What’s for dinner? IBM’s Watson is ready to help

Home chefs have gained a new ally in the struggle to figure out what to cook: IBM's Watson.

On Monday, IBM launched a limited beta version of an app in collaboration with Bon Appétit that enables people to plug in certain parameters that Watson will use to generate recipes.

To brush up on its culinary knowledge, Waston read about 9,000 Bon Appétit recipes to learn about cooking styles, dishes and ingredient combinations.

The app asks users to choose the kind of dish to make, ingredients to use and preferred cooking style.

Based on this, Watson then generates 100 variations.

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The app isn't Watson's first foray into cooking. During the South by Southwest Festival, IBM launched a food truck that used recipes made in collaboration between Watson and professional chefs.

In a blog post, Steve Abrams, the director of IBM Watson Life, said IBM's cooking initiatives are a way of helping people understand the potential of cognitive computing, which uses vast amounts of data and interactions with people to make recommendations.

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"To the layperson, these concepts can seem rather abstract. By illustrating cognitive computing with a system that generates new recipes, we can give everyone a 'taste' of cognitive, making it more tangible and meaningful," Abrams wrote.

—By CNBC's Katie Little