NYT Cooking’s AI assistant saved my weeknight chicken, but almost ruined my cake
By Google News Technology ·
Around 7PM each weeknight, I find myself standing in front of the fridge, trying to decide on something for dinner that won’t make my husband complain, “Chicken again?” Yes, I should meal plan more, but I don’t, so this is where I’m at. A nightly battle in which the chicken usually wins. Recently, my best weapon in this fight has been AI.
Between Alexa Plus in the Echo smart display on my kitchen counter, the Samsung Food app on my fridge, and even an AI-powered cooking robot, AI has become my go-to sous chef — albeit one I need to keep a close eye on. It’s helped me swap ingredients, generate ideas, fix things when I mess up, and yes, even cook better. So I was intrigued when my go-to recipe app, NYT Cooking, introduced an AI assistant.
Many, including some NYT Cooking users and recipe purists, are skeptical of this new tool (available to subscribers on iOS only at launch), and I get why. One of the things I like most about NYT Cooking is that it features thousands of recipes from dozens of reputable sources — such as the New York Times archives, restaurants, cookbooks, and food columnists — and real people have tested them.
(I’ve tried some purely AI-generated recipes and they were not good). Another great feature of the service, which I’ve been paying for for several years, is the reader comments.
Here, I’ve often found solutions to cooking dilemmas, like what to substitute for makrut lime leaves — there’s always one slightly bougie ingredient in an NYT Cooking recipe that I don’t have on hand. [Image: I’ve used several AI tools in my kitchen and have found them mostly helpful. https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/11/268844_NY_Times_Cooking_App_JTuohy_0002.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]
However, reading through hundreds of comments to find answers at 7PM on a weeknight isn’t always practical.
And this is where I’ve found the NYT Cooking assistant helpful. Among other things, it was trained on user comments, and in my few days testing it, it provided practical substitutions and solid cooking guidance for the new ingredients. It also won’t unquestionably agree to crazy requests (I tried!).
As with all AI tools, it’s not perfect — it almost made me put half the required butter in my cake — but as a tool, it is useful and feels like a solid application of AI. Importantly, it doesn’t change the existing recipe; it leaves it as is and creates a new one for you.
The assistant appears in the app in a small text box on the recipe page with a prompt: “Customize this recipe…” From here, you type in a question to adapt it to your needs.
This can be as simple as “What can I substitute for this ingredient?” to “Scale this recipe to feed seven people, and make it vegan and gluten-free.” The New York Times has also said the feature can suggest substitutions for cooking equipment and convert measurements; the latter option has been in the app for a couple of years. [Image:
https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/11/IMG_0930.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/11/IMG_0929.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/11/IMG_0934.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all] Last Friday night, instead of staring aimlessly into the fridge, I turned to the Chicken folder in my
NYT Cooking app Recipe Box and found a One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger I’d been wanting to try.
Only I didn’t have chicken thighs or half the…
Originally published by Google News Technology
