What are we eating this week?
Deciding what to eat every evening costs money in two ways. There is the takeaway ordered because nothing was planned, and there is the food that goes off because it was bought without a plan. A short weekly plan fixes both, and the apps that help fall into three groups: somewhere to find recipes, somewhere to keep and plan them, and a shopping list that everyone in the house can see.
The weekly loop, and where apps fit
| Step | What the app does | What goes wrong without it |
|---|---|---|
| Choose the meals | Suggests recipes, or holds the ones you like | The same five dinners, or nothing chosen at all |
| Check the fridge | Nothing, this one is you | Buying what you already have |
| Build the list | Merges ingredients from every recipe | Forgetting the one thing that makes the dish |
| Shop | A shared list that updates live | Two people buying the same thing |
| Use the leftovers | Finds recipes from what is left | Waste, and a guilty bin |
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Planners and recipe keepers
Mealime. Builds a plan from quick recipes and turns it straight into a sorted shopping list. The free tier is enough to find out whether planning suits you.
Samsung Food. The app formerly called Whisk. Saves recipes from almost any website, plans the week and builds the list, and it works on any Android phone.
Paprika. A recipe manager for people with a collection. It imports from websites, scales quantities, and its paid features are a one-off purchase rather than a subscription.
ReciMe. Built for saving the recipes you find in social video, which otherwise vanish into a list of liked posts.
Recipe Keeper. For the family recipes written on cards, with import from websites for everything else.
BigOven. A very large recipe collection with a search by the ingredients you already have, which is how leftovers become dinner.
KptnCook. A few new recipes a day with short ingredient lists and step photos. Good when choosing is the hard part.
SuperCook. Tell it what is in the cupboard and it shows what you can make without shopping.
Where the recipes come from
Tasty. Short step by step videos, which help most when a technique is new.
Allrecipes. The recipes are fine; the reviews are the real value, because that is where cooks explain the substitutions that worked.
Cookpad. Recipes uploaded by home cooks rather than professionals, which makes it strong on everyday regional dishes.
NYT Cooking. A subscription, and a carefully tested collection with reader notes that are worth reading.
The shared list, and less waste
Bring! A shared list with item icons that can be read at a glance in a busy aisle. Very popular in German speaking countries.
AnyList. Shared lists and saved recipes in one app, with ingredients added to the list in a tap.
OurGroceries. The simplest shared list here. It syncs instantly and does nothing else, which is its strength.
Listonic. Sorts items into shop sections automatically, so the list follows the route through the supermarket.
Google Keep. A shared checklist with no new app to learn, if everyone already has it.
Too Good To Go. Surplus food from shops and restaurants at a lower price. Useful for one or two of the unplanned nights.
Olio. Give away what you will not use before it goes off, or collect what a neighbour is giving away.
Twenty minutes on a Sunday
- Look in the fridge and freezer first One dinner this week should use something already there.
- Pick four dinners Two quick, one slower for the weekend, and one that makes enough for lunch the next day.
- Send the ingredients to the list Then delete what you already have. Every planner adds the salt you bought last month.
- Share the list with whoever is shopping A shared list is what stops the second bag of onions.
- Leave one night for leftovers Written into the plan, so it does not feel like a failure.
Four dinners, one shared list, one night for leftovers. The apps make it faster; the twenty minutes on Sunday is what makes it work.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a paid meal planner?
Usually not. The free tiers of the planners and a shared list cover most households. Pay once you are using the automatic plans every week.
Can these apps import a recipe from any website?
Most import from pages that use standard recipe markup, which is most large recipe sites. Some sites block it, and importing from social video varies by app.
How do we stop buying things twice?
One shared list that syncs live, and ticking items off in the shop rather than at home.
Can a planner handle allergies?
Many can filter recipes by diet or allergen, which helps with choosing. It does not replace reading the label on every product you buy.
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