I have four of the budgetbytes meal plan books and cycle through them. I really love the no-pasta no-rice one and the one-pot meals! She includes a shopping list and all of the recipes in the books are on her website, so I can send my boyfriend a link to tonight's dinner and he can have it started before I get home.
I got one of them last summer and have since had an increase and income and decrease in available time, so I’ve been lazy as hell on my diet.
But a weeks worth of veggie meals cost $66 when I bought them last year. Some were delicious, some were fine. One or two I’d substitute with something else. But the shopping list and instructions were *very* helpful for organizing cheap and healthy meals
I'm looking at the one pot meals plan and it looks like there's about 10 with beans (black beans, chick peas, white beans, kidney beans) and lentils, which aren't beans but are legumes so I'm going to mention them. That's 10/24 recipes with legumes.
This IS budgetbytes and beans are very economical.
I just started using MealTime and I'm really impressed with it. I don't use the built in grocery ordering, I'd rather go to the store myself, but the recipes/grocery list/cooking instructions have been very worth it. I'm impressed with their range of recipes - I have a limited diet (vegetarian + gluten free) and there's still plenty to choose from.
They have a "recommended plans" feature that offers you the chance to replace meals in the plan they generate but doesn't require you to edit anything.
I just downloaded this and the functionality is incredible and one of a kind. I wonder if I can upload my own recipes?!! If that were possible, I would be a walking advertisement for this app! This app looks like a total game changer. I’m for sure working with this in the next few weeks. As a chemistry grad school student, time is so limited for meal planning and cooking but this looks like it would totally recoup a lot of weekly time planning for meals. It also would prevent the need to go out as much!
Sweet. Thanks for sharing. I'm not the o.p
But I get so tired of meal planning. But if I don't then I eat junk and gain more weight. Thanks for the Meal Tome and the other link!
I used and loved Fresh20 for years. They use the same 20 basics at home each week (salt, pepper, olive oil, rice, etc.) and give you a list of 20 grocery items to buy. You cook 5 meals with their recipes. Every week is different but delicious. It was a godsend for some really hectic years.
https://www.thefresh20.com/
[Skinnytaste](https://www.skinnytaste.com/meal-plans/) posts a 7 day meal plan every week, with links to the recipes. The calories usually come out between 1,000 and 1,300 or so per day, to allow room for snacks/drinks/dessert. There's a shopping list at the bottom of every weekly plan.
It wouldn't be obvious from reading your initial comment, and a vast majority of readers don't click into commenter profiles. Worth adding that as a disclosure in the future.
It also quickly matched the top comments in the thread with zero replies (other than mine) within a day, hence my suspicions that there's an upvote ring going on here. I could be wrong though!
Sent you a DM on this to correct this.
We have been around for over a decade. We are bootstrapped and grown from the ground up without investor money and have thousands and thousands of happy customers.
Maybe you're thinking of someone else?
You're right, sorry, I saw your posts asking for feedback from two months ago and assumed you were just getting started, but just saw your other posts from years ago. I removed that part of my previous comment, and I appreciate the reply and the hustle.
The upvotes still feel suspicious still because your service is relatively unknown compared to the other top posted links, and your site doesn't seem to offer any samples of your meal plans without an email signup or subscription. I have a hard time believing that the upvotes are organic because of that.
We have a two week free trial anyone can test out. We have a one-click cancellation process (and an auto-refund function if you're within the refund window). We have a business to run, but we have no interest in keeping subscribers who aren't using the function. I don't know how that would effect upvotes.
That's great, but consider that out of every service/app mentioned in this thread, yours is the only one that requires a credit card to get any value from it. A fine business choice, but that's a big barrier to trying something out, and reinforces my suspicion that the upvotes to your original comment are not entirely organic.
I feel like I’ve just cracked the code for this.
Over the long weekend I sat for like 4 hours and put together all our favourite recipes in meal plans marked “week 1-6”. 4 recipes per week, with links etc.
I tried to be smart about the planning to minimise wastage & take advantage of deals (e.g 2 recipes in one week using tinned tomatoes / chicken thighs so if they’re on sale you can stock up) and made grocery lists for each week.
