Sometimes it might be really difficult to decide what to eat and how to prepare it. Between juggling work, family, and everything in between, finding the time to prepare healthy meals each day can feel overwhelming. But a good meal-planning app can come to your rescue.
These handy tools take the guesswork out of your daily food choices. They help you plan your meals, make shopping lists, and even find new recipes that suit your preferences and dietary requirements.
The best meal-planning apps can make life easy for you; it doesn’t matter if you’re aiming to eat healthier, save time, or simply feel less stressed about figuring out what’s for breakfast. So, are you ready to say farewell to the 6 PM dinner panic and hello to tasty, stress-free meals?
Let’s introduce you to some top contenders that can make meal prepping a breeze for you!
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What to Know About Meal-planning Apps
Because meal-planning apps can provide a wide range of food options, they are often perfect time savers. However, getting your app to function can take some time and be a little perplexing at first.
So, having a rudimentary understanding of some concepts could help with using a meal-planning app. For starters, most meal planning applications ask you questions about your body (age, gender, weight, and height), and your eating choices and habits.
Certain apps might go ahead to inquire about your objectives—weight loss or gain, better nutrition, etc. Following your responses, these applications provide a proposed nutritional plan that may encompass recommended daily calorie consumption alongside other instructions.
Afterward, you can start by creating your meal plan, although some apps will propose meals for you for a specific period (say a week). These platforms also create grocery shopping lists according to your meal plans.
However, these lists may not be integrated with grocery delivery services like Instacart or Amazon Fresh. But some apps sync with Apple Health and Google Fit.
See Also: The Best Diet Apps of 2024
Top Picks For The Best Meal-Planning App
- Mealime | Best for budgeting
- Paprika | Best for organizing recipes
- PlateJoy | Best for eating healthy
- MealPrepPro | Best for meal prepping
- Eat This Much | Best for easy meal planning
Mealime
- Pricing: Download is free; premium version is $2.99/month
- Grocery list: Yes
- Recipe database: Yes
- Nutritional data: Only available in the premium version
Mealime provides easy-to-use, adaptable meal plans that you may customize to fit your diet and avoid certain foods you find distasteful. The extensive features that are available in the free version of the app make it the best free budgeting meal-planning app available for families.
Upon submitting your food preferences, a bunch of recipes with full-color images, easy-to-follow directions, and a comprehensive grocery list are shown to you. When creating your meal plan, Mealime considers your food allergies and dietary preferences, which makes it easy to stick to if you have food constraints.
Interestingly, each recipe only takes about 40 minutes to whip up.
Paprika
- Pricing: Free to download; pro version is $4.99
- Grocery list: Yes
- Recipe database: Not available; users add their recipes
- Nutritional data: Only available if provided by the original recipe
We chose this app because it has a browser extension with which you can monitor your favorite recipes. Since Paprika does not include a recipe database, users are responsible for adding recipes to the platform to create meal plans.
Additionally, menus and recipes are not embedded within this app. If you can organize a meal plan with little or no support, then we suggest you use Paprika.
It has personalized grocery lists and you can even save your favorite recipes straight from the web (using its browser extension feature).
Read Also: The Best Yoga Apps of 2024
PlateJoy
- Pricing: Free download; Pro version costs $12.99 per month, $69 for six months, and $99 for 12 months
- Grocery list: Yes
- Recipe database: Yes
- Nutritional data: Yes
This free meal-planning app for families is stunning and easy to navigate with many customizable options. Every meal has complete nutritional details, which you may connect with Apple Health or Fitbit to keep tabs on your health.
The “Balanced Plate” sign on the app indicates a nutritious. However, there isn’t a clear set of nutritional requirements for a recipe to be eligible for a “Balanced plate” symbol. Nevertheless, we think this functionality is what earned it the best free meal-planning app for supporting you to eat healthily.
Another thing we like about PlateJoy is that it saves you from food waste and buying things you already have at home. Therefore, you can register the food that you already have on the app.
MealPrepPro
- Pricing: Free download; has no free version; paid plan is $8.99 per month or $47.99 annually
- Grocery list: Yes
- Recipe database: Yes
- Nutritional data: Yes
Although it is not free, MealPrepPro is a meal-planning app for individuals and families seeking a faster way to prepare and plan meals. It features different meal plans such as Pescatarian, Vegetarian, Vegan, keto, low-carb, Mediterranean, pantry staples, flexible, and high protein.
So, you can pick anyone and input your details to set a specific calorie range tailored to your activity level or health goals. You can personalize your food preferences and enter your allergies too.
If you want, you can include a partner in your plan with their calorie requirements. MealPrepPro has a meal prep functionality that displays what you should prepare on a specific day according to your week’s meal plan.
Check out: 9 Lose Weight App for Men
Eat This Much
- Pricing: Has a free version; paid version costs $4.99/month if billed annually and $8.99 per month if paying as you go
- Grocery list: Yes
- Recipe database: Yes
- Nutritional data: Yes
Eat This Much doubles as a calorie counter. Upon signing up, the platform requests your health goals, weight, and height information. Then it generates a macronutrient range you can modify as you see fit.
The app comes with comprehensive dietary information, restaurant menus, and staple foods. Even though Eat This Much has a database of recipes, you can still manually add your recipes if you don’t find them in the predefined directory.
Using the food choices you’ve previously provided, the app can design a meal plan for you, or you can make one yourself. And yes! It doesn’t matter if you’re using the free version, Eat This Much can design a meal plan for you too.
FAQs
Although it has a few ads, FoodPlanner is a great meal-planning app that is free to download. The app syncs with other devices, adds meals to your schedule, provides nutritional value, and has all the features you need for recipes.
Budget: Paprika
Paleo: PlateJoy
Free: Mealime
Weight loss: Noom Weight
Meal prep: Cronometer
Quick recipes: Yazio
Bodybuilding: MyFitnessPal
An effective meal-planning app is one of the tools that productive, well-organized people rely on. The best meal planning apps have all your favorite recipes sorted in a place and prepared for use in your meal plan.
1. Check what you currently have.
2. Jot down your meals.
3. Note the recipes you want to try.
4. Consider how much time you have.
5. Make use of any leftovers.
6. Create a shopping list and keep building it.
7. Purchase a mix of fresh, frozen, and shelf-stable products.
The basic features of Cooklist are free, but Cooklist Pro is available for $5.99 a month or $47.99 annually.
Conclusion
Using a meal-planning app can save you time, simplify your life, and help you stay on track with your diet. There are plenty of excellent options available, so you’re likely to find something that suits your needs and taste. So why not give one a shot and see how it can change your approach to eating?