Helpful answers before
you start cooking.

ChefsPantry helps you plan dinners, import and schedule recipes, set budget and optimization priorities, cook with guided steps, coordinate household tasks, keep pantry inventory up to date, and turn your plan into a ZIP-aware grocery flow.

Yes. You can generate a 1-week or 2-week dinner plan at onboarding or later. ChefsPantry uses AI planning with dietary/allergy/dislike safety checks when available, and falls back to templates when needed. You can swap meals before grocery checkout.

During onboarding (and in preferences later), you pick a plan length — 1 week or 2 weeks — and use the Meals per week slider to set anywhere from 1 to 15 dinners per week. Choosing 1 week at 7 meals gives you 7 dinners; choosing 2 weeks at 7 meals gives you 14 total. A live summary at the bottom of the step always shows your exact total so there are no surprises.

Budget tiers are starting points: Budget-friendly (~$75/week), Balanced (~$125/week), and Premium (~$200/week). These amounts are for your entire household — if you cook for 2 people the per-person cost is shown automatically. After onboarding you can fine-tune the exact dollar amount with a slider in Preferences.

Optimization priorities let you weight budget, speed, health, and waste from 0 to 100 using sliders in Preferences. Higher values mean stronger influence on your meal plan. For example, setting Budget to 80 and Speed to 40 means the AI cares twice as much about cost savings as cook time. Experiment by adjusting priorities and generating a new plan to see the difference.

Yes. Cook mode supports step-by-step instructions, embedded timers, session resume, voice commands (say “next step,” “repeat,” “set timer 5 minutes,” “pause timer,” or “resume timer”), serving-size scaling, and post-cook feedback. Completing a cook session auto-deducts matched pantry items and flags edge cases for manual review.

Yes. Upload pantry or fridge photos for AI-powered detection that uses your recent grocery purchases to improve accuracy. You can also scan receipts to import items, or sync delivered grocery orders to your pantry with one tap. The dashboard highlights expiring items, waste metrics, and leftover ideas.

Yes. Paste a recipe URL, review low-confidence ingredient lines, optionally generate beginner-friendly simplified steps, then save to Recipe Box and schedule the recipe directly into your meal plan.

ChefsPantry combines ingredients from your current plan, subtracts items you already have, then sends the remaining list to a supported retailer for checkout. Connect your Kroger account for direct cart integration, or use Walmart, Instacart, and other stores via ZIP-based routing. Availability varies by location.

Yes. Pro Monthly includes 4 household seats and Pro Yearly includes 8. Owners and admins can assign meal or shopping tasks, and members can update assignment progress with role-aware access checks.

Open the Household page from your dashboard menu (or visit /dashboard/household). Name your household and invite members by email. The person who creates the household is the owner with full admin controls.

Everyone in the household sees the same meal plan and grocery list. When one person swaps a meal or updates the pantry, it updates for everyone in real time.

The household shares one set of dietary preferences, allergies, and dislikes. The AI considers all restrictions when generating meal plans so no one gets meals they can’t eat. Per-member taste profiles are on the roadmap.

The household owner can remove members from the Household page (/dashboard/household) under the Members list. Removed members keep their personal preferences and data but lose access to shared plans and lists.

Your personal preferences, pantry, and dietary settings stay with you. Shared meal plans and grocery lists stay with the household. You can rejoin later if invited back.

The current release wave covers six epics: Shared Household Mode, Waste Rescue Engine 2.0, Budget-Aware Meal Planning, Recipe Import + Recipe Box, Cook Mode Completion, and Smarter Grocery Execution. You can track status on the What's New page.

Yes. Billing is handled through Stripe with in-app checkout, subscription status, and customer portal access from the billing page.

Authentication is powered by Clerk. You can sign in with email, Google, or Apple. ChefsPantry encourages you to set up a passkey for faster, passwordless sign-in — a dashboard nudge walks you through the process. The app supports protected dashboard routes and exposes account security controls like sessions and MFA through the security settings area.

Tonight's Dinner is an AI-powered suggestion engine that recommends meals based on what you already have in your pantry. It shows pantry coverage percentages and highlights rescued ingredients from items nearing expiration, so you can cook without an extra grocery run.

Yes. In addition to URL import, you can upload a photo of a recipe (JPG, PNG, or WebP up to 10 MB) and ChefsPantry will use AI to transcribe the ingredients and instructions. You get confidence scores and warnings for any lines the system is less sure about, and you can edit before saving.

Each meal has a detail page showing the full ingredient list, step-by-step instructions, prep and cook times, estimated cost, calorie count, difficulty level, and tags. From there you can jump straight into cook mode or add missing ingredients to your grocery list.

Yes. In Preferences under “Your stores” you can connect your Kroger account via a secure OAuth flow. Once linked, ChefsPantry can add items directly to your Kroger cart. You can view your linked status and unlink at any time from the same Preferences page.

