Mealie MCP Server — AI assistant integration for Mealie via Model Context Protocol

[amercat37]

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Mealie MCP Server — AI assistant integration for Mealie via Model Context Protocol

I built this with assistance from Claude, using rldiao/mealie-mcp-server as the starting point. The original repository provided the foundation and concept, but I substantially rewrote and expanded it to meet my requirements. Credit to the original developer for the excellent starting point.

My use case was simple: I wanted to expose my Mealie instance to Claude and ChatGPT from outside my home network, which
meant I needed real authentication. The original used a static API key with no OAuth, so I added Authentik integration —
bearer token validation via OIDC discovery and JWKS. If you're not running Authentik or just want to use it locally, auth is opt-in and the server runs completely unauthenticated by default.

What it can do

• Search and create recipes — add new recipes to your library with full ingredient, instruction, and nutrition data;
  duplicate existing ones for variations
• Meal planning — view, create, update, and bulk-add meal plan entries
• Shopping lists — create lists, add recipe ingredients in bulk, check off items, manage by store section
• Browse your library — categories, tags, foods, cookbooks, cooking tools, units, and labels
• Six built-in prompts that pre-configure the assistant for specific tasks:
  • weekly_meal_plan — builds a full week of meals from your recipe library with leftover and sandwich logic
  • shopping_trip — consolidates your meal plan into a shopping list grouped by store section
  • cooking_session — stages full recipe details, equipment, and cooking notes before you start
  • weekly_review — summarizes what you've cooked and answers "what did I have last Wednesday?"
  • nutrition_summary — calculates caloric and macro intake from your meal plan
  • recipe_builder — guided recipe creation that matches your existing category/tag/tool conventions

What it intentionally can't do

Edit or delete existing recipes. New recipes can be added, but your existing library is read-only for edits. This limits
blast radius if the endpoint ever gets abused.

How it's deployed

Docker Compose, served over HTTP at /mcp, sitting behind a reverse proxy with TLS. Configure your MCP client to point at
https://your-host/mcp.

Repo

https://github.com/amercat37/mealie-mcp-server