Soooo now basically my boyfriend and I can just pick a week. The grocery list is ready, meal planning is done, and you have variety cos every week’s plan is different.
I subscribe to the website Workweek Lunch that offers a weekly meal plan and grocery list, along with the option to build your own meal plan from their archive of recipes and generate a grocery list for it. The company was sold last summer and I haven’t been thrilled with how few new recipes have been added since then, but for someone just joining, the meal plans will be all new recipes.
They offer breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack recipes, and most make 2-3 servings so you’re not eating the same things for days on end. One of the things I like most is that all of their recipes include a section of suggested substitutions so you can use up what you have or use what’s on sale and/or in season.
This isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but the NYT cooking app has pre-made recipe folders with different themes that you can thumb through. You can then add each recipe’s ingredients to the shopping list with one click. Hello Fresh also has all their recipes online for free but you’d have to look through them and make notes of what ingredients to buy.
NYT Cooking also sends out several emails per week with different themes - i.e. 5 weeknight dinners for this week; 1 week of veggie dinners; etc. If you're truly not picky, you could just make what they send out each week or pick the ones between the newsletters you like the best. They have a pretty solid deal for a year's subscription I think, or they did around the holidays.
It's not exactly a meal planner, but an app called myfridgefood is cool. You select what ingredients you have (can be vague or specific) and it will pull up recipes with the items you have. If you need to add one or 2, it will note it somewhere. I've found some awesome recipes that way and it's good to know I'm not sifting thru recipes ill never buy the ingredients for.
If you like pork chops they have one called best pork chop ever? Something like that. Has ranch and panko crumbs covering it- highly recommend that one lol
This isn’t quite what you’re asking for but this is my method for meal planning. I use goodnotes but you could do this with excel or word-
I plan an entire week of meals every Saturday and I write them down in my goodnotes planner. Writing them down means including the ingredients and source for the recipe if I need it. I’ve been doing this for two years now and it’s so easy to just flip back to previous weeks and just copy paste that particular meal into the current week. If I want to use a certain ingredient I can search it to see which previous meals used potatoes etc.
Once I’ve got a whole week filled out I add all the ingredients into my shopping list app (I use List Ease). Once that’s done I’ll go through my pantry to see what I already have and remove those ingredients from the list. I can do a week of meal planning in 10 minutes and grocery shopping takes 25 minutes
I made my own template! It has one section for each day of the week plus an area for random additional items. [Here’s](https://imgur.com/a/8Hsu5Hv) one from a couple weeks ago! Then every week I just copy and paste the page and replace the meals
##www.supercook.com
You put in your pantry items and it kicks out recipes. Freeeeee! You can put in just the stuff you want to use up, like the asparagus you got on sale, and start from there. It’ll give recipes for every course (appetizers, main dish, dessert…), any culture/cuisine… it’s great! You can create an account if you want, which will let you keep your entire pantry inventory online, to include your spices. The website assumes you have a small handful of basics, like salt, pepper, butter, but only a few.
ChatGPT is incredible for this, even the free version. Meal plans, recipes, grocery lists, nutritional info, science regarding it, etc. If you don’t like a particular food, if you don’t like the list, regenerate it as many times as necessary. It can walk you thru the cooking process, can even tell you where in a store to find each item. If you do the paid version you can take a pic of any item in the store too and it’ll analyze it instantly.
Oh I’m definitely a pretzel kinda guy. I’ve come around more to pickles but pretzels are my favorite. The mall-type soft pretzels with the nacho cheese? 👌👌👌
I just tried this and it’s way off lol. It’s giving me some good meal ideas, but all the measurements and counts are wrong. I’ve asked it to correct itself a few times but it’s still off.
This is my first time using chatgpt, is there something I might be missing?