After placing an order through ChefsPantry, visit the order detail page under Groceries. You will see a status timeline (pending, acknowledged, shopping, out for delivery, completed) along with your ZIP code, routing target, and a breakdown of verified versus unverified items.

Yes. On any meal, you can request lower-cost substitution suggestions. ChefsPantry generates up to six alternatives that respect your dietary style, allergies, and dislikes. Apply a suggestion with one tap and the ingredient list updates automatically with estimated savings.

Use It Up generates one to five AI recipes built around pantry items that are expiring or have leftover quantities. Open your Pantry, tap “Use It Up,” select the items you want to cook with, and hit “Generate Recipes.” It respects your allergies and cuisine preferences so nothing goes to waste and every suggestion is something you would actually want to cook.

Yes. A daily background job checks your pantry for items approaching expiration and sends alerts via email and optional push notifications. In Preferences you can toggle expiry alerts on or off, set how many days before expiry you want to be notified (1–14), enable or disable push notifications, configure waste rescue quiet hours and frequency caps, and choose your weekly digest email day.

Household owners and admins can assign shopping tasks to specific members, so everyone knows who is picking up what. Task assignments keep the household coordinated without needing a separate shared list. A recent activity feed on the household page shows who did what and when, so everyone stays in the loop.

Yes. Cook mode includes voice command support via the Web Speech API with spoken feedback. You can say “next step,” “repeat,” or “set timer 5 minutes” for voice-assisted cooking. Voice commands work best in Chrome and Safari — other browsers may not support speech recognition. The mode also supports swipe and arrow-key navigation, serving-size scaling from 1 to 24 servings, an ingredient checklist, and embedded timers.

Yes. In Settings you can switch between light, dark, and system theme modes. There is also a Reduce Transparency toggle for accessibility. Additional preferences include email reminder time, household size, skill level, and optimization priority sliders.

Yes. ChefsPantry remembers what you’ve cooked, loved, and skipped over the last 30 days and uses that history to pick better meals each week. The more you use it, the more personalized your plans become.

Yes. During onboarding you can pick your preferred stores. Kroger, Walmart, and Instacart are currently supported for grocery ordering. Additional retailers are coming soon. You can change your preferences any time from the Preferences page under “Your stores.”

Budget flexibility controls how strictly your meal plan sticks to your weekly budget target. “Strict” favors lower-cost meals to stay on target, “Balanced” mixes cost with variety and convenience, and “Flexible” allows pricier meals for extra variety. You set this during onboarding and can change it any time in Preferences.

Yes. Go to Preferences and scroll to Allergies & Restrictions. You can toggle common allergies on or off and add or remove disliked foods at any time. Changes take effect on your next meal plan generation.

Yes. Open the order detail page under Groceries and scroll to “Cancel this order.” Confirm the cancellation and the order status updates immediately. Cancelled orders will not affect your pantry inventory.

Yes. Visit /legal/privacy and use the Submit a privacy request form under Your privacy rights. You can request a data export or account deletion, and we’ll follow up with the details by email.

Once a week, ChefsPantry sends a summary of your meals cooked, waste avoided, estimated savings, and a preview of next week’s menu. You can enable or disable the digest and choose which day it arrives from the Preferences page.

This is usually a temporary issue. Try generating again from the Meals page. If it keeps failing, check your internet connection and try refreshing the page. If the problem persists, contact support@chefspantry.io.

The reference code helps our team find what went wrong. If an error keeps happening, email support@chefspantry.io with the reference code and a brief description of what you were doing. Most errors are temporary and resolve with a page refresh.

Yes. Everything you set during onboarding — dietary style, allergies, cuisines, budget, household size, and skill level — can be changed anytime from the Preferences page. Changes take effect on your next meal plan generation.

A seat is a spot for one person in your shared household. Pro Monthly includes 4 seats total and Pro Yearly includes 8 seats total. Each invite to a new member uses one seat. If your household is full, upgrading from Free to Pro Monthly gets you 4 seats and Pro Yearly gets you 8 — or you can remove a member to free one up.

ChefsPantry supports two scan methods. Photo scan: take a picture of your fridge, freezer, or pantry shelf and the AI identifies items and estimates expiry dates. Use good lighting and a straight-on angle for best results. Receipt scan: upload or photograph a grocery receipt to import item names and quantities in bulk. Receipt scanning is the fastest way to add 20+ items at once. Both methods let you review and edit results before saving.

Cost estimates labeled “Local price” come from your store’s current data and are usually very accurate. Estimates labeled “Estimated” are AI projections that can vary 10–20%. Estimates also shift when you swap meals, stores update their prices, or seasonal availability changes.

