08 Jan 8 Best Meal Planning Apps in 2024

BigOven’s app is stocked with more than 1,000,000 recipes from home cooks, food bloggers and cooking sites all over the web, plus you can easily upload your own using the Recipe Clipper tool. You can easily add ingredients from each recipe to a grocery list with the click of a button, share the list and cross off what you buy. It’ll even offer suggestions if you want to swap out a dish with something else. The recipes are easy to follow with step-by-step videos, but they’re made for one or two people, so if you’re feeding a family you’ll have to increase the serving size to scale up. The plan generates an organized shopping list, and you can cross things off as you pick them up. Meal Planning Calendar – The Planner allows you to add recipes to specific mealtimes and days of the week to work around your schedule.

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It will automatically create a customized grocery list based on your plan, consolidating ingredients when necessary and allowing users to add anything else they might need, like paper towels. Meal planning apps are a digital trend that’s here to stay—and with good reason. They allow users to choose specific meal plans and recipes, create shopping lists, and track nutritional information, all from the ease of a mobile device. Creating a comprehensive food plan is a powerful step towards achieving your nutritional goals and improving your overall health.

By assessing your nutritional needs, planning your meals, and preparing healthy, whole foods, you can take control of your diet and set yourself up for success. Remember to be flexible, stay consistent, and seek support when needed, and you’ll be well on your way to a healthier, happier you. It also generates detailed nutrition summaries for each meal, helping you keep those health goals on track. While the one-click checkout and delivery feature is still in the works (coming soon!), the convenience of a pre-populated grocery list is a game-changer. No more frantic scribbling on scraps of paper or forgetting key ingredients. In today’s fast-paced world, keeping up with meal planning and grocery shopping can feel overwhelming.

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This app isn’t just for people who are watching calories or following a specific diet. The benefits of meal planning have been shouted from every mountain and every Pinterest board, and rightly so. Meal planning can help with everything from slashing expenses to boosting nutrition. Consider your dietary needs, and budget, and whether you prefer simple recipes or more customized meal options. 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 app syncs with Apple Health and the Apple Watch, so you can keep track of your calories/macros, water consumption and follow the shopping list from your wrist.

BigOven Recipes and Meal Planner

By raising awareness about these practices, we hope to create a health and wellness culture accessible to all. Let’s explore 8 applications that can help you streamline meal planning and grocery shopping, all from the convenience of your smartphone. Prepear is worthwhile if you use the social features, so it’s an appealing option for a certain type of cook. If you’re not planning on getting social, however, other apps on this list offer similar functionality — we’d start with the free subscription to determine whether to pay for the premium features. MealBoard doesn’t have a database, but it allows users to upload recipes from pretty much anywhere on the web, and categorize them how they see fit.

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But the very best part of Plan to Eat is the automated shopping list. When you add recipes to your calendar, the shopping list will automatically populate an organized list of ingredients you need to buy. Platejoy is fairly expensive compared with some of the other options, but it offers comprehensive resources for better home cooking. Over time, you can save money — and improve your skills — by following the service’s suggestions, so Platejoy offers tremendous value overall. Interactive Recipes – Track your progress by crossing off ingredients when you’re done with them, and tap to highlight the current directions step. Paprika keeps your screen on when you open a recipe, so you don’t have to worry about the screen turning off while you’re cooking.

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Daily Meal Planner isn’t for discovering new recipes, but it’s a great meal planning tool for those who already have established household recipes and are just looking to organize their week. Meal planning is the best way to avoid the inevitable wilted bag of spinach and sour milk in the back of the fridge. But with the temptations of take-out and kitchen chaos, it can be hard to stick with the menu, even if you’ve tried all the tips for simplifying your weekly meal planning. 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.

The Gold membership enhances the community aspect by allowing you to share meal plans. Select the recipes you’d like to cook, and you’ll receive a complete grocery list, and you can easily update serving info unimeal reviews trustpilot to adjust the recipes. The app will generate custom meal plans from its database using your preferences and calorie goals as a guide. It also allows users to import recipes from the web or manually add them.

Reduction in food costs.

There are smart design features, too, like the ability to split screen while you cook, so you can see the recipe up to three ingredients and steps side by side. The app has an uncluttered cooking experience that lets you focus on the recipe at hand. Additionally, it includes a user interface that lets you check off items while you cook, eliminating the need to constantly check whether you’ve added salt. We are a non-profit organisation that works to bridge the gap between science and nature, focusing on the essential role of natural products in maintaining wellness.

The 11 Best Meal Planning Apps in 2025

Copy Me That and Big Oven are two other apps with so-called “pro” versions that aren’t required for efficient meal planning. Both apps allow users to clip recipes from any webpage, make shopping lists, and plan ahead, each with a few different benefits. Copy Me That has a great drag-and-drop feature for plotting your monthly meals, as well as a community feature for recipe sharing. It also lets users add their own recipes, whereas BigOven only offers that feature in their paid upgrade ($2.99 per month or $24.99 for the entire year).

Produce

There are existing meal plans that you can utilize, or you can completely build your own from scratch. If you opt for one of the existing meal plans, you do have the option to edit it by removing any recipes you don’t like and adding ones that you do. If you choose a from-scratch plan, you’ll start with the app’s recipe database and completely build your plan from the ground up.

• Normally, it’s protective, drawing more immune cells to the inflamed location so that healing can happen faster; however, long-term inflammation can harm your health.
• Prepping and scheduling meals isn’t just for busy parents or those following a strict diet.
• You can update your profile at any time, so you’re not stuck with a single menu.
• You can save money by signing up for six months ($69) or a whole year ($99) at a time.
• This makes it a fantastic option for stay-at-home moms who are constantly juggling mealtimes for the family.
• A calendar function allows you to easily drag and drop meals into the week, making menu planning a breeze.

Suitability for Budgeting

Also called a “recipe manager,” it even sorts grocery items into categories based on the aisle of the supermarket you’ll find them in. Paprika also makes the cooking process easier with interactive recipes that track your cooking progress, allowing you to check off ingredients and set timers in-app as you go. Many meal planning apps give you the option to filter by vegan meals, but they can have limited options. Forks Over Knives, which is 100 percent vegan, has more than 1,000 recipes at any given time, and new recipes are added weekly. Rather than just eliminating animal-based foods, the focus is on healthy recipes that incorporate a lot of whole foods for optimal nutrient density. PlateJoy is all about streamlining the meal planning process to help you reach your weight loss goals.

However, BigOven allows device syncing under its free version, a feature Copy Me That reserves for the paid users. In addition to these strategies, it’s also important to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you slip up – simply acknowledge the setback and get back on track. It can also be helpful to find healthy alternatives to your favorite foods, or to incorporate small treats into your meal plan. By staying positive and https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/ focused, and by using a range of strategies to overcome common challenges, you can stay on track with your comprehensive food plan and achieve your nutritional goals.