Meal Planning With Claude: Plan From Your Own Recipes and Get One Grocery List

Quick answer: Tell Claude about your week, ask for the dinners first, then ask for one grocery list in its own message and check it against the recipes. Our ChatGPT meal planning guide has prompts that work the same way in Claude. To have Claude plan from the recipes you actually cook, connect it to RecipeRun as a custom connector, which Claude allows on every plan. Then ask "Plan next week's meals from my recipes" and the dinners go on your RecipeRun weekly plan. "Make my shopping list from this week's plan" builds the list in the app, ready to check off at the store.

Claude on its own, and Claude with your recipes

In a normal chat, Claude works from what you tell it. Describe your week and it will suggest dinners, scale a recipe, swap a night and write a grocery list grouped by store section. What it can't see is your recipe collection. So it suggests dishes in general rather than the ones your family already likes, and the list stays in the chat.

Connected to RecipeRun, Claude can read the recipes you've saved, your weekly meal plan and your shopping list, and change them when you ask. The changes show in the RecipeRun app once your phone is online. In a Family Group, Claude uses the family's shared meal plan and shopping list, so whoever does the shopping sees the same list.

We make RecipeRun, so the rest of this guide is about our own app.

How to connect RecipeRun to Claude

First, in the RecipeRun app

• On iPhone, iPad or Mac, open Settings → Account, sign in with Apple and turn on Allow AI access. The Android app can't turn on AI access yet.
• Our AI assistants page lists everything you need on the RecipeRun side.

Then, in Claude on the web or in Claude Desktop

• Go to Customize → Connectors, select Add, then Add custom connector.
• Name it RecipeRun, paste https://mcp.reciperun.com.au/mcp and click Continue.
• Keep the sign-in settings Claude marks Detected, with one exception. If Claude asks how it should identify itself, choose Register automatically, as our setup notes say, even if Claude detects or recommends a different option. If it asks for an OAuth client ID instead, enter reciperun-anthropic and leave the secret blank.
• Click Add, then Connect if Claude shows it. When the RecipeRun sign-in page opens, use the same Apple or Google account as in the app, read the terms and choose Accept and connect.

Then, in a chat

• Select + at the lower left of the message box, choose Connectors and turn on RecipeRun. You can switch it off the same way for chats that don't need it.

For a quicker start, open Settings → Account → How to connect in RecipeRun, tap Copy message and paste the message into Claude. Claude then gives you these steps.

Which Claude plans can connect (November 2026)

• Individual plans: you add the connector to your own account. Claude's Free plan allows one custom connector, so if you already use one, you'd need to remove it first. What RecipeRun needs is on our AI assistants page.
• Team and Enterprise: an Owner adds RecipeRun first, in Organization settings → Connectors. You then connect to it from Customize → Connectors.
• On your phone: once you've added RecipeRun on the web or in Claude Desktop, it's available in Claude's mobile apps too.

What to ask Claude

Claude plans from the recipes you've saved, so start by saving the dinners you cook most. You can add them in the app, or share their links with Claude and ask it to save them to RecipeRun.

Your meal plan

• "What's on my meal plan this week?"
• "Plan next week's meals from my recipes."
• "Swap Tuesday's recipe for something vegetarian from my recipes."

Your shopping list

• "Make my shopping list from this week's plan."
• "Add milk and eggs to my shopping list."
• "I've bought the eggs, check them off."
• "Here's a photo of my pantry. Add these to my shopping filters so my recipes don't put them on my list."

Your recipes

• "Save this recipe to RecipeRun," with a link, a photo or the recipe's text.
• "What can I cook with chicken and rice from my recipes?"
• "Change my pancake recipe to use oat milk."

Stay in control of what Claude changes

• Approvals: Anthropic's help pages say to review Claude's tool approval requests carefully, and to let a tool run without asking only when you trust it to run unsupervised.
• Blocking: to stop Claude using one of RecipeRun's tools at all, open Customize → Connectors, select RecipeRun and set that tool's permission to Blocked.
• Checking: AI can make mistakes, so look over what Claude changed, especially ingredients, quantities and allergens.
• Disconnecting: remove RecipeRun in Customize → Connectors. Or, in RecipeRun's Settings → Account, disconnect Claude or turn off Allow AI access.

What's shared with Anthropic

Turning on AI access syncs your recipes, meal plans and shopping lists to your private RecipeRun cloud space, so Claude can reach them. What Claude reads from RecipeRun goes to Anthropic, which makes Claude, and Anthropic handles it under its own terms, privacy policy and your Claude settings. You sign in to RecipeRun in your browser, so Claude never sees your Apple or Google password. Section 11 of our Privacy Policy has the details.

Frequently asked questions

Can Claude make a meal plan and a grocery list?

Yes. In any chat, describe your week and ask for the dinners, then ask for one grocery list in a separate message. With RecipeRun connected, Claude plans from your saved recipes and builds the list in the app instead of the chat.

Which Claude plans can connect to RecipeRun?

All of them. On an individual plan you add RecipeRun yourself, and Claude's Free plan allows one custom connector. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner adds it first. What you need on the RecipeRun side is on our AI assistants page.

Does RecipeRun work in the Claude mobile app?

Yes. Add it on claude.ai or in Claude Desktop first, and it's then available in Claude's mobile apps too.

Can I limit what Claude can change?

Yes. In Customize → Connectors, select RecipeRun and set the permission of any tool you don't want Claude to use to Blocked. You can also turn RecipeRun off for a chat from the + menu.

Sources

• Claude Help Center: Get started with custom connectors using remote MCP.
• Claude Docs: Add a connector that isn't in the directory.
• RecipeRun AI assistants, our setup notes for AI apps and Privacy Policy.

Claude and Claude Desktop are trademarks of Anthropic. RecipeRun is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic.

Who wrote this, and how we checked

The RecipeRun team wrote this guide, and we benefit if you use RecipeRun. On November 13, 2026 we read Anthropic's help pages on custom connectors. Claude's menus and plan limits above are what those pages said that day. The RecipeRun steps come from our own setup notes for AI apps, and we've connected RecipeRun to Claude ourselves. Claude's menus change from time to time, so if a step doesn't match what you see, check Anthropic's help page.