Allergens and macros are tagged, helping parents stay in control of nutrition for everyone. Yummly automatically adds ingredients from your chosen recipes, and you can check off items as you shop. I’ve found this reduces forgotten items by about 25%, based on my own experience and feedback from friends. The service offers over 15 specialized meal plans, including options like Keto, Low-Calorie, Diabetic, and Family-friendly, all curated by dietitians. Each week, you receive seven new recipes, but you have the flexibility to swap them out if they don’t suit your taste, ensuring you’re never stuck with a meal you don’t want.
Trends Influencing Meal Planning:
If you’re like me, juggling work, family, and a healthy lifestyle, you know how tough it is to keep your weekly menu organized. As someone who’s spent years testing meal delivery services and meal planning apps, I’ve seen firsthand how the right tools can transform your kitchen routine. I’ve personally tried dozens of meal planning apps, tracked my grocery bills, and even helped friends and clients streamline their meal prep. My experience isn’t just from reading reviews—I’ve lived through the chaos of last-minute dinners and the relief of having a plan. In this list, I’ll share the 10 best meal planning apps that have made a real difference for me and countless others. These apps aren’t just popular—they’re proven to save time, reduce food waste, and help you eat better.
The best meal planner app offers straightforward navigation, enabling quick meal selections and adjustments. Samsung Food provides a modern, sleek interface that makes navigating its extensive features feel intuitive. The AI-driven recommendations are a core part of the experience, constantly adapting to your tastes. While the free version is robust, the Food+ subscription is necessary for users who want in-depth nutrition tracking and a completely ad-free interface. The Smart Cook Mode is a game-changer if you’re within the Samsung ecosystem.
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- As best for using up leftovers, we chose BigOven because of its feature that allows you to type in up to three ingredients and the search tool will find recipes that include them.
- The meal plans are designed by nutritionists, who are available by chat, and recipes include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
- Not only does BigOven offer half a million recipes for users to search through, it spotlights recipes in unique and helpful ways.
- The one notable thing about this recipe is that ChatGPT didn’t add any seasonings to the ingredient list, so I made sure to add my own.
- Paprika is a recipe manager with downloads available for Mac, PC, Android, and iOS.
- My buddy Joel started an awesome meal planning service called Ultimate Meal Plans (free trial!).
There’s everything from classics to keto, and if you set up a few preferences the app will curate what you see. You can easily add more recipes from the web or manually add your family favorites. The Food Feed tab is where you can create your own network of friends, kind of like a foodie Facebook group, to get inspiration from what everyone else is cooking https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/ and share your own. There’s an app for almost any dietary need, whether you’re crunched for time to plan for meals, looking to shed some weight, or if you prefer to prepare meals in large quantities. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight, save time, eat healthier, and enjoy delicious meals every day.
Our team of certified trainers and nutrition experts tested and reviewed the top apps based on usability, features, and effectiveness. Eat This Much then generates a weekly meal schedule for you based on those numbers. So if you’re trying to lose weight, it will suggest lower-calorie dishes than if you’re trying to gain weight.
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You can add your grocery list right into the app and sync it with your Google Calendar so that your schedule is always up-to-date with your grocery shopping lists. Not only does BigOven offer half a million recipes for users to search through, it spotlights recipes in unique and helpful ways. It’ll even offer suggestions if you want to swap out a dish with something else.
Make your grocery shopping effortless
Samsung Food elevates the meal planning experience by leveraging powerful AI and deep integration with smart home technology. Formerly known as Whisk, this platform excels at creating highly personalized meal plans based on your preferences and even uses Vision AI to recognize ingredients from photos. Its ability to connect directly with Samsung smart appliances to preheat ovens or send cooking instructions makes it a standout choice for tech-savvy households. Each recipe includes precise portion sizes and a full macronutrient breakdown, removing the tedious guesswork of calorie counting.
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While Paprika’s recipe selection isn’t quite as expansive as some of the other options, it’s still formidable. While we don’t mind subscriptions, we also appreciate this app’s one-time-purchase model. If you’ve already got recipes you love, you can easily add them, and this meal planning app’s organizational tools should help you run your kitchen more efficiently.

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It also allows users to import recipes from the web or manually add them. It’s also a calorie tracker with a database of popular restaurant dishes and packaged foods, which you can add to manually or with a barcode scanner. If grocery shopping and meal planning aren’t for you, but you still want to lessen your food waste, meal kits are a great option. With pre-portioned ingredients and a full reciple delivered to you, every bit of food gets eaten. When I decided to make a week’s worth of meals, I turned to AI to help. My main goals were to save money, try new recipes and reduce food waste.
Find the perfect food for diet
Because I know how annoying it is to battle the lock screen with dirty hands. This app is similar to other meal prep apps in some of its basic features. MealBoard helps with everything from unimeal trustpilot planning meals and shopping to tracking inventory and organizing recipes.
How does the grocery ordering work?
Prepping and scheduling meals isn’t just for busy parents or those following a strict diet. It’s a structured way to stick to a budget and minimize cooking time throughout the week. Handwritten lists and spreadsheets can go a long way, but sometimes it can be a challenge to see the bigger picture in a little notebook. Whether you need to discover new recipes or just input them into a calendar for reference, there are tools that will come to your rescue, but often at a price. SideChef excels as a meal planning app for those who want to learn while they cook. It combines a robust recipe database with an intuitive meal planner, making it a great choice for both novice and experienced home cooks.
Compare the Best Meal-Planning Apps
Big Oven’s App allows you to search for recipes based on up-to three ingredients you provide. MealPrepPro and PlateJoy allow you to choose a specific diet plan (keto, paleo, Mediterranean, etc.) and it will automatically calculate the macros for your meal plan. Copy Me That and Big Oven are two other apps with so-called “pro” versions that aren’t required for efficient meal planning.
Busy moms and dads lose some of that time brainstorming meal ideas and creating lists for stores. I was able to estimate the amount of each ingredient that my household of two needed. I headed to the grocery store with the list provided, then made the first meal that evening. Save time, reduce food waste, and stay on track with your goals while exploring recipes tailored to your tastes.