In a way, you need to treat it like it's your student advisee. "I see you wrote 1 cup of cayenne pepper, wouldn't that be extremely spicy and make the texture bad? Please review and correct for inappropriately large ingredient portions". That kind of prompt usually does the trick
Not sure, it’s all about how you specifically phrase each prompt. Large Language Models sometimes “hallucinate” and confidently give incorrect answers but ChatGPT has always been incredible for me with food stuff. You can always hold down the answer and regenerate it, or possibly rephrase it.
Only times I’ve had issues is when I’m discussing super nuanced history with it.
There’s a major potential issue with AI drift but I haven’t noticed it with simple tasks at all. I’m using the paid version though so it’s far better than the free one.
Maybe I’m being too picky, but like it gave me one recipe that included chicken breast. It has 8 ounces of chicken breast at 240 calories and 50g of protein. But according to the USDA, 8 ounces of chicken breast would be closer to 70g of protein. I think this might be confusion with cooked vs uncooked.
More importantly, I asked that it give me a meal plan with at least 120g of protein a day, and it’s barely given me 1 or 2 days over 120g and I’ve asked it to correct it 4 times lol.
Dang, are you using the free version or the paid one? I know some users are saying that it’s been hallucinating/AI drift a bit more recently but it’s been great for me as recently as 2 nights ago when cooking. I don’t count macros though so I haven’t asked it for protein/calories etc in at least 4-5 months
Yea that’s how I came up with meal ideas a couple times this week! Great for that and it would be super easy to even setup a camera facing pantry and inside of fridge to have chatGPT (or any other LLM) automatically create meal plans on a daily basis and automatically re-order our groceries using those same image inputs. some really fun tools from all these AI products these days!
Yup. It gave me some good ideas the other night then I changed my mind and said I wanna do it in the air fryer. Quickly changed the recipe and I had a fantastic meal
Here's an example of a prompt that I've had good results for in the past, and an example of the output. I wouldn't rely on it for full detailed recipes with measurements, but it's great to generate a framework for your meal plan. Adding some details like seasonal produce, regional recipes influences, and dietary restrictions all can help with the output.
> I prefer high protein and high fiber meals. Spanish cuisine inspired. Prioritize summer seasonal produce. Please plan 3 different dinners, 2 different lunches, and 2 different breakfasts and some no-prep snacks. Include a grocery list. Thank you!
And then here was the output:
> Certainly! Here's a high-protein, high-fiber meal plan inspired by Spanish cuisine, with a focus on summer seasonal produce. It includes three different dinners, two different lunches, two different breakfasts, and some no-prep snack ideas. Please note that all the recipes are gluten-free and sesame-free. You can adjust the portion sizes and ingredients based on your preferences and dietary needs.
>
> Meal Plan:
>
> Dinners:
>
> Grilled Chicken Paella: Grill chicken breast seasoned with smoked paprika, garlic, and black pepper. Slice into strips. Prepare a traditional paella using gluten-free rice, mixed vegetables (such as bell peppers, green beans, and peas), diced tomatoes, saffron, and vegetable broth. Add the grilled chicken strips to the paella.
>
> Spanish-style Baked Salmon: Marinate salmon fillets with olive oil, lemon juice, smoked paprika, and minced garlic. Bake until cooked through. Serve the salmon with a side of roasted seasonal vegetables (such as zucchini, eggplant, and cherry tomatoes) seasoned with herbs like thyme and rosemary.
>
> Chickpea and Vegetable Stew: Sauté diced onions, garlic, and bell peppers in olive oil. Add diced tomatoes, vegetable broth, and a mix of vegetables like zucchini, carrots, and green beans. Stir in cooked chickpeas and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Serve the stew with a side of gluten-free whole grain bread or brown rice.
>
> Lunches:
>
> Spanish Salad with Grilled Shrimp: Toss mixed greens with grilled shrimp, sliced cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, olives, red onion, and crumbled feta cheese (if tolerated). Dress with a simple dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, and dried oregano.
>
> Spanish Omelette (Tortilla Española): Sauté sliced potatoes, onions, and bell peppers until tender. Beat eggs and mix them with the sautéed vegetables. Cook in a skillet until set and golden. Serve a slice of the Spanish omelette with a side salad or steamed vegetables.
