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The Family Dinner Method — Meal OS

Setup Guide

Five steps. About 15 minutes. Then dinner is sorted every week.

1
Account
2
Project
3
System prompt
4
Your profile
5
First plan
⏱
Total setup time: about 15 minutes Most of that is filling in your family profile. The technical steps take 3 minutes flat.
1
Step 1 of 5

Create your Claude account

Meal OS runs inside Claude — a free AI tool made by Anthropic. If you already have a Claude account, skip ahead to Step 2.

  1. Open your browser and go to claude.ai
  2. Click Sign up and create a free account with your email
  3. Verify your email when the confirmation arrives
  4. That's it — you're in
claude.ai
Claude
🏠 Home
💬 New chat
📁 Projects
Sign up free →
Welcome to Claude

Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Create a free account to get started — no credit card required.

Create free account
Sign in
💡
Free vs. Claude Pro ($20/month) The free plan lets you try Meal OS and run a few plans per day. Claude Pro gives you full Projects access with no limits — recommended if you'll use this weekly. You can start free and upgrade any time.
2
Step 2 of 5

Create a new Project

Projects are Claude's memory system — they let you store your household profile permanently so you never have to re-paste it. This is what makes Meal OS "set and forget."

  1. In Claude's left sidebar, click Projects
  2. Click the + New project button
  3. Name it something like Meal OS or Family Dinners
  4. Click Create project
claude.ai/projects
Menu
🏠 Home
💬 Chats
📁 Projects
Projects

Projects store context for ongoing work.

+ New project
📁
Your projects will appear here
✅
Why Projects matter Without Projects, you'd have to paste your family profile into every conversation — like explaining yourself from scratch every Sunday. With a Project, Claude permanently knows your household. You type one sentence and get a full week of dinners built for your specific family.
3
Step 3 of 5

Paste the system prompt

The system prompt is the brain of Meal OS — it tells Claude how to think about your household, what food rules to follow, and exactly how to format your weekly plan.

  1. Open the file system-prompt.txt (included in your download)
  2. Select all the text (Ctrl+A on Windows, Cmd+A on Mac) and copy it
  3. In your new Claude Project, click the gear icon ⚙ or Project settings
  4. Find the Custom Instructions or Project Instructions field
  5. Paste the system prompt text into that field
  6. Click Save — but don't close the settings yet, you need to add your profile in Step 4
claude.ai/project/meal-os/settings
⚙ Project Settings — Meal OS
Project Instructions
You are my household meal planning assistant. Your job is to plan real, whole food family dinners — additive-free, budget-smart, and achievable on a weeknight.

Every time I say "make this week's plan", generate a full 5-dinner weekly meal plan based on my family profile below...

[ rest of system-prompt.txt ]
Save changes
⚠️
Paste everything below the instructions text, from 'you are my household meal planning assistant' Open system-prompt.txt in Notepad or TextEdit, then copy everything inside it. You're pasting the text, not the file itself.
4
Step 4 of 5

Fill in your family profile

This is the most important step — and the most personal. Your family profile is what makes every plan yours. Take 10 minutes now. You'll never have to do it again.

  1. Open family-profile-template.txt in any text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, Notes app)
  2. Fill in every section — household size, budget, dietary restrictions, picky eater notes, schedule, cuisines you love, your pantry staples
  3. Also fill in your health goal and any trusted recipe creators you follow
  4. When done, select all and copy
  5. Return to your Project Settings in Claude
  6. In the system prompt you pasted, find the line that says [PASTE YOUR COMPLETED FAMILY PROFILE HERE]
  7. Replace that placeholder with your completed profile
  8. Click Save
family-profile-template.txt — Notepad
== HOUSEHOLD == Family size: 2 adults, 2 kids aged 8 and 5 Location: Melbourne, Australia Weekly grocery budget: $200/week for all groceries == DIETARY RESTRICTIONS == Hard restrictions: nut allergy (Child 1) — no exceptions Soft preferences: prefer to avoid red meat more than twice a week == HEALTH GOAL == Lose 5kg without calorie counting. Higher protein meals. More vegetables, fewer refined carbs on weeknights. == TRUSTED RECIPE CREATORS == RecipeTin Eats, Donna Hay, Marion's Kitchen [ ... fill in all sections ... ]
🌟
The more specific, the better the plans "My 8-year-old won't eat mushrooms or anything with visible onion" beats "fussy eater." "We love RecipeTin Eats and Marion's Kitchen" means Claude draws from recipes you actually recognise. Specificity is what turns a generic plan into your plan.
🥘
Adding your own recipes In the Recipe Library section of the profile template, you can paste in your family's favourites. Just give each one a name and a brief description of key ingredients. Claude will draw from them first and tell you the source in every plan.
5
Step 5 of 5

Run your first plan

You're set up. Time to test it. Open a new chat inside your Project and type the magic words.

  1. In your Project, click New chat (not a regular Claude chat — make sure you're inside your Meal OS Project)
  2. Type exactly: make this week's plan
  3. Hit send and wait about 30 seconds
  4. You'll get a full week of dinners tailored to your family, plus a complete categorised grocery list
claude.ai/project/meal-os/chat
make this week's plan
Your week — 5 dinners + grocery list

Here's this week's plan built around your profile...

🥩 Monday — Chicken thigh tray bake with lemon & seasonal veg (30 min · RecipeTin Eats style)
🐟 Tuesday — Salmon with miso butter & broccolini (20 min · kid-friendly swap available)
🍝 Wednesday — Lentil bolognese with hidden veg (35 min · batch — freeze half)
🥗 Thursday — Quick Thai beef & rice salad (25 min)
🍕 Friday — Homemade pizza night (build-your-own, everyone happy)

Grocery list below, sorted by section...
swap Wednesday...
↑

✅ What a complete plan includes

Monday
Meal name, key ingredients, source (if from your library), why it fits this week
~30 min
Tuesday
Adjusted for busy nights — slow cooker or under-30-min if you flagged it
~20 min
Wed–Fri
Varied cuisines, proteins, and techniques. Picky eater swaps noted.
~25–40 min
Grocery list
Categorised by section: Produce · Protein · Dairy & Eggs · Pantry · Frozen. Quantities included. Pantry staples flagged.
—
💡
Always open a New Chat inside your Project If you start a chat outside your Meal OS Project, Claude won't have your family profile. Look for the project name at the top of the chat window before you type — it should say "Meal OS."
⌘
Quick Reference

All the commands

Every command you need. Screenshot this page or keep this tab open on Sunday mornings.

Type this What happens
make this week's plan Full 5-dinner plan + grocery list, built for your household
swap [meal name] Replace one meal, keep everything else
use up [ingredient] Rebuild the plan around an ingredient you need to use
add a night Add a 6th dinner — good for guests or batch cooking
what can I make tonight? 3 dinner ideas from what's likely already in your fridge
lighter week Adjust all meals to be lower in carbs / higher in protein
budget week Rebuild with maximum ingredient overlap and cheapest proteins
rejected: [meal name] Ban a meal permanently — it'll never be suggested again
show my grocery list Re-display this week's list in case you need it at the shops
online order format Reformat the list for easy copy-paste into a delivery app
🎉

Dinner is sorted.

You've done the one-time setup. From here, it's one message on Sunday — and dinner plans for the whole week, every week, built for your family.

→ Open Claude and type: make this week's plan
Something not working? Email us at hello@thefamilydinnermethod.com — we'll sort it.