AI Meal Optimiser
Food is the biggest controllable line in most household budgets, and waste is most of the damage. This builds a week of plant-based meals that deliberately share ingredients, then hands you one list and one prep session — lentils, beans and chickpeas happen to be the cheapest protein in the shop, which is why the numbers work.
17 items cover 5 meals — nothing bought for a single dish
once, for the whole week
serves across 5 nights, plus whatever the batch meals leave for the freezer
This week's menu
Red lentil dhal
5 min prep · 30 min cook · serves 4batch-friendly
Fry onion, garlic and spices, add lentils and tomatoes with 1L water, simmer 25 minutes. The cheapest hot meal in this list, and better on day two.
Chilli sin carne
10 min prep · 35 min cook · serves 4batch-friendly
Fry onion, capsicum and garlic, add spices, beans and tomatoes, simmer 30 minutes. Mash a little of it to thicken.
Shakshuka-style braised chickpeas
10 min prep · 25 min cook · serves 4
Soften capsicum and onion, add spices, tomatoes and chickpeas, braise 20 minutes until thick. Bread does the rest.
Chickpea & vegetable curry
10 min prep · 30 min cook · serves 4batch-friendly
Fry the aromatics, add everything else, simmer 25 minutes. Freezes flat in bags.
Pumpkin, coconut & lentil soup
10 min prep · 30 min cook · serves 4batch-friendly
Everything in one pot with 1.2L stock, simmer 25 minutes, blend. The lentils are what turn soup into dinner.
One shopping list
Consolidated and sorted by aisle, so it is one lap of the shop. Tick as you go — the list survives a refresh.
Produce
Bakery
Pantry
Frozen
What's doing double duty
These are why the list is short. Buy them once, in the bigger pack, and they get used up.
- brown onion5 meals
- garlic5 meals
- ground cumin4 meals
- tinned tomatoes4 meals
- rice3 meals
- capsicum2 meals
- coconut milk2 meals
- red lentils2 meals
- smoked paprika2 meals
- tinned chickpeas2 meals
The Sunday session
120 minutes that removes every weeknight decision — and with it, the 6pm delivery order.
- 1Put a big pot of water on and get the oven going. Prep every onion, carrot, celery stick and garlic clove for the week in one go — that is 2 ingredients handled once instead of five separate times.
- 2Red lentil dhal — cook the full batch (35 min). Eat one portion this week, freeze the rest flat in labelled bags.
- 3Chilli sin carne — cook the full batch (45 min). Eat one portion this week, freeze the rest flat in labelled bags.
- 4Chickpea & vegetable curry — cook the full batch (40 min). Eat one portion this week, freeze the rest flat in labelled bags.
- 5Pumpkin, coconut & lentil soup — cook the full batch (40 min). Eat one portion this week, freeze the rest flat in labelled bags.
- 6Cook a double batch of rice and refrigerate it. Cold rice is the difference between fried rice on Wednesday and a delivery order.
- 7Drain and press any tofu now, and rinse the tins of beans and chickpeas you will use midweek — thirty seconds each, saved on the night it matters.
- 8Wash and cut the salad vegetables and store them at eye level in the fridge. Visible food gets eaten.
The only comparison worth making
Forget annual projections about how much you order in — you know your own habits better than any tool does. Here is the honest unit: at roughly $18 a head delivered, one takeaway night for 4 people costs about $72. Swap one night a week for a meal from this plan and that is $3,744 a year — before the ingredients you would have bought anyway. Count your own takeaway nights from last month and multiply.
Quantities are scaled from recipes written for four people and are a starting point, not a prescription — adjust for appetites and what is already in the cupboard. Delivery costs vary widely by order, location and fees; $18 a head is an illustration, not a measured figure. Nothing here is nutritional or dietary advice — check with a health professional if you have medical dietary requirements.