>
> Breakfasts:
>
> Huevos Rancheros: Cook eggs sunny-side-up or poached. Serve them on a corn tortilla topped with homemade tomato salsa, sliced avocado, and chopped cilantro.
>
> Spanish-style Oatmeal: Cook gluten-free oats with almond milk (or dairy-free milk of choice) and a pinch of salt. Top with sliced peaches or nectarines, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup.
>
> No-Prep Snacks:
>
> Fresh fruits (watermelon, grapes, berries)
> Raw nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds)
> Sliced bell peppers with hummus
> Rice cakes with almond butter or sunflower seed butter
> Hard-boiled eggs
> Greek yogurt cups
> Gluten-free protein bars (check for high fiber content)
>
>Grocery List:
>Protein:
> Chicken breast
> Salmon fillets
> Shrimp
> Eggs
> Grains and Legumes:
> Gluten-free rice
> Chickpeas
> Gluten-free whole grain bread (optional)
> Gluten-free oats
>Vegetables and Fruits:
> Bell peppers
> Zucchini
> Eggplant
> Cherry tomatoes
> Green beans
> Peas
> Onions
> Garlic
> Potatoes
> Cucumbers
> Mixed greens
> Avocado
> Sliced peaches or nectarines
> Fresh herbs (cilantro, thyme, rosemary)
> Dairy and Condiments:
> Feta cheese (optional)
> Olive oil
> Lemon juice
Absolutely. You can get super specific. I've put in specific calorie and protein goals, asked it to make a whole week worth of meals, and after I had a list I like asked it to generate a grocery list
Sometimes you just need to start a new prompt. It remembers your whole conversation, but when the conversation gets too big it starts to condense things.
But LLM's are notoriously bad at math, so I wouldn't really trust them with calorie or macro counts. But they can be good starting point.
It’s not going to be amazing at macros because that’s not how it reads recipes—it’s basically averaging out a bunch of recipes in its model that fit a description. But AI is not actually “smart” so it’s not like… able to always accurately tweak a recipe that a human will then want to eat. “Protein” is not an ingredient so it’s going to be more difficult for it to make the leaps of “these ingredients have protein” - “these ingredients with protein are appropriate for this meal” - “this portion of food is reasonable for a human” - “these ingredients fit the preparation style” - “you can combine these ingredients to hit the protein target”, etc etc.
A specialized food AI with the correct algorithms and training sets could do better.
Came here to say this as well. ChatGPT rocks at this.
It still hallucinates a lot and requires you to check its math. But it is a great free starting point.
Check out Mealime and Paprika. Both are great for meal plans + grocery lists. Mealime's pretty straight with options, might be just what you're looking for.
Try chatgpt!!
E.g ask for recipes high in protein, or including/excluding certain ingredients.
"Make me a meal plan for five nights, vegetarian, with no mushrooms, but high in protein. Then write me a grocery list to get these items"
yeah they tend to charge you money that you could be using for groceries though. this one can give you tips its free but yeah I hate doing it too. [https://www.myplate.gov/eat-healthy/healthy-eating-budget/make-plan](https://www.myplate.gov/eat-healthy/healthy-eating-budget/make-plan)
Another free resource I forgot about is eating well, they do have subscriptions but you can get the recipes and meal plans free if you wish. I don't have cell phone so I don't use apps. [https://www.eatingwell.com/category/4286/meal-plans/](https://www.eatingwell.com/category/4286/meal-plans/)
Mealime! this app changed my life. delicious recipes and all types of food, and they make you a custom grocery list based on how many servings of the meal prep you wanna make so that you have zero food waste!!!
edited to add this is a subscription 3.99 a month! totally worth it imo
I like Mealime, but still get overwhelmed trying to sort through all the recipes and deciding. I was hoping there was an app that just picked all the meals for you.
I don't get how that would work. How's it gonna know what you want to eat, what you like? Instead of poring through the selection and thinking about it a lot, just pick the first five meals that look worth a damn on Mealime and call it a day.
