Recipe-to-Grocery List Converter

Turn any recipe, meal plan, or dish name into a clean, categorized, deduplicated grocery list — with quantities scaled to your serving size, exported as chat list + Excel file.

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Input Types Supported

• Dish name only — "Biryani for 6 people" (skill knows common recipes)
• Full recipe with ingredients — paste any recipe text
• Multiple dishes — "I'm cooking dal, sabzi, and roti for 4"
• Weekly meal plan — "Breakfast: poha. Lunch: dal rice. Dinner: paneer curry" × 7 days
• Servings adjustment — "double this recipe" or "for 10 people instead of 4"

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Workflow

Step 1 — Extract Ingredients

For each dish/recipe:

• List every ingredient with quantity and unit
• If only a dish name is given, use standard recipe knowledge for that dish
• Note the default serving size and scale to the requested serving size
• If no serving size given, default to 4 people

Scaling formula:

scaled_qty = original_qty × (requested_servings / original_servings)

Round quantities sensibly:

• < 1 tsp → keep as fraction (¼ tsp, ½ tsp)
• Whole produce (onions, tomatoes) → round to nearest whole number
• Liquids → round to nearest 50ml / ¼ cup
• Packaged goods → round up to nearest pack size when noted

Step 2 — Deduplicate & Combine

When multiple recipes share ingredients:

• Combine quantities of the same ingredient (e.g. 2 onions + 3 onions = 5 onions)
• Use consistent units — convert to same unit before combining (ml not ml + cups)
• Flag pantry staples separately — items most people already have (salt, oil, sugar, common spices) go in a "Pantry Check" section, not the main buy list

Step 3 — Categorize

Sort all ingredients into shopping categories:

Category	Examples
🥩 Meat & Seafood	Chicken, mutton, fish, eggs
🥛 Dairy & Alternatives	Milk, paneer, curd, ghee, butter, cheese
🥦 Vegetables	All fresh vegetables
🍎 Fruits	All fresh fruits
🌾 Grains & Pulses	Rice, flour, dal, poha, bread
🥫 Canned & Packaged	Canned tomatoes, coconut milk, pasta
🧂 Spices & Condiments	Masalas, sauces, vinegar, oils
🧊 Frozen	Frozen peas, corn, paratha
🧴 Pantry Check	Salt, oil, sugar, common spices (verify before buying)
🛒 Other	Anything that doesn't fit above

Step 4 — Output: Chat List

Print a clean grocery list in chat:

🛒 GROCERY LIST
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📅 For: [Dish names]
👥 Serves: [X people]
🗓️  Meals covered: [X recipes / X days]

🥦 VEGETABLES
  □ Onions — 4 large
  □ Tomatoes — 3 medium
  □ Ginger — 2-inch piece
  □ Garlic — 1 full bulb

🥛 DAIRY & ALTERNATIVES
  □ Paneer — 250g
  □ Curd / Yoghurt — 1 cup

🌾 GRAINS & PULSES
  □ Basmati rice — 2 cups
  □ Toor dal — 1 cup

🧂 SPICES & CONDIMENTS
  □ Cumin seeds — 1 tsp
  □ Garam masala — 2 tsp

🧴 PANTRY CHECK (you may already have these)
  □ Salt
  □ Cooking oil
  □ Turmeric powder
  □ Red chilli powder

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🧾 Total items to buy: X  |  ✅ Pantry check items: X
💡 Assumptions: [serving size used, any substitutions, etc.]

Step 5 — Output: Excel File

Create a

.xlsx

file with 2 sheets.

Sheet 1: Shopping List

Columns:

✓

(checkbox column) |

Item

|

Quantity

|

Unit

|

Category

|

Notes

Formatting:

• Header: bold white on dark green (

  #375623

  ), frozen
• Category color coding per row (matching chat categories):
  • Vegetables →

    #E2EFDA

    , Fruits →

    #FFF2CC

    , Meat →

    #FCE4D6

  • Dairy →

    #DEEAF1

    , Grains →

    #FFF2CC

    , Spices →

    #F4CCCC

  • Pantry Check →

    #F2F2F2

    (grey, italic)
• Checkbox column (✓): 6px wide, light grey — user ticks off while shopping
• Sort order: category grouped, alphabetical within category
• Pantry Check items at bottom, visually separated
• Font: Arial 10pt; row height 22px
• Column widths: Check=6, Item=28, Quantity=12, Unit=12, Category=18, Notes=30

Sheet 2: Meal Plan Summary

• One row per dish/meal
• Columns:

  Meal

  |

  Dish

  |

  Servings

  |

  Key Ingredients

  |

  Prep Time (est.)

