6 Apps That Will Help You With Meal Planning

One important step toward meal planning is knowing what ingredients you want to cook with for the week. If eating seasonally is important to you, consider downloading the Seasonal Food Guide app. This app allows you to select your location and the month of the year, then it will show you all the produce in season for your local area. You can then click each ingredient to learn more about it and how to cook with it.

You can keep track of your favorite recipes, add recipes to your calendar, and even manage ingredients you already have in the fridge or pantry with the MealBoard app. You can add your own recipes, import recipes from websites, or scan recipes from your favorite cookbooks all in the app. From there, you can assign recipes to specific days of the week, build a grocery list based on your selected recipes, and keep track of the quantities of kitchen staples you have at home, so you always know when it’s time to restock.

What if you want to get into meal planning, but you’re not so sure about spending the extra time, well, planning? The PlateJoy app takes some of the work of meal planning off your plate by creating personalized plans for your household based on your input preferences. The app also tracks your kitchen items and creates grocery lists based on the meal plans and what you already have stocked. And if you’re really tight on time, you can even order your groceries for delivery through the app.

If you follow a specific diet, like a vegan diet or the Mediterranean diet, the Eat This Much app may be a good option for you to meal plan according to your dietary needs. The app takes in your preferences, dietary needs, and any health or weight goals you may have, plus considers how many meals you’d like to eat per day, then creates a meal plan for you. The app also creates grocery lists automatically based on weekly plans, and this is another service that allows you to order groceries through the app.

Food is a source of joy and connection for many people, so if you’re looking for a meal planning app with a social component, try PrePear. This app allows you to browse through recipes right in the app, and when you find recipes from a creator that work well for you, you can also follow the creator to stay updated on their new recipes. Save recipes to build your own custom meal plans, and the app will create automated shopping lists for you. You can also add non-food essentials to the in-app grocery list, like paper towels or toothpaste, and order groceries for delivery or pickup through the app.

For some, meal planning is the easy part, but actually preparing the recipes you planned out for the week is another story. Pestle makes it simple. You can import recipes from websites or cookbooks and even discover new recipes in the app. Then, when it’s time to cook, Pestle will show you the steps of a recipe in a distraction-free way, so you don’t have to dodge pop-up ads or tap the screen every time it goes into sleep mode. You can even cook alongside friends and family with the FaceTime integration feature.