If you want more perks that will streamline your entire process, these apps are worth the upgrade. FatSecret is a diet and macro tracking app that enables its users to lose, gain, or maintain weight by helping them become aware of the quality and quantity of food they’re taking. That said, the app is primarily designed for weight loss and caters to those looking to shed pounds. This is most evident in its features, designs, and the online community that supports the application.
Simply sign up and enter a bunch of intel, like your preferred prep level, how many meals you want to make a week, allergies, likes and dislikes, the works. Then, the app creates ideas for lunch and dinner, which include original recipes and nutritional info. MealPrepPro will also spit out all the groceries you’ll need too, so you’ll know exactly what to grab next time you hit those aisles.
Amongst the pages and pages of meal planning apps out there, few offer everything you need for free, but thankfully, some free tiers are efficient enough. First, there’s Recipe Keeper,, which is like a digital recipe box. It’s minimalistic and super easy to navigate, allowing you to meal plan, categorize recipes, and build shopping lists to make your trip more efficient –– all for free.

Accuracy depends on database quality and your portion logging. The former provides the larger verified collection (2M+ vs. 1.1M) and more nutrients (108 vs. 92), making it the stronger choice for detailed micronutrient intake tracking. Crowdsourced databases may have duplicates and errors — a systematic review of dietary self-monitoring confirms that tracking accuracy directly impacts weight-loss outcomes. Even the best food log app is only as accurate as your portion size estimates — a food scale helps regardless.

I have two birthday kids in February, so I have to be creative with parties. Not only for planning them but also for ways not to break… If I need a meal without beef, I can find all the meals tagged with chicken or turkey for example.
But what I didn’t like about Once a Month Meals is that for many recipes, you have to cook the food, freeze it, then cook some more after you take it out of the freezer. With the New Leaf Wellness plans, you do ZERO cooking beforehand and then everything goes straight into the crockpot! The recipes are based unimeal review on whole, real foods, and they come with printable labels and nutritional info for every meal. I now combine online shopping with Zaycon Fresh, which means that I’m spending even less time shopping and prepping. Prospre (pronounced like “prosper”) is an incredibly versatile meal planning app, and it’s just about the best one around.
Plus, using the alarm feature is awesome for remembering to do the tasks you might otherwise forget. Set alarms to take frozen food out of the freezer to thaw, or to get that chicken in the marinade. Where Yummly differs from Pinterest is in its ability to learn your taste preferences, with the ability to recommend new recipes with similar flavor profiles to you. In case you’re not familiar with Pinterest, it allows you to ‘clip’ images from any website using a browser extension, and collect them on ‘boards’ in your account.
Initially, I checked with the experts at Food & Nutrition to build a list of dietitian-rated menu-planning apps, then looked for repetitive high ratings on the internet and in the app store to narrow the list. Please note that this list is not exhaustive, and as Pinterest will tell you, there are a million services like this. These are the meal plans that I have either a) used personally, or b) researched enough to have almost purchased and used. One of her super-human powers is finding and sifting through systems and methods to come up with the best.
I’ve dabbled with various apps, notebooks, paper calendars, and even spreadsheets – they do the job but, let’s be real, they can be quite time-consuming, especially when you’ve got a big family to plan meals for. We’re a family of 8 (which I love, love, love) (well, it was 10 before the older 2 flew the nest and got married!), which means a lot of meal planning on my plate. And, to add to the complexity, I’m gluten-free, so meal planning includes factoring in my dietary needs too. Meal Chef AI creates meal plans based on your BMR, goals, and food preferences. The AI analyzes your fridge contents through photos and suggests recipes with ingredients you have. Visually appealing, the app makes a great meal-planning tool for a small family, college student or new cook.
Strongr Fastr builds fully personalized, macro-targeted meal plans based on your goals, training demands and dietary preferences. With automatic grocery lists, dynamic macro adjustments, and customizable recipes, it removes guesswork from performance fueling. The perfect app for an inexperienced cook, Innit contains guided prep videos and photos of ingredients, and pinpoints the time necessary to complete each step of the cooking process. With a clean, colorful appearance and large font, the app highlights beautiful photos, accented with nutrition education pieces by registered dietitians.
Upgrading to premium unlocks macro and water tracking, a barcode scanner, recipes, and access to a premium food database. The history tab shows a breakdown of the foods and calories consumed per meal, along with weekly, monthly, and yearly charts of your total calorie intake and weight changes. It’s the perfect way to ease into meal planning and once-a-week meal prep, and we’re all in it together to keep each other accountable.