- Weekly meal planners at a glance
- Ten apps for planning the week and the shop
- Apps that hand you the plan, apps that hold your recipes
- Getting recipes in: links, photos and social posts
- Shopping lists sorted by aisle, store or delivery
- Where your plan lives and who can see it
- Setting up your first week in one sitting
- My advice on picking a meal planning app
- Frequently asked questions
The best meal planning app for you depends on whether you want the plan written for you or want to plan around recipes you already cook. Some apps send or build a weekly plan, while others are a calendar for recipes you save yourself, and all ten here turn the week into a shopping list.
A meal planning app takes the nightly dinner question off your plate for the week and gives you a shopping list to match. The apps on this page all do that, but they start from very different places, and it's worth knowing which kind you're downloading before you spend an evening setting one up.
Everything below comes from each app's own App Store listing, read as of Nov 2026. The list is alphabetical and in no particular order. It's about planning meals and shopping, so it doesn't give nutrition or diet advice, and where a listing talks about calories or ways of eating, those are the app's own words.
Weekly meal planners at a glance
| Tool | Type | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| eMeals - Healthy Meal Plans | Weekly meal plan service | A ready-made plan each week |
| MealBoard - Meal Planner (Ray Bernardo) | Recipe keeper, planner and pantry list | AI meal plans plus a pantry |
| MealPrepPro Planner & Recipes | Planner that builds the plan for you | Plans that include your household |
| Plan to Eat | Planner built around your own recipes | Leftovers and frozen meals in the plan |
| Potto - meal planner (Anete Ziedina) | Planner that needs no account | A week of meals from a few choices |
| Prepear: Meal Planner (Prepear) | Recipe, calendar and grocery list app | Planning a week from your own recipes |
| Real Plans - Meal Planner (Holistic Squid) | Planner with its own recipe library | Plans for set ways of eating |
| ReciMe: Recipes & Meal Planner (ReciMe) | Recipe saver with a weekly meal planner | Recipes saved from social media |
| Samsung Food | Meal planner with a public recipe library | A shared weekly plan and shopping list |
| Weekly Chefs - Meal planner (Seraphin Hochart) | Drag-and-drop weekly planner | Moving recipes between days |
Ten apps for planning the week and the shop
eMeals - Healthy Meal Plans
Best for: Getting seven new recipes each week from the food style plan you pick, with a shopping list that connects to grocery delivery or pickup partners.
MealBoard - Meal Planner (Ray Bernardo)
Best for: Asking AI to suggest meal plans from your recipes and past plans, or planning by hand, then moving bought items from the grocery list into your pantry.
MealPrepPro Planner & Recipes
Best for: Having meals and groceries planned for you, with plans the listing says adapt to your schedule, food preferences and goals, and a grocery list organised by aisle.
Plan to Eat
Best for: Importing recipes from the web or typing in family ones, then scaling servings, planning leftovers, tracking frozen meals and building a shopping list from the week.
Potto - meal planner (Anete Ziedina)
Best for: Telling it your supermarket, dietary needs and kitchen gadgets to get a week of meals with recipes, cook times and a ready-to-shop grocery list.
Prepear: Meal Planner (Prepear)
Best for: Putting your own recipes on a weekly calendar, with free recipe saving, a grocery list and serving changes that the listing names among its free features.
Real Plans - Meal Planner (Holistic Squid)
Best for: Choosing all your own meals or letting the app pick them from its recipes, with a weekly grocery list to shop from or order online.
ReciMe: Recipes & Meal Planner (ReciMe)
Best for: Saving recipes from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest, then planning breakfast, lunch and dinner and sorting the grocery list by aisle or by recipe.
Samsung Food
Best for: Planning weekly meals, turning them into shopping lists and sharing them with friends or family, with public recipes to search by ingredient or filter by diet.
Weekly Chefs - Meal planner (Seraphin Hochart)
Best for: Dragging recipes onto any day of the week, swapping meals between days and syncing the grocery list with Apple Reminders for Siri and Apple Watch.
Apps that hand you the plan, apps that hold your recipes
Read the ten listings side by side and they split into two camps. In the first, the app does the choosing. eMeals says 'Each week eMeals send you 7 new recipes', and MealPrepPro says 'Have your meals and groceries planned for you'. MealPrepPro's listing also says its plans are 'automatically adapted to your calorie and macro needs', which is the app's own description of how it builds them. MealBoard sits in both camps: you can plan by hand, or 'use AI to create meal plans for you', with the AI looking at 'your recipes and past meal plans' to suggest what you could eat next.
