best for: Finding a published recipe that uses exactly what’s in the pantry

You give it: A checklist of 2,000+ pantry ingredients, or typed (voice in the app)
You get: Existing recipes from other websites that use only what you have; the full recipe opens on the original site
Free: Everything, with ads on the website
Paid: None
Account needed: Not needed
Nutrition: Not shown
Meal planning: None
Works on: Web, iOS (last updated June 2022) and Android

What it does well

Shows only recipes you can make right now, from a pool of millions of published recipes. Filters for vegan, vegetarian, lactose-free, gluten-free, cuisine, time and “missing one ingredient”.

What to watch for

It finds recipes rather than writing them, so an odd mix of leftovers gets few matches, and each recipe is on someone else’s site with its ads.

Checked October 28, 2026 on supercook.com and apps.apple.com/us/app/-/id1477747816.

Samsung Food

Best for: Planning the week around recipes you already like

You give it: Search by ingredient across about 240,000 existing recipes, or save recipes from any website
You get: Existing recipes; on Food+ its AI adjusts them for you
Free: Ingredient search, 14 diet filters, a meal planner, shared shopping lists and nutrition on most recipes
Paid: Samsung Food+: $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year, bought in the phone app
Account needed: Not needed to browse recipes
Nutrition: Free, on about 218,500 recipes
Meal planning: Free meal planner and shared shopping lists; AI 7-day plans on Food+
Works on: Web, iOS and Android

What it does well

The strongest free mix of planner, shopping list and nutrition on this list (it used to be Whisk).

What to watch for

It doesn’t write a recipe for your ingredients, and the AI features are paid and only on phones.

Checked October 28, 2026 on samsungfood.com and samsungfood.com/food-plus/.

From Your Fridge

Best for: Keeping track of what’s in the fridge and when it runs out

You give it: Typed ingredients or a description, set to Easy weeknight or Gourmet
You get: A new recipe with macro estimates per serving
Free: 3 recipes a day without an account; a free account removes the daily limit
Paid: None found
Account needed: Not needed for 3 a day
Nutrition: Macro estimates per serving
Meal planning: 7-day planner, grocery list and a pantry tracker with expiry alerts
Works on: Web

What it does well

A generator, planner and pantry tracker in one, free with an account. Filters for vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, keto, low-carb, dairy-free, a calorie cap and under 30 minutes.

What to watch for

Three recipes a day until you sign up, and a recipe took 20 to 30 seconds to arrive when we tried it.

Checked October 28, 2026 on fromyourfridge.com.

Let’s Foodie

Best for: A quick one-off recipe

You give it: Typed ingredients, servings (1 to 10), cuisine and difficulty
You get: A new recipe you can print or copy
Free: Free, no limit stated, with ads
Paid: None
Account needed: Not needed
Nutrition: None
Meal planning: None
Works on: Web

What it does well

One short form and one recipe, with nothing to sign up for. Filters for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, low-carb and nut-free.

What to watch for

No nutrition, no saved recipes and no planning.

Checked October 28, 2026 on letsfoodie.com/ai-recipe-generator/.

FoodsGPT

Best for: Quick changes to a recipe idea

You give it: One box for ingredients or an idea
You get: A new recipe with calories and protein, plus one-click cheaper, faster or healthier versions
Free: Free to start without an account; there’s a daily cap, but the number isn’t published
Paid: PRO adds unlimited recipes and shopping lists; the price only shows after you sign in
Account needed: Not needed
Nutrition: Calories and protein
Meal planning: A separate meal planner; shopping lists on PRO
Works on: Web

What it does well

Quick to use, and the cheaper, faster and healthier buttons make it easy to adjust a recipe.

What to watch for

Neither the free limit nor the PRO price is published, and the site shows ads.

Checked October 28, 2026 on foodsgpt.com.

ChefGPT

Best for: Recipes and calorie tracking in one paid app

You give it: Picked or typed ingredients, a dish name, or macro targets; meal photos for calorie logging
You get: A new recipe, plus meal plans, a shopping list and calorie tracking
Free: Its App Store listing says the features need a paid subscription; free limits aren’t published
Paid: No pricing page; the US App Store lists purchases from $2.99 to $89.99, such as $4.99 a week
Account needed: Needed
Nutrition: Yes, with calorie tracking
Meal planning: Meal plans and a shopping list
Works on: iOS, Android, and the web once signed in

What it does well

The widest feature set here: recipes, meal plans, a shopping list and calorie tracking in one app.