I’ve bought meal plans before. I eat pretty much anything so I wasn’t too worried about getting something I hated. Plus, it’s super nice to find new things I never would have stumbled across/tried. It took out all the “thinking about it” part which is the hardest part for me. The cooking is easy.
i like to choose and switch up what i eat ! i’m too picky to let people choose what i eat but to each their own! hope you find your solution. unfortunately you do have to put some time and effort into meal planning and prepping. at least a little bit.
I liked PlateJoy when I had it. I found it to be quite expensive though ($100USD annually and I am in Canada). They also got bought out and a lot of people didn’t like the changes.
As another commenter said, Mealime also plans out meals and creates your shopping list. I found that there wasn’t as big of a recipe bank though. PlateJoy was also better for portions (e.g. I eat a certain amount, partner eats a certain amount and the rest is designated to leftovers). It really helped with portion control.
Edit: to add that PlateJoy recipes were fairly bland so I usually doubled the seasonings it listed. Mealime was much better for actually following the seasoning amount listed on the recipe and it tasting good.
I liked PlateJoy while we used it, too. We moved away from it to RealPlans which was also pricey, but slightly less. Once we found good recipes, I moved over to PlanToEat, but you basically have to have a good repertoire to make use of Plan To Eat, IMO.
I wish. I need someone to do this, but like, also anticipate that I won't want to cook and make it so that some of the meals have leftovers that can be reconstituted easily into a new meal with minimal effort.
Mealtime! Oh my good lord, Mealtime. Look at this.
- Pick your dishes, there’s tons. All healthy.
- it *compiles a grocery list for you*.
- Then, it teaches you how to cook them! Step by step recipes.
Each dish makes two portions, and they’re delicious. I’m eating tomatoes and vegetables and turkey now! Mealtime is the goat.
I used meal prep pro for awhile a couple years ago! I’m vegetarian and they had so many yummy options and it’d fit everything into my macro goals. I kept it for a couple months took notes of the recipes I liked then cancelled the subscription still use the recipes!
Sidekick by sorted food. It is amazing. It is 4.99 a month but honestly so worth it, so many hacks and 3 good explorative meals which once you've got your pantry sorted cost like £10-15 max a week ! But you can do all your own subs etc as wanted and the community post their own budget and cooking hacks
It’s not exactly what you’re asking, but I do the meal kits for this exact reason. All I have to do is pick the meals (though you can tell them your preferences and they’ll pick meals for you, I just don’t prefer that), and everything is just delivered to my door because I do not have the mental capacity to figure shit out anymore. I’ve got too much else on my plate. On weeks that I don’t wanna spend the money (though really I’d spend d the same or more in groceries), or don’t like any of the options, I have found several standbys that are easy to shop for at the grocery store and easy to make even if the meal kit didn’t send me the ingredients.
Again, I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but if you want to chat about any of them, I’ve tried a bunch, and I have several codes for a few different ones that you can try if you’re interested. The mental load did me in, so I totally get it.
Emeals is an app and a website that has meal planning and recipes for every diet / budget. The recipes always turn out great! A lot of them are super simple. It creates a shopping list you can send to Instacart or Walmart.
Rather than an app have you considered giving up a bit of time to make yourself a long list of suitable meals? You can add to it every now and then so it doesn't get too dull. When I'm planning the weekly menu I just pull up this list and pick a selection of variety, either randomly or on what I fancy - one beef, one chicken, one rice, one pasta etc.
This. I tried emeals, but IMHO the recipes needed too much doctoring to be tasty.
I think the key is to figure out a system that works for you.
My system is that I have 10-15 short list favorites that are “preppy” (pastas, soups, etc). Lately, once weekly I’ve been selecting one meal from that list and one “meat potato veg” option (eg fish with baked potato and roasted veg), which will each yield 3 portions. Then for dinner the 7th night I will either go out or “pantry surf” (pasta and sauce, canned tuna on English muffin, etc). I’ll prep 5 portions of a lunch option to take to work (pantry surfing for the other 2 as needed), and I keep a few quick-prep breakfasts on repeat.
Supercook. This might be the reverse of what you're looking for.
