AI Cooking Assistant Saved My Weeknight Chicken but Nearly Spoiled My Cake

Around 7 PM on weeknights, I often find myself staring into the fridge, trying to come up with a dinner idea that won’t lead to my husband groaning, “Chicken again?” Sure, I should probably plan my meals better, but here we are — a nightly struggle where chicken usually comes out on top.

Lately, I’ve been using AI as my secret weapon in this culinary battle. With tools like Alexa Plus on my Echo smart display, the Samsung Food app on my fridge, and even an AI-powered cooking robot, I’ve turned to AI as my trusty sous chef — one that I still need to keep an eye on. It’s been a game changer for swapping ingredients, generating ideas, troubleshooting mistakes, and yes, even improving my cooking skills. So, when my favorite recipe app introduced an AI assistant, I was curious.

Many users, including some recipe purists, have expressed skepticism about this new feature (currently available to subscribers on iOS). I understand their concerns. One of the best aspects of my go-to recipe app is its extensive collection of recipes from credible sources — including archives, restaurants, cookbooks, and food columnists — all tested by real cooks. I’ve tried some AI-generated recipes before, and let’s just say they didn’t impress.

Another highlight of the service, which I’ve subscribed to for years, is the reader comments. They often provide solutions to cooking conundrums, like what to use instead of makrut lime leaves — there’s always that one fancy ingredient in a recipe that I don’t have.

However, sifting through hundreds of comments at 7 PM isn’t always feasible. That’s where the NYT Cooking assistant comes in handy. Trained on user comments, it quickly provided practical substitutions and solid cooking advice during my testing. It also doesn’t blindly agree to outlandish requests (trust me, I tried!). Like all AI tools, it’s not flawless — it almost had me using half the required butter in my cake — but it’s a useful tool that effectively applies AI without altering the original recipe; it simply creates a new version for you.

The assistant appears in a small text box on the recipe page with a prompt: “Customize this recipe…” You can ask anything from “What can I substitute for this ingredient?” to “Scale this recipe to feed seven people, and make it vegan and gluten-free.” The app can also suggest equipment substitutions and convert measurements, a feature that’s been around for a couple of years.

Last Friday night, instead of aimlessly rummaging through the fridge, I opened the Chicken folder in my recipe box and found a One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger recipe I wanted to try. The catch? I didn’t have chicken thighs or half the other ingredients.

I typed my situation into the assistant box: “I have chicken tenders, fresh ginger, garlic, rice, broth, limes, but no chard or cilantro or scallions. I do have green beans and red onions.” In seconds, it generated a new recipe titled One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger and Green Beans. It recommended a shorter browning time for the tenders, cooking the red onion with the chicken, and steaming the green beans on top of the rice for the last eight minutes instead of using chard. Every modification was highlighted under a “Your Version” tab, and I could easily switch back to the original recipe.

I noticed it didn’t adjust for the missing cilantro, labeling it as optional. So, I asked if I could use Thai basil instead, and it agreed, explaining how it would alter the flavor. While I could have figured out many of these adjustments myself, possibly with a quick Google search, it was reassuring to know my changes wouldn’t ruin the dish, and I didn’t have to leave the app.

The final dish — which took the same amount of time to cook as the original — was delicious and earned my husband’s approval (he even had the leftovers for lunch). It was quite different from the original recipe, and I can see why purists might be concerned. However, the modified recipe was much easier to follow and yielded a better result than my usual hit-or-miss substitutions from the comments section.

I cook regularly, so I have a good idea of what ingredients I can use. But the assistant is also helpful if you’re unsure about substitutes. For instance, while making a Thai red curry, I asked what I could use instead of makrut lime leaf. It suggested grated lime zest but noted that it wouldn’t replicate the deeper floral aroma of fresh limes.

Over the weekend, I experimented with more substitutions, asking if half-and-half could replace cream in a caramel apple Dutch baby, or if Castelvetrano olives and smoked paprika could substitute for kalamata olives and chile pepper in a roasted halibut dish. Swapping spices can be risky, as it can drastically change the flavor.

I also had the app convert the Dutch baby recipe’s metric measurements to US units, which it did flawlessly. Then I threw in some curveballs. What about using fresh cayenne peppers with the halibut? It warned me that substituting cayenne for chile would bring significant heat. Could I swap ladyfingers for minced beef in a trifle? “Minced beef cannot be used in place of the ladyfingers or anywhere in this sweet dessert trifle.” Good call.

While cooking, I compared the NYT Cooking assistant with Alexa Plus, Amazon’s generative-AI voice assistant I often use on my Echo Show 11. Interestingly, it provided similar guidance on substitutions for the chicken and rice dish, but with slightly different cooking times. Alexa pulls some recipes from the app through a partnership, but it couldn’t display the modified recipe on its screen; it could only tell me the changes while showing the original. When I asked it to walk me through the modifications, it got confused and improvised, suggesting I cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces — which wasn’t part of the modified recipe. Overall, I found the Cooking app to be more reliable, though a bit messier. It would be great to navigate the app with voice control like I can with Alexa, especially with messy hands.

Now, onto a bigger challenge: baking.

I’m not typically a baker. My cakes tend to be flat, and my cookies don’t crumble. Even a smart mixer I tested a while back couldn’t save me. I also rarely have the right equipment. So, I took the Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake recipe and asked the assistant to convert it into muffins (who has a Bundt pan?!).

It adjusted the cooking time from three hours to 50 minutes and split the batter across two muffin tins. But that would yield 24 muffins, which is way too many for me. So, I asked it to halve the recipe for 12 muffins. This led to some clever adjustments, like halving five eggs to three instead of an unhelpful two and a half.

For science, I bought a Bundt pan to try the original version too. Both turned out great, but I ran into some confusion when switching between the original recipe and the AI version in the app. You can’t save your new recipe separately, which caused issues while cooking the original. Instead of scrolling back through the recipe with sticky fingers, I asked the assistant how much butter I needed (using voice typing), and it gave me the modified recipe’s 6 tablespoons instead of the original’s three-quarters of a cup, without clarifying which version it was referencing. You can delete your version, which I recommend to avoid confusion — 6 tablespoons of butter would have made for a dry cake.

If you’re someone who reads all the comments before starting a recipe, you’ll likely find this tool offers a similar experience in a more streamlined format. For everyday issues — wrong cut of chicken, missing cilantro, or lacking a Bundt pan — it’s genuinely helpful and saves a trip to the store. It’s also smart enough to know when to say no to using minced beef in a trifle.

Like every AI tool I’ve used in the kitchen, the NYT Cooking AI assistant works well as a sous chef, but it’s not the head chef — I still felt the need to double-check amounts and cooking times against the original to ensure it hadn’t suggested anything outrageous.

If you’re a purist, you can simply ignore the assistant. While you can’t turn off the chat box, it’s easy to scroll past. I believe it will encourage me to use the app more often, as I no longer have to stress about not having makrut lime leaves or the right cut of meat. For me, standing in front of the fridge with chicken tenders and no plan, it’s been a valuable addition to my nightly cooking routine.