Beginner meals use simple techniques and take under 30 minutes with minimal knife work. Intermediate meals involve some multi-step techniques and take 30–60 minutes. Advanced meals use complex techniques, take 60+ minutes, or require specialized equipment. Your skill level setting in Preferences controls which difficulty levels appear in your plan.

Your waste prevention score starts at 50 and ranges from 0 to 100. It goes up when you use pantry items before they expire and goes down when items go to waste unused. The score is based on the last 30 days of activity. Check it on your dashboard under Kitchen Health.

When you import a recipe, each ingredient line gets a confidence score from 0 to 100%. Lines above 70% are usually accurate. Lines below 70% may have the wrong quantity, unit, or ingredient name and are flagged for manual review. Always check flagged lines before saving.

Each detected item gets a confidence score from 0–100%. Items scoring 70% or higher are usually identified correctly. Lower scores may have wrong quantities or names — review and edit these before saving. Good lighting and a straight-on angle improve accuracy.

Say “next step” or “next” to advance, “previous” or “back” to go back, “repeat” to hear the current step again, “set timer [number] minutes” to start a countdown, “pause timer” and “resume timer” to control running timers. Voice requires microphone permission in your browser.

The owner has full control including billing, invites, and member removal. Admins can assign tasks, manage the grocery list, and invite new members. Members can view the shared plan, update their assigned tasks, and edit the pantry. Everyone sees the same meal plan and grocery list.

When you complete a cook session, ChefsPantry automatically subtracts the ingredients you used from your pantry. Matched items are deducted by quantity. Items that can’t be auto-matched (unusual units, partial amounts) are flagged for quick manual review in the post-cook summary.

Use good lighting — natural light works best. Lay the receipt flat and photograph it straight-on, not at an angle. Make sure the full receipt is visible in the frame. For long receipts, take overlapping photos. Receipt scanning is the fastest way to add 20+ items at once.

If you’ve selected multiple preferred stores, ChefsPantry may split your grocery list across stores to find the best prices and availability. You’ll see which items go to which store before checkout, and you can override this to send everything to one store if you prefer.

Yes. In Preferences there's a 1–5 spice tolerance scale (mild, light, medium, spicy, fire). The AI uses your setting when generating meal plans and tones recipes up or down accordingly. Default is medium. Change it any time and regenerate your plan to see the effect.

In Preferences, the kitchen equipment chip group lets you mark which appliances you actually own — oven, stovetop, Instant Pot, slow cooker, grill, air fryer, microwave, food processor, stand mixer, blender. Empty selection means “no constraint” and the AI assumes a standard kitchen. Selecting specific items steers the planner toward recipes that use them.

Yes. In Preferences, the cooking methods chip group is a blocklist — select any method you don't want and the AI will avoid recipes that rely on it. Options include deep fry, air fry, grill, broil, roast, bake, sauté, steam, boil, slow cook, pressure cook, microwave, and raw / no-cook.

Yes. Preferences has separate chip groups for textures you love and textures you'd rather avoid — crispy, creamy, chunky, chewy, tender, crunchy, smooth. The AI biases meal suggestions toward your preferred textures and away from disliked ones.

Yes. In Preferences under “Cooking for kids?” toggle Yes and pick the age bands that apply (toddler / school-age / teen). The AI biases meal suggestions toward mild, kid-approved flavors and simple plating, and tunes spice levels to match.

Yes. In Preferences the “Do you want leftovers?” setting accepts Yes / No / Flexible. Yes means the AI scales recipes for extra portions you can pack for tomorrow's lunch; No keeps portions tight; Flexible lets the AI decide based on the recipe. Combine this with the household size setting for accurate scaling.

Yes. Preferences has repetition caps for proteins and cuisines, both 1–7. Setting protein repeats to 2 means no single protein (chicken, beef, fish, etc.) appears more than twice in a 7-day plan; the cuisine cap works the same way. You can also set an ingredient repeat window in days to avoid back-to-back use of the same ingredient.

In Preferences under “How should we tell you about rescues?” you set a quiet-hours window (default 22:00–07:00 in your local timezone). Waste-rescue notifications are suppressed during that window. The scheduler uses your IANA timezone so the window stays correct across DST transitions. You can also set a frequency cap (1–168 hours) so you're not pinged more often than you want.

In Preferences under “Want push notifications?” enable the toggle and your browser will prompt you to allow notifications. Once granted, expiry alerts and waste-rescue nudges can be delivered via push in addition to email. Push works in Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox on desktop and mobile.

The weekly digest summarizes your past week's meals, waste avoided, pantry health, and a preview of next week's plan. In Preferences under “Want a weekly digest?” toggle it on and pick which day of the week you want it delivered (Sunday is the default). You can also disable it entirely if you prefer the in-app dashboard.

You can reach us any time at support@chefspantry.io. We typically respond within a few hours on weekdays.