5 minutes read

February 16, 2026

# Feature Focus: Turning Your Pantry into a Recipe Generator

Augusto Ruibal  
CTO

After introducing CoChefy’s story and celebrating its launch, it’s time to talk about one of its core features — the **Pantry**.

This feature is where CoChefy’s real magic happens: it transforms the ingredients you already have into fresh, personalized recipes with the help of AI.

## **The Challenge: Cooking with What’s Already There**

When we started designing CoChefy, one of the main goals was to help people **reduce food waste** and **simplify everyday cooking**.

But we quickly realized something: most people don’t really know what they have at home until they start digging through their fridge.

That’s why the Pantry feature doesn’t just store your ingredients — it helps you talk to CoChefy about them.

You can **speak or type** what’s in your kitchen — from “I have rice, eggs, and chicken” to “I think I have some veggies and a pan.”

CoChefy then processes what you said, organizes it into your Pantry, and lets you decide **which items you actually want to cook with**.

Once you confirm, AI gets to work — generating original recipes that make sense for your setup. Each result is **freshly created on demand**, not pulled from a static database, so no two recipes are ever the same.

## **How It Works Behind the Scenes**

CoChefy’s backend uses a **multi-model LLM system** that balances quality and cost.

From a technical standpoint, CoChefy’s AI:

- Parses user input (even when it’s messy or incomplete).
- Distinguishes between cookware and ingredients.
- Generates full recipes with steps, estimated times, and imagery.
- Stores everything in the user’s Recipe Book for future access.

Early in testing, we also learned that **users don’t always separate ingredients from spices** — and neither do LLMs.

To simplify, we removed spices from the Pantry altogether. This made the experience clearer for users _and_ improved AI consistency.

## **Designing for Real Users**

Creating the Pantry flow was as much a **UX challenge** as a technical one.

People tend to “ramble” when describing what they have, so we designed the interface to feel conversational — more like talking to a smart cooking assistant than filling out a form.

We also made sure users can access their Pantry from anywhere in the app, keeping it a central hub for meal discovery.

## **What This Means for CoChefy (and for You)**

The Pantry is more than a feature — it’s the foundation of how CoChefy helps people cook smarter, waste less, and enjoy the process.

It’s also a great example of how **AI-powered UX design** can turn a simple idea (“help people cook what they already have”) into a delightful experience.

If you missed the first post in this series, read [**From Idea to MVP: How We Designed CoChefy Using a Design Sprint and Figma Prototyping**](/content/blog/from-idea-to-mvp-how-we-designed-cochefy-using-a-design-sprint-and-figma-prototyping/index.html) to see how it all started.

And if you want to experience the Pantry feature yourself — [**download CoChefy**](https://www.cochefyapp.com/) today and start cooking with what’s already in your kitchen.

## **Built by 10 Grounds**

CoChefy was designed and developed by **10 Grounds**, using:

- **React Native + TypeScript** for the mobile app
- **Ruby on Rails + PostgreSQL** for the backend API
- **Next.js + Material UI** for the admin panel
- **Gemini + OpenAI** for recipe generation and speech processing