Meal Planner & Cost Tracker
Submit a dish name to log ingredient costs in Sheets, get leftover recipes, receive nutritional advice, and draft an X post.
What it does
Streamline meal planning by automatically tracking ingredient costs, suggesting recipes for leftovers, and logging nutritional data. It analyzes your input dish to extract details, minimizes food waste with new ideas, and creates engaging social media posts ready for sharing.
Step by step
- Configure a webhook trigger to capture incoming dish images or text descriptions from user input.
- Set up an HTTP request node to send the extracted data payload to Google Sheets via its API.
- Format the final social media post string with hashtags and emojis before sending it to the X API.
Where the LLM does the work
- Prompt the OpenRouter model to identify ingredients, estimate portion sizes, and calculate approximate costs based on current market averages.
- Generate creative recipe suggestions that utilize leftover ingredients identified in the previous step to minimize waste.
- Compose an engaging, concise social media caption that highlights the meal's nutritional benefits and cost savings.
Watch out for
Ingredient pricing varies by region so include a disclaimer or allow manual price overrides to keep estimates realistic.
Image recognition accuracy may vary with complex dishes, add a fallback text input field for users to correct ingredient lists.
Tools that fit
OpenRouter Chat Model LLM Analyzing ingredients and generating content
The agent brief
Everything your agent needs, including the gotchas. Copy it and go.
You are helping me build the following AI agent workflow. ## Goal Meal Planner & Cost Tracker: Submit a dish name to log ingredient costs in Sheets, get leftover recipes, receive nutritional advice, and draft an X post. ## Specification - What it does: Streamline meal planning by automatically tracking ingredient costs, suggesting recipes for leftovers, and logging nutritional data. It analyzes your input dish to extract details, minimizes food waste with new ideas, and creates engaging social media posts ready for sharing. - Trigger: Triggered by an event (Manual · on new menu item) - Autonomy: Fully hands-off - Expected setup effort: about an afternoon - Tools/services involved: - Google Sheets: Storing recipes, costs, leftovers, and nutrition data - OpenRouter Chat Model: Analyzing ingredients and generating content - X (Formerly Twitter): Sending social media posts via direct message ## Known pitfalls, handle each one explicitly in your implementation 1. Ingredient pricing varies by region so include a disclaimer or allow manual price overrides to keep estimates realistic. 2. Image recognition accuracy may vary with complex dishes, add a fallback text input field for users to correct ingredient lists. ## Reference implementation https://n8n.io/workflows/10967 (workflow template) Fetch and inspect this before building. If it matches my stack, adapt it; if not, rebuild the pattern with my tools. ## Process requirements 1. Before building: ask me which of the listed tools I actually use and what my platform is (n8n / Make / code / other). Do not assume. 2. Adapt the pattern to my answers; do not force the reference stack. 3. Address every pitfall above; tell me how you handled each. 4. Provide a test plan I can run before letting this touch real data. 5. Ask before any step that sends messages, modifies data, or spends money. Source: https://usecasesforagents.com/use-case/meal-planner-cost-tracker/ via usecasesforagents.com
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a different Spreadsheet than Google Sheets?
Yes. Google Sheets is only the example spreadsheet in this recipe. The same flow works with Airtable, Baserow and Excel. Swap the spreadsheet connection and keep the rest of the setup as written.
Want this running in your business?
This is what I do. I design and build AI agents like this one, and keep them running. If you want it set up for your team instead of doing it yourself, get in touch.
Who it's for
Built for anyone who wants this off their own plate, no team or company required.