What to Cook Wheel
The what to cook wheel picks tonight’s meal from dishes you already know how to make, which is a different and more useful problem than finding a new recipe.
Eight meal shapes rather than eight recipes, because on a Tuesday evening you are not looking for a recipe, you are looking for a decision.
Most households cook the same seven or eight things on rotation and are perfectly happy with all of them. The difficulty is not the cooking — it is standing in the kitchen at half past six, tired, cycling through the same list and rejecting each one for no particular reason. That loop can eat twenty minutes and end in a takeaway.
Load the wheel with your actual rotation. Not aspirational recipes you have never made, the things you can cook without looking anything up. Then the spin resolves the only genuine question, which is which of them is tonight.
"Whatever needs using up" is worth keeping. It comes up roughly once a week and does more for a food budget than any planning app. If you want something else to decide, the what to eat wheel handles eating out.
What to Cook Wheel — questions
Should I add recipes I have never cooked?
No. Load it with your actual rotation — the things you can cook without looking anything up. A wheel full of new recipes gets overruled on a weeknight, which is exactly when you needed it.
How is this different from the what to eat wheel?
This one is for cooking at home, so it holds meal shapes you can make. The what to eat wheel leans towards cuisines and takeaway for when nobody is cooking.
Can I use it to plan a week?
Yes. Turn on "Remove winner after spin" and spin five times for five weeknights, with no meal repeating. It also gives you a shopping list in one go.