Six of the Best Meal-Planning Apps for When Youre Sick of Doing It Yourself

Six of the Best Meal-Planning Apps for When Youre Sick of Doing It Yourself

Your shopping list will automatically adjust based on what you already have at home, which we love. Highly customizable settings allow you to choose your preferred prep level and the number of meals per week to plan for. If you share cooking responsibilities with someone else, you can also share your meal plan with a partner. With MealPrep Pro you will gain access to a preloaded database of original recipes complete with nutrition information. With MealPrep Pro you can even set a calorie range to help you meet your weight and health goals.

Despite that the app is visually appealing, it is less user-friendly and a bit more complicated to use. Some users might find this app slightly more complicated to use because of browser integrations and a more challenging user guide. And they range across several different categories but are mostly focused on productivity.

Her story for BuzzFeed News won the 2022 American Journalism Online award for Best Debunking of Fake News. The developer, Mealime Meal Plans Inc, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. My post-work mental capacity belongs to the Real Housewives, tyvm, not finding recipes.

  • In addition to these features, the app also allows you to record workouts and physical activity by integrating with fitness apps.
  • It’s even more  difficult if you have dietary restrictions as many seniors do.
  • The meal prep feature guides you in both prepping and planning, showing you what to prep on each day to stay ahead of your menu.
  • Most people find they save several hours each week once they build the habit.
  • When asked about customization, Pete noted that “you can’t customize or modify the recipes that are already included in the app.
  • I promise to give you a great review anyway, even if you say you can’t feed me safely.

Automated Shopping List

We looked at how detailed the customization of each app was for dietary needs, creating an inventory of your pantry and fridge, and if it was easily customizable for families, special diets, allergies, and more. Pete tested eMeals, rating the sign-up and setup process a 3 out of 5. “When signing up, there were a few questions you had to answer about your lifestyle and goals, and then you had to sign up with a credit card to access the app. It does offer a 14-day free trial to test out the app, and then the annual price is $59.99,” Pete said. Pete tested Prepear, rating it a 5 out of 5 for the initial sign-up and getting started.

Paprika Recipe Manager — power organization for recipe lovers

You can add to it or remove items and check things off as you shop. Tapping that basket button adds that recipe’s ingredients to your Groceries list, minus the ones already listed on your Pantry page. No matter which device(s) you enjoy reading your favorite recipe blogs from, it’s always a cinch to clip recipes to try later.

Our Thoughts on Plan to Eat

best free meal planning app ios

All of the recipes are customizable, as you are either importing them from a website or typing them in on your own. That being said, Pete found it easy to add specific items to his pantry in the app. Life is busy and with all the food options, recipes, and restaurants readily available, making choices about meals and intentionally planning can be daunting task.

Samsung Food (Web, iOS, Android) — organize saved recipes into plans

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. Meal planning apps can help save money by reducing impulse grocery purchases, minimizing food waste, and cutting back on takeout. Having a plan makes it easier to shop intentionally and use what you already have.

Best Meal Planning Apps Comparison Table

While there are appointment and practice reminders, family meal planning is a big part of the app. There’s a recipe database that has Cozi’s own recipes, as well as recipe collections compiled from popular family magazines. You can also add recipes via a URL from a website or enter your own recipes step-by-step from scratch.

The Sweet Setup Staff Picks for 2022

We also looked for apps with extensive recipe libraries already built into the app at the time of download, which helped to make meal planning and shopping much easier. Plan to Eat supports your meal planning efforts, allowing you to organize your recipes and conveniently access them to develop a weekly plan. This is a useful option for those who already have a personal collection of favorite recipes and just want a better way to organize and access them to generate a workable meal plan for the week. Meal planning is a specific area where technology can be your friend. Meal planning apps can make your life easier and help you achieve your health and weight goals while navigating dietary restrictions.

FAQ best meal planner app for iPhone in 2026

It was great for me to have this app on a family trip overseas, where I used it to ensure that a selection of snack foods I was considering wouldn’t activate my lactose intolerance and derail our whole day. Use this 7 day meal plan for runners to match carbs, protein, hydration, and recovery meals to training days without turning weekly fueling into guesswork. Weight loss isn’t cookie-cutter, so your app, plans, and content shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Offer customization options for special diets like BodyFast’s custom fasting plans or diet-agnostic approaches that adapt to keto, vegan, low-FODMAP, and more.

What We Look For in a Recipe Manager

best free meal planning app ios

Modern diet apps, powered by advanced AI, provide highly personalized nutrition guidance based on your lifestyle, sleep, activity, and metabolism. According to Roots Analysis, in 2025, the global market for diet and nutrition apps was valued at approximately USD 6.13 billion. It is projected to grow to USD 28.36 billion by 2035, achieving a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6%. This strong expansion is mainly fueled by growing public awareness of how healthy eating supports overall well-being and helps prevent disease.

Just so you don’t have to sift through your app store and skim the review sections, I went ahead and curated this tip-top meal planning app guide. Below you’ll find the six best meal-planning apps, from the most budget-friendly option to the one designed for picky eaters (I see you, chicken tender girlies) to everything in between. Our tester noticed that Mealime’s grocery list is a bit different from the other apps on our list. “The shopping list is helpful in the sense that it pulls automatically from the meal plan you’ve selected,” Pete said.

Best App for Customized Meals: Eat This Much

I’m Nick, the meal prepper behind Meal Prep on Fleek, Easy Meal Prep Recipes, and Workweek Lunch—brands that have revolutionized the way people approach meal preparation. Since embarking on my own meal prep journey unimeal review over nine years ago, I’ve been dedicated to teaching and inspiring others through comprehensive guides and resources. Start small, keep two or three staple dinners in rotation, and build from there. Paprika’s unit converter can be a life-saver if you forget, for example, how many tablespoons are in a ¼ cup. The free Paprika Cloud Sync service syncs everything in Paprika to the cloud and all your devices, all in real time. Since it uses its own sync service rather than iCloud, it’s easy to create an account to share between everyone in your household.

If there’s a meal you don’t like, you can swap it for any of the recipes in the database. Once the meal plan is created, you can add ingredients to your grocery list through each individual recipe. Cozi doesn’t automatically populate the list for you, but it compiles everything in one place so you don’t have to create a separate list outside of the app.

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