Depending on the app, you can find the recipes using an in-app browser, a recipe importing tool, or a robust library pulled from the web. In 2025, the best family meal planning apps combine automation, personalization, and real-life flexibility. Five of the best family meal planning apps to help you keep your household both organized and on a budget. Based on the preferences you provide within the meal planning app, Mealtime will give you a variety of recipe options to choose from to add to your meal plan.

Simply choose them from the dropdown menu at the top of the screen when creating a new meal plan. Many meal planning apps are free to use, or free for a trial period ahead of a full subscription or lifetime purchase. You can also ask the app to avoid a hundred or so ingredients (perfect for picky eaters), which is a great way to customize your meals.

My favorite things about EMeals:

Ollie for Meals automates the hardest parts of meal planning, from generating recipes to organizing grocery lists, so families can focus on enjoying dinner together. Meal planning means you’re always on the hunt for recipes your family will enjoy. With the help of one of my favorite meal planning apps Yummly, you can view a variety of amazing recipes with the push of a button. After a recipe is added, you can use the smart grocery list option to instantly create a grocery list based on the ingredients in your weekly recipes. The Plan to Eat app will automatically create a shopping list based on the ingredients listed in your recipes in your meal plan. Select the date range of recipes you want to shop for and add them to the list or cross them off.

It offers benefits like fully refundable tickets, no change fees, stable pricing, and no blackout dates, ensuring efficient and cost-effective official travel. Meals arrive fully prepared and chilled, meant to be heated before eating. However, Factor also offers a new line of fresh salads, in partnership with Sakara, that require no heating, which is great for grab-and-go lunches. The food arrives chilled in an insulated box with ice packs and can be refrigerated for up to seven days.

Best Free Apps to Try

One complaint is that despite being a paid app, there are still some ads… which can be annoying. Both Apple and Google/Android customers can now enjoy 30 Whole Days… the app that brings the Internet sensation’s 30-day challenge straight to their smartphone or tablet. Developed by Dietitians, GO claims to be theeasiest meal and fitness tracker you’ll ever use. There were other suggestions, but these three recipes utilized all three ingredients I typed in. Other recipes used one or two of the ingredients as a springboard to something else. The ProScore System is the app’s equivalent to having your nutritionist.

Lila: Perimenopause Diet

Type in what’s already in your kitchen and find recipes you can cook tonight. Real recipes, really made — by our family, using this very app. It’s essential to note that the content’s purpose is to inform and not to offer medical advice.

It’s a robust tool for those who prefer to build their meal plans from a curated collection rather than relying on app-generated suggestions. The Pro version unlocks exclusive recipes, nutritional information, and the ability to view past meal plans. With no subscription required, and with automated grocery list generation, it’s a seamless and intuitive option for anyone who just wants to streamline their meal-planning process. Mealime offers a decent library of recipes, made in conjunction with chefs and nutritionists. Some of these features will cost you, but even the free version of Mealime comes with a fair number of bells and whistles.

• Agyeman points out that all meals must be fully heated to safe internal temperatures of 165° Fahrenheit.
• Our weekly meal plans offer the variety and flexibility for you to pick the recipes that best fit your needs each week.
• With this app, you won’t have any more missing food in your fridge.
• These apps organize recipes, build grocery lists, and help households avoid food waste while staying within their grocery budget.
• In the daily routine, it can be hard to organize all the things to do, so nutrition remains in the background.
• To get started, download the app and either register or continue as a guest.

Best for Categorized Cooking Ideas

Specify what foods you want to eliminate from your diet and the app will make you a customized meal plan. Meal planning apps with free access have varying functionality with some offering more features than others. The main drawback of Prepear is the monotony of meal choices within its recipe database — if you add more than one or two filters, you end up with very few menu options. Keep in mind that this app doesn’t have a calorie tracking component and doesn’t draw from its own database of foods. Another drawback is that you have to enter recipes and menus via the web, not directly through the app.

thoughts on “9 Best Meal Planning Apps on a Budget That Actually Save Families Money”

Finding recipes online isn’t much better, since you need to bookmark pages, print them out, or save the ingredients and instructions in a document. After unimeal app reviews all, no one wants to shuffle through papers or search for files to find a recipe when it’s cooking time. Scrolling through PlateJoy, our first reaction was surprise at how delectable all the meals look. A lot of so-called diet foods look pretty bland, but the food pictured on PlateJoy looks appealing and vibrant. Optional grocery delivery is available, and while the subscription cost is toward the high end (about $100 annually), we think PlateJoy is totally worth it. Unlike traditional apps, Ollie for Meals uses personalized meal planning and automated grocery organization to handle every part of the process—from choosing recipes to grocery delivery.

Many apps include either video recipe guides that offer step-by-step cooking instructions or bite-size overviews. And, as the category’s name suggests, these apps let you create a meal schedule by using either an in-app or external calendar. Another notable feature is the ability to edit recipes within the app. This gives you the freedom to modify and experiment with any recipes you discover, or add notes when needed. Meal planning apps can vary quite a bit in terms of their features.

A quick look at the best meal planning apps

Separate from the meal planning service, Deals to Meals offers an option to save up to 70% on groceries without using coupons. Furthermore, their database includes more than just dinner ideas. Their menu also includes healthy breakfast and lunch recipes as well. And that’s something you don’t get with most meal kit delivery services. So, when you put your zip code into Yummly’s database, the ingredients in the recipes you choose are automatically generated into a grocery list sorted by aisle for your chosen store.

Best Meal Planning App for Weight Loss – Eat This Much

Its vast recipe database includes options for various dietary needs, making it a versatile choice for every family. Here are the best meal planning apps on a budget that help families plan meals, build grocery lists, and reduce food costs every week. Copy Me That and Big Oven are two other apps with so-called “pro” versions that aren’t required for efficient meal planning. Both apps allow users to clip recipes from any webpage, make shopping lists, and plan ahead, each with a few different benefits. Copy Me That has a great drag-and-drop feature for plotting your monthly meals, as well as a community feature for recipe sharing.

All of the recipes are customizable, as you are either importing them from a website or typing them in on your own. That being said, Pete found it easy to add specific items to his pantry in the app. It provides a clean, flexible, drag-and-drop calendar that you fill with your own curated recipes. Like Paprika, it has a great web importer for saving recipes you find online. It doesn’t suggest meals for you, instead, it gives you the perfect toolset to build your own plan from scratch, exactly the way you want it. A flexible app should allow you to easily import your own family recipes from blogs or websites.

How to choose the best meal-planning app:

The utility allows you to create a menu for the week and a shopping list. Also, residents of the U.S. and some other countries can use the home delivery service. Most meal planning apps range in cost from free to up to $120 for an annual membership.

Featured Recipes

Our weekly meal plans offer the variety and flexibility for you to pick the recipes that best fit your needs each week. Meal planning apps store recipes on your Android or iOS mobile device, which makes preparing dishes incredibly easy. Keeping track of recipes can be a chore, especially if you’re the old-school type who still jots down notes with a pen and paper.