• Header: same dark green style

File naming:

grocery-list-YYYY-MM-DD.xlsx

Step 6 — Save & Present

• Save to

  /mnt/user-data/outputs/grocery-list-YYYY-MM-DD.xlsx

• Use

  present_files

  to deliver
• Chat list appears first, then mention the Excel file

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Python Code Template

from openpyxl import Workbook
from openpyxl.styles import Font, PatternFill, Alignment, Border, Side
from openpyxl.utils import get_column_letter
from datetime import date

wb = Workbook()
HEADER_FILL = PatternFill("solid", fgColor="375623")
HEADER_FONT = Font(bold=True, color="FFFFFF", name="Arial", size=10)
DATA_FONT   = Font(name="Arial", size=10)
PANTRY_FONT = Font(name="Arial", size=10, italic=True, color="888888")
THIN        = Side(style="thin")
BORDER      = Border(left=THIN, right=THIN, top=THIN, bottom=THIN)

CAT_FILLS = {
    "Vegetables":  "E2EFDA", "Fruits":     "FFF2CC",
    "Meat & Seafood": "FCE4D6", "Dairy":   "DEEAF1",
    "Grains & Pulses": "FFF9CC", "Spices": "F4CCCC",
    "Canned & Packaged": "E8D5F5", "Frozen": "DEEAF1",
    "Pantry Check": "F2F2F2", "Other":    "FFFFFF",
}

ws = wb.active
ws.title = "Shopping List"
ws.sheet_properties.tabColor = "375623"

HEADERS = ["✓", "Item", "Quantity", "Unit", "Category", "Notes"]
WIDTHS  = [6, 28, 12, 12, 18, 30]

for col,(h,w) in enumerate(zip(HEADERS,WIDTHS),1):
    c = ws.cell(row=1,column=col,value=h)
    c.font,c.fill,c.border = HEADER_FONT,HEADER_FILL,BORDER
    c.alignment = Alignment(horizontal="center",vertical="center")
    ws.column_dimensions[get_column_letter(col)].width = w
ws.freeze_panes = "A2"
ws.row_dimensions[1].height = 28

# items = list of (item, quantity, unit, category, notes)
# sorted: grouped by category, pantry items last
items = []  # REPLACE WITH ACTUAL ITEMS

for r,(item,qty,unit,cat,notes) in enumerate(items,2):
    is_pantry = cat == "Pantry Check"
    row_data = ["", item, qty, unit, cat, notes]
    ws.row_dimensions[r].height = 22
    for col,val in enumerate(row_data,1):
        c = ws.cell(row=r,column=col,value=val)
        c.font   = PANTRY_FONT if is_pantry else DATA_FONT
        c.border = BORDER
        c.fill   = PatternFill("solid", fgColor=CAT_FILLS.get(cat,"FFFFFF"))
        c.alignment = Alignment(vertical="center",
                                horizontal="center" if col in [1,3,4] else "left")

# Sheet 2: Meal Plan Summary
ws2 = wb.create_sheet("Meal Plan")
ws2.sheet_properties.tabColor = "70AD47"
for col,(h,w) in enumerate(zip(["Meal","Dish","Servings","Key Ingredients","Prep Time"],[14,28,12,40,14]),1):
    c = ws2.cell(row=1,column=col,value=h)
    c.font,c.fill,c.border = HEADER_FONT,HEADER_FILL,BORDER
    c.alignment = Alignment(horizontal="center",vertical="center")
    ws2.column_dimensions[get_column_letter(col)].width = w
ws2.freeze_panes = "A2"

today = date.today().strftime("%Y-%m-%d")
wb.save(f"grocery-list-{today}.xlsx")

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Tips for Best Results

• Just say the dish name — you don't need to provide the full recipe.
• Mention serving size — "for 6 people" scales quantities automatically.
• Weekly meal plan? List all meals — the list combines and deduplicates everything.
• Dietary preferences? Say "vegetarian", "no onion garlic", or "gluten-free" — substitutions will be noted.
• Already have some ingredients? Say "I have rice and oil" — they'll move to the Pantry Check section.