Food apps and recipe platforms need believable placeholder recipes before real content is loaded. This generator assembles a fictional dish — a themed name, an ingredient list scaled to your serving count, and numbered steps — drawing from cuisine-specific word pools so the result reads like a coherent recipe rather than random nouns.
How it works
The generator picks a protein, a few vegetables and aromatics, a cooking method, and a flavor accent from pools tied to the selected cuisine, then composes a dish name from them. Ingredient amounts are stored per serving and multiplied by your serving count, and the method steps are stitched together from the chosen techniques:
ingredients = base.map(qtyPerServing × servings)
title = method + protein + " with " + accent
steps = orderedTechniqueSentences(protein, veg, accent)Switching cuisine swaps every pool, so the proteins, aromatics, and verbs all match the theme.
How cuisine changes the output
Each cuisine draws from its own vocabulary of proteins, aromatics, methods, and accents, so the differences are substantive rather than just a label swap:
| Cuisine | Typical protein | Aromatics | Accent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Chicken, beef, seafood | Garlic, onion, basil | Sun-dried tomato, parmesan |
| Thai | Prawn, tofu, chicken | Lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime | Fish sauce, chilli, peanut |
| Mexican | Beef, pork, black beans | Cumin, coriander, jalapeño | Lime, avocado, queso |
| Japanese | Salmon, tuna, tofu | Ginger, spring onion, sesame | Soy, mirin, dashi |
| Indian | Lamb, chickpea, paneer | Ginger, garlic, onion | Garam masala, turmeric, yoghurt |
| Vegetarian | Tofu, beans, paneer | Whatever the chosen cuisine uses | Sauce from same pool |
Worked example
For Italian, 4 servings, the generator might produce:
Pan-seared chicken with sun-dried tomato (serves 4)
Ingredients: 600 g chicken breast, 2 onions, 4 cloves garlic, 120 g sun-dried tomatoes, 2 tbsp olive oil, fresh basil, salt and pepper.
Steps:
- Season the chicken breast on both sides with salt and pepper.
- Heat olive oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and sear for 4-5 minutes per side until golden.
- Add sliced onion and garlic; cook for 2 minutes until softened.
- Stir in sun-dried tomatoes and a splash of water. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Scatter torn basil over the top and serve immediately.
These instructions are illustrative — they are assembled from technique sentences, not a tested recipe.
Practical uses and tips
- Populate a recipe app UI with realistic content at multiple cuisines to verify that ingredient lists and step numbering render correctly at different lengths.
- Test serving-count scaling by generating the same recipe at 2 and 8 servings and confirming your UI formats quantities sensibly (whole numbers vs. fractions, grams vs. kilograms).
- Generate in JSON format to load directly into a test fixture — the output includes title, servings, ingredients array (with quantity, unit, and name), and steps array.
- The Vegetarian option is available as an overlay on most cuisines, restricting the protein pool to plant-based items regardless of which cuisine theme is selected.
Remember: the output is placeholder content for demos, not tested cooking instructions.