How to cook with what is already in your fridge

What you need

• A look in the fridge
• Tableful on iPhone
• One AI use

Step by step

1. List what you have, specifically

Half a savoy cabbage, three eggs, 200g feta, an onion, rice gets you a dinner. Some vegetables and cheese gets you a shrug. Quantities matter because they decide whether the answer feeds two or four.

2. Say what you are not willing to buy

The whole point is a recipe you can cook now. Nothing I have to go out for is worth adding, and so is the opposite: I can get one thing.

3. Add the constraint that decides the dish

Twenty minutes, one pan, no oven, vegetarian, feeds four. Each one narrows the answer to something you would actually make on a Tuesday.

4. Read the recipe you get back

A full recipe: ingredient list with amounts, method in steps, timing, and nutrition per serving. Check it against what is really in the fridge before you start.

5. Adapt it rather than start again

If it is close but wants cream you do not have, ask for that change. Rewriting beats regenerating, and it is one use either way.

6. Save the ones that worked

A dish you invented out of leftovers twice is a recipe. Put it in your kitchen and it will turn up in a plan.

When it does not work

• It used an ingredient you do not have. Say so and ask again with the list tightened. Naming what is absent works better than repeating what is present.
• The result is bland. List your store cupboard too. Soy sauce, mustard, stock and vinegar change the answer completely, and people leave them out of the list because they are not in the fridge.
• It is a drink or a component, not a meal. Ask for a main course and say who is eating.
• You want to use up one thing in particular. Lead with it: use the whole cabbage.

Questions people ask

Does it invent quantities?

It drafts a complete recipe, quantities included, which is what a draft has to do to be cookable. What it will not do is add quantities to a recipe it read from somewhere else.

Can I ask for a dish rather than give ingredients?

Yes. A dish idea works the same way: name the dish and Tableful drafts a recipe for it.

Is a drafted recipe as good as an imported one?

It is a starting point with your constraints already applied. Cook it, edit what was wrong, and save that version.

Related guides

Make a recipe healthier: adapting instead of drafting.

Calculate the calories in a recipe: for a recipe that did not exist an hour ago.

Make a weekly meal plan: so there is less improvising.

Cook hands-free: cook the thing you just drafted.

Tableful vs Mealime: your own ingredients versus a guided catalog.

Reviewed September 2026. Tableful can only read content it can reach: private, deleted, region-restricted or paywalled posts may not be readable. Nutrition figures are estimates for meal decisions, not medical advice.