What to watch for

Effectively paid-only, and it has become a calorie tracker (its App Store name is “ChefGPT: AI Calories Tracker”). The Android app shows ads.

Checked October 28, 2026 on chefgpt.xyz and apps.apple.com/us/app/chefgpt/id6449961549.

ChatGPT

Best for: Unusual requests you can describe in a sentence

You give it: Anything you type, and photos (limited on the free tier)
You get: A recipe in the chat, as detailed as you ask for
Free: Unlimited everyday text chats on the free tier, per OpenAI; photo uploads have their own limits
Paid: Plus: $20 a month
Account needed: OpenAI’s help pages no longer say
Nutrition: Estimates if you ask, with no stated source
Meal planning: Only as text in the chat
Works on: Web, iOS and Android

What it does well

Handles unusual requests for free: two allergies, a picky eater and a 20-minute limit in one sentence.

What to watch for

No recipe layout, servings scaling or recipe box. Results depend on how you ask, and the numbers have no source.

Checked October 28, 2026 on help.openai.com/en/articles/9275245-chatgpt-free-tier-faq and help.openai.com/en/articles/6950777-what-is-chatgpt-plus.

Gone in 2026

Mealime closed on October 21, 2026. It was a meal planner with an automatic grocery list, and it is moving into Albertsons Companies’ grocery apps as a free feature called Meals Hub. Its closing notice.
Plant Jammer is no longer in the US App Store or Google Play, and its old website now shows unrelated content, so we don’t link to it.

How we checked

On October 28, 2026 we read each tool’s homepage, pricing page and app store listings, and generated a recipe without an account wherever a tool allowed it. We noted what you hand it, what comes back, what the free tier allows and what the paid plan costs. Prices are in US dollars and change often, so each section links to the pages we read. Where a tool doesn’t publish a limit or a price, we say so rather than guess. We left out tools that have shut down, and SideChef, whose AI recipe tool is now sold to businesses rather than offered in its consumer app as far as we could see.

Create & Cook is our own tool, so read its entry knowing that. Its numbers come from our pricing page, and our about page explains how recipes are written and how nutrition is counted.

Questions people ask about AI recipe generators

What is the best free AI recipe generator?

For a full dinner written from the ingredients you have, without making an account, Create & Cook (ours), DishGen and Let’s Foodie are free, and From Your Fridge gives you 3 a day before you sign up. SuperCook is free too, but it finds existing recipes on other websites rather than writing one. If you want nutrition counted from the ingredients and a meal planner with a grocery list, Create & Cook does both for free.

Is there an AI that makes a recipe from a photo of your fridge?

Of the tools we checked, Create & Cook reads a photo of your fridge, lists what it sees and writes a dinner from it (2 free photos a week). ChatGPT will also take a photo you upload, within its free-tier limits. DishGen, SuperCook, Samsung Food, From Your Fridge, Let’s Foodie and FoodsGPT take typed or picked ingredients.

What’s the difference between SuperCook and an AI recipe generator?

SuperCook searches millions of recipes already published on other websites and shows the ones that use only what you have, then sends you to the original site. An AI recipe generator writes a new recipe for your exact ingredients, servings and diet, so it can use up an odd mix of leftovers that no published recipe matches.

Can ChatGPT make a recipe from ingredients?

Yes. List what you have, how many people you’re feeding, how long you have and any allergies, and ask for quantities, steps and safe cooking temperatures. You won’t get servings scaling, a grocery list or a recipe box, and any nutrition numbers are estimates without a source. Our guide on using an AI recipe generator covers what to type.

What happened to Mealime and Plant Jammer?

Mealime closed on October 21, 2026; its planner is moving into Albertsons Companies’ grocery apps as Meals Hub. Plant Jammer is no longer in the app stores and its old website shows unrelated content. Several “best AI recipe generator” lists still recommend both.

Are AI-generated recipes safe to cook?

They’re as safe as the cook checking them. Read the recipe through before you start, check every ingredient against your allergies, and cook meat to a safe internal temperature: 165°F for poultry, 160°F for ground meat, and 145°F for pork, steaks and fish. Create & Cook puts those temperatures in every recipe that needs them.