The platform also generates a categorized grocery list designed to minimize shopping time and reduce food waste, a significant advantage for busy individuals and families. A standout feature is the “cook from your fridge” tool, which intelligently suggests meals based on ingredients you already have. The meal plans are designed by nutritionists, who are available by chat, and recipes include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The meal plans will automatically generate a shopping list, which can be integrated with Instacart or other grocery delivery services.
Recipe Quality & Variety
However, paid apps typically include smart features like grocery shopping automation, AI-driven planned meals, and syncing with your own schedule. These can save hours each week and help you stay on track with your goals without the worry of last-minute meal decisions. Meal planning apps save time and money while providing healthy, well-balanced meals. These 18 best meal planning apps help you find recipes, create meal plans, and order groceries from home.
Meal planning Apps are beneficial for anyone wanting more variety in their meal plans. Users can sync the app to their FitBit, so it’ll automatically add their meals’ nutrition info to their calorie tracker. Even better, if your health insurance provider has joined the company’s PlateJoy Health division, you can get a free subscription, free Fitbit, and free scale. Personalized meal plans, interactive challenges, and real-time nutrition tracking. While the simple meals ChatGPT gave me weren’t groundbreaking, I appreciate that you can continue asking the application questions to get exactly what type of meals you desire.
MealPlan+ also wins points for extra portability since it’s compatible with Apple Watch. We chose Paprika as best overall because the company provides flexibility and customization with the free version of the app. Join thousands of users transforming their health with NutriTech AI.
Technology bridges the gap by offering tools such as eating schedule app and food schedule app functionalities. These enable users to plan meals around workouts, work shifts, and family time, alongside automatic grocery lists enhancing overall wellness. BigOven’s calendar view allows users to drag and drop recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, providing a clear overview of the week. The Pro membership enhances this experience by unlocking nutrition information, advanced search filters, and removing ads. This makes it a great tool for those who want to track macros or stick to specific dietary goals using a vast library of user-submitted and professional recipes.
iCook: Healthy Meal & Recipes
The most effective way to find your perfect match is to get hands-on experience. Nearly every app on our list offers a free trial or a limited free version. We highly recommend you test-drive your top two or three contenders for at least a week. In addition to creating organized lists and sharing them with ease, AnyList also lets you add items with Siri.
No matter where you are on your plant-based eating journey, you will want to check out Veganized. 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. Type in up to three ingredients and the search tool will find recipes that fit them. 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. And rotting foods in landfills actually release methane into the environment, which is the second-largest contributor to climate warming (directly behind carbon dioxide).
What happens to your body if you do 100 squats a day?
Offline capabilities and support across devices were important for busy users who move between locations and devices throughout the day. Delicious, chef-curated meals delivered fresh to your doorstep weekly. You can also add notes to each recipe so you don’t forget what ingredients are needed or how much time a recipe takes to prepare.
Weight Loss Tracker Pro
If someone in your family has allergy restrictions, this is the best of all the meal prep apps to try. You can sort by everything from sulfite-free and dairy-free to peanut-free and gluten-free meal prep recipes. You can plan meals around individuals–whether it’s special diets or nutritional goals–and the whole family. This caught my eye because it was the first meal prep app I saw to feature recipes for Low FODMAP diets.
Cook with Confidence
Using this app, you can meal plan based on specific unimeal trustpilot diets and meal preferences. Plus, you can curate a list of recipes you love and organize your shopping list. Search using their extensive filters, save what you find to your recipe box, and select which recipes you’d like to cook. The necessary ingredients will be automatically uploaded to your digital grocery list. Each recipe page shows you the number of ingredients used, total cook time, caloric content, and basic nutrition facts.
- That’s part of why it’s been named as The TODAY Show’s best app for a better life.
- Delicious chef-designed meals delivered fresh to your doorstep weekly.
- Yummly’s step-by-step guided cooking helps you master new recipes with confidence—even if you’re a beginner in the kitchen.
- Long-time users (the app’s been around for 10 years!) are loyal to this app and their subscriptions and for good reason.
- Our goal is to help you find the perfect digital kitchen assistant, from AI-powered automation in platforms like AI Meal Planner to meticulous manual recipe curation with Paprika.
- Busy schedules leave little room for daily meal decisions, increasing reliance on digital solutions like a weekly meal planner or monthly meal planner.
Accessibility
Plus, the meal plan apps on this list are often focused on specific needs–like budget-friendly foods or special diets. Prepear is worthwhile if you use the social features, so it’s an appealing option for a certain type of cook. The one drawback is that to use the meal planner function, you have to upgrade to Pro. But with the upgrade, you also get more ways to organize the recipes into folders, more refined search options, and the opportunity to add unlimited recipes. MealPrepPro’s ability to create recipes designed to cook large batches of healthy food is why we chose it as the best option for meal preppers.
Cooky – Recipe Manager Cooking
The recipes are quick to make and designed for you to make a big batch one day, and then you’ll eat it for several days after. Sure it’s repetitive, but if you’re watching what you eat and don’t have a lot of time, you’ll always have a healthy meal waiting for you. If you’d rather cook fresh every day, or cook an even bigger batch to freeze, you can set the app to do that too. The app will generate custom meal plans from its database using your preferences and calorie goals as a guide.
Syncing with Fitness Trackers or Health Apps
However, BigOven allows device syncing under its free version, a feature Copy Me That reserves for the paid users. Navigating the crowded landscape of meal planning apps can feel as overwhelming as deciding what to eat on a busy Tuesday night. As we’ve explored, the “best meal planning apps” are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, the ideal tool is the one that aligns perfectly with your unique lifestyle, dietary goals, and cooking habits. The key is to move beyond generic feature lists and identify the platform that genuinely solves your specific kitchen challenges. The app allows you to build, save, and reuse your own weekly meal plans or simply adopt a pre-made plan from https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/ a food blogger you trust.
Allrecipes Dinner Spinner
And you can import favorite recipes from the web, too, though adding recipes manually isn’t an option. Eat This Much automates your entire meal prep, adjusting meals based on your dietary goals. Whether you’re keto, vegan, or just calorie-conscious, its AI-generated meal plans can save hours each week. It integrates with grocery services for direct delivery—ideal for those always on the go. When testing meal planning apps, our experts emphasized features that improve user experience and support users to save their own recipes and personalized nutrition. Users can create their own meal plans from thousands of recipes or opt for the premium subscription to receive curated weekly plans.
I asked ChatGPT to create a seven-day healthy-dinner meal plan for me, with a few parameters, and a grocery list. Fitbudd is tailored for fitness professionals who want to deliver high-impact, customized nutrition guidance at scale. Designed to work in tandem with client training programs, Fitbudd allows trainers to build tailored meal plans, automate delivery, and track adherence—all from a single dashboard. With deep personalization, analytics, and a sleek user interface, it empowers both trainers and clients to stay aligned on health goals. Choosing the right meal planner app can be overwhelming given the numerous options in 2025.