In the second camp, the plan is only as full as your own recipe collection. ReciMe says 'Save Recipes from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest'. Plan to Eat lets you 'plan leftovers, and track frozen meals', Weekly Chefs offers 'Drag and drop recipes to any day of the week', and Prepear says 'Plan a full week of meals for free' with your own recipes on the calendar.
That's the split you won't see from the app names: a plan service hands you dinners you didn't pick, while a recipe calendar stays empty until you fill it. Two more sit in between. Real Plans says 'You can choose all your own meals or have us do it for you', and Potto turns 'a few simple choices into a full week of meals', with 'No account, no fuss.'
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Getting recipes in: links, photos and social posts
If you go the recipe calendar route, how easily recipes get into the app matters more than anything else. ReciMe saves recipes from social media and from apps like Notes, Google Docs, Notion and Evernote. MealBoard can 'Scan recipes from cookbooks and magazines' as well as import from websites and social apps. Weekly Chefs lets you paste a recipe web address and says its AI 'extracts title, ingredients, and cooking steps automatically', and you can take photos of handwritten recipes too.
One listing says you can 'Save any recipe from any website and make it your own.' Another has you tap the share icon in your web browser to import a recipe, or type in family recipes by hand, and Prepear's listing says you can save and import recipes 'for free, with no recipe limit'.
Shopping lists sorted by aisle, store or delivery
- By aisle. ReciMe lets you 'Sort ingredients by supermarket aisle or by recipe', MealPrepPro organises its list by aisle, MealBoard can 'Organize items by store aisle', and eMeals breaks ingredients down by where they sit in the store.
- By store. MealBoard supports more than one store, and one planner lets you create lists for specific stores and add regular items from a staples list.
- Straight to delivery. eMeals connects its list to grocery partners such as Walmart, Instacart and Kroger for pickup or delivery, Real Plans names Amazon and Instacart, and ReciMe lets you order groceries in the app.
- Shared with the family. One app offers shared grocery lists, Weekly Chefs lets you share lists with family members, and MealPrepPro lets you add your partner or family.
- Linked to the pantry. MealBoard can move purchased items straight into your pantry list, and move out-of-stock items back onto the grocery list.
Where your plan lives and who can see it
A plan is only useful if it's on the phone of whoever is standing in the shop. ReciMe says 'All recipes are saved on the cloud', Weekly Chefs uses iCloud sync, and Samsung Food is available on 'iPhone, iPad, or web'. MealBoard adds a web interface for your computer, and Real Plans lists Apple Watch alongside iPhone and iPad. At the other end, Potto asks for no account at all, which suits you if the plan is just for you.
Setting up your first week in one sitting
- Decide which camp you're in: do you want dinners chosen for you, or do you want to plan around recipes you already cook?
- If you're planning your own, add the dinners you make most often first, from links, photos or your own notes, before you look for anything new.
- Put dinners on the nights you'll be home to cook and mark the nights for leftovers. Three listings here mention leftovers.
- Generate the shopping list, then check off what's already in your cupboards before you shop.
- Share the plan or the list with whoever does the shopping, if your app lets you.
Do you make a meal planning app? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
My advice on picking a meal planning app
Be honest about the kind of cook you are. If you've got a folder of recipes you make again and again, a recipe calendar will feel like home, and the work goes into adding them once. If you'd rather not think about it at all, a plan service is the easier start, as long as you're happy cooking what it picks. Either way, plan one week, shop from the list and see whether you stuck to it before you set up a whole month.
If your cupboards are the bigger mess, my guide to the best home inventory apps covers keeping track of what you've already got, and my list of money apps for women helps with the household side of the weekly shop.
Want your tool on this list? Featured spots and reviews here are paid partnerships. Here's how to partner with me.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best meal planning app?
There isn't one best app for everyone. Apps that build or send a weekly plan suit people who don't want to choose, and recipe calendars suit people who want to plan around recipes they already cook. All ten apps here turn the plan into a shopping list.
Can a meal planning app make the plan for me?
Some can. One sends seven new recipes each week, another says it plans your meals and groceries for you, and one lets AI suggest a plan from your recipes and past plans. Others leave the choosing to you.
Can I add recipes from Instagram or TikTok?
Several apps say so. One saves recipes from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Pinterest, and another imports from websites and social media apps including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.
Do meal planning apps sort the shopping list by aisle?
Some do. Four listings here describe organising the list by aisle or by where items sit in the store, and one lets you sort by recipe instead.
Can my family share the meal plan?
Several apps say they can. One lets you share weekly plans and shopping lists with friends or family, another shares lists with family members and syncs them with Apple Reminders, and another lets you add your partner or family.
Are meal planning apps free?
Some have a free version or free features, as of Nov 2026, and others work on a subscription with a free trial. One listing says you can plan a full week of meals for free. Check what's included before you set one up.
