Meal planning can lead to high-quality meals, healthier eating, and less stress before mealtime. It can also impact your weight, helping you find recipes that keep you fuller for longer and promote healthy weight loss.
But at first, meal planning can seem like a lot of work. It involves taking the time to make shopping lists and write menus that offer the variety of food that you want. Planning can be even more complex if you have loved ones with food allergies or adhere to certain diets. But one of the good things about living in the digital age is that there’s an app for everything — including meal planning.
If you want to eat better, spend less on takeout, and stay healthy — but don’t want to spend hours thinking about what to cook each week — these 6 meal planning app options for easier dinners can make planning a breeze.
1. BigOven Pro
BigOven Pro is a community-based app that allows users to share recipes and meal plans. Your public profile is an important part of the app, making it an excellent option for those who want to cook great meals while making friends at the same time.
Pros: You can choose a dietary style, including vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, pescatarian, and many other options. The app includes more than 1 million recipes and videos that show you exactly what to do.
Cons: Because the app does not offer a place to input your weight, height, and other health factors, it cannot provide suggestions for calorie intake.
Cost: BigOven Pro costs \$3 per month or \$25 per year.
2. Eat This Much Premium
Eat This Much is a full-featured meal planning app that is simple to install and set up, allowing you to focus on goal-oriented healthy eating.
Pros: When you set up your profile, you can include your physical information, as well as what your goals are. The app then calculates the daily calories, portion sizes, and everything else you need to know to reach your goals.
Cons: While Eat This Much offers a free app, the premium version is one of the more expensive options — and you must purchase it to have access to a full week of meal planning.
Cost: The premium app costs \$15 per month (billed monthly) or \$60 per year.
3. Mealime Pro
Mealime Pro is focused on helping you prepare varied and inspiring meals. When setting up the app, you input your dietary preferences, your likes and dislikes, and whether you have any food allergies.
Pros: The entire app is very intuitive and easy to use. Once you select the meal you want to try, the app prepares a shopping list and even recommends the best utensils for the prep process. It is an excellent option for those who follow a keto, vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, or omnivorous diet.
Cons: The app doesn’t offer a calendar, and customizing recipes is only possible in the mobile app.
Cost: Mealime Pro costs \$3 a month.
4. PlateJoy
PlateJoy is all about helping you reach your weight loss goals. You will input as much information as possible about your weight, height, activity levels, food restrictions, and dietary preferences.
Pros: The app uses all of that information to create a personalized meal plan that considers your weight loss goals. PlateJoy offers one more huge benefit: It keeps track of the food you already have to avoid waste.
Cons: The in-app grocery list is difficult to customize, and customer service may be hard to reach. It is also more expensive than some other options.
Cost: Plans are \$13 per month or \$99 per year, although discounts are available.
5. Cozi Gold
Cozi is a household organization app for families. It offers appointment reminders and schedules to keep everyone in the family on the same page, along with a robust meal-planning structure that includes original recipes. If you want to, you can also input your own recipes.
Pros: You can plan meals up to a week in advance and share them with family members who also have the app. Additionally, Cozi’s shared calendar and other features are useful for busy families.
Cons: Not every user needs the household organization features, and some users report frustrating bugs and lag time.
Cost: Cozi Gold costs \$2.50 a month.
6. Forks Over Knives
Forks Over Knives is a recipe and meal planning app that offers everything you need, including step-by-step instructions, to eat healthy, plant-based food.
Pros: The app offers over 1,000 vegan recipes created by professional chefs focusing on unique, diverse, and wholesome meals. All recipes can be completed in 35 minutes, and you can easily adjust serving sizes.
Cons: Meat eaters won’t find what they’re looking for here. It is also the most expensive option on our list.
Cost: Forks Over Knives costs \$25 per month or \$99 per year.
Bringing Variety to Your Plate
Meal planning apps help your week go more smoothly and allow you to try things you might not otherwise have eaten.
Before choosing an app, consider whether it offers recipes for the diet you follow and whether it has options that work for children and adults. With the right meal planning app, you can reach your nutrition goals and ensure your family gets the variety they need.
Resource Links:
- “Weight Reduction Through a Digital Nutrition and Food Purchasing Platform Among Users With Obesity: Longitudinal Study” via the Journal of Medical Internet Research
- “Food Allergies” via the U.S. Food & Drug Administration
- “Vegetarian, pescatarian, and flexitarian diets” via the National Institutes of Health
- “Ketogenic Diet” via the National Institutes of Health