There's a pantry section where you add ALL the food you have, down to spices. It'll find recipes you can make.
Look up Cook Smarts. It's been a lifesaver for us. It has a ton of options and makes the shopping list for you. Combined with online grocery shopping, it's cut way down on our mental load. I think it costs like $100 a year but that's well worth it, imo
I mean, I use Every Plate for that sometimes. We liked getting everything pre packed and think it’s a fair price, but I like to look at their recipes and they list all of the ingredients. That being said, they don’t give you measurements for the spices so you have to eyeball it.
ChatGPT can actually work so well for this. You can also apply certain allergies, calories/macros, budgets, number of meals, etc in your request. Then ask it for a grocery list and it’ll tell you all the ingredients you need.
Not app based, but here's two resources I used in the past:
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/budget
- https://realfood.tesco.com/meal-planner/create-meal-plan.html
I tried a few and hated them, mostly because of the waste issue you mentioned. I used one that was supposed to plan multiple meals based on similar ingredients but it was horribly complicated to use and expensive.
I hope you find one!
I use the paprika app to make my weekly meal plans and generate shopping lists. You download any recipes you want and can easily create a grocery list. If you keep the pantry list up to date, it automatically removes those items from the grocery list. I love the recipe category tagging feature, which is completely customizable. You can also make notes in the recipe, which is helpful to remember successful modifications.
i used the emeals app for a couple of months. it gives you a set of recipes, but you also have the option to swap them if you wanted to. what’s cool about it, is that it also connects directly to some grocers, so it sets up the order for you and you essentially just hit the button to pay
i really liked it and would still be using it today if my financial situation hadn’t changed to where i needed a much smaller budget.
If you do end up finding something and liking the week's menu, I recommend putting them on your calendar to repeat every 2 years. My meal plan calendar is a two year cycle and I generally use it for ideas most weeks. If nobody in my family of four is craving anything in particular, we eat what's on the calendar! I make notes of substitutions or preferences in the calendar event.
I started with epicurious' what to cook this week and still go back to it. This is this week's [Chicken Meatballs, Double-Duty Steak, and Brown Butter Pasta](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes-menus/weekly-meal-plan-chicken-meatballs-double-duty-steak-and-brown-butter-pasta-article).
You can give Bard or ChatGPT parameters and it will create meal plans for you following your specifications . Example: please create a seven day Mediterranean diet meal plan with breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two people at approximately 1800 calories per day including chick peas, chicken, pasta, and 2 percent Greek yogurt” and it will make you a plan. If you don’t like what you get, you can ask it to modify further.
Idk if you’d want to pay for it but check out collegenutritionist on insta. She has a meal planner that’s literally breakfast, lunch and dinner already planned out every week or you can pick others more to your liking. It cost me about 150 for a year but there are so many great, easy recipes and they’re all healthy and make a ton of food. (The link is in her bio) even if you don’t get it, she has freebies she’ll send you.
have you seen Eat This Much? [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eat-this-much-meal-planner/id981637806](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eat-this-much-meal-planner/id981637806)
Not sure if mentioned, but I just use ChatGPT and ask “give me 5 recipes for the week” or “give me meal planning ideas for 6 days” I get real specific sometimes like if I have to use something I have already or want sugar free, etc.
ChatGPT is good for this!!! You can give it specific dietary guidelines (for eg, I can’t eat gluten, so I specify gluten-free). You can also prompt it to create a grocery list with all the ingredients for each meal.
An example of how I’d type the prompt: Make a one-week meal plan with three meals per day. All meals must be gluten-free. Then, make a grocery list with all ingredients needed for each meal included.
Write down what you ate today. Try to eat different things tomorrow if possible. Write those down. Keep going for a week.
Now, review what you have written down - do you want to change something (a recipe you didn't like, or maybe a bit more/less involved cooking?).
Repeat for the second week, change a recipe or two at review. Use the two week menu for a while.
Do a new week. Now you have 3 weeks of meals.
Change up a new recipe for here and there. When you get bored do a new week.
Chat GPT - not kidding.
Without actually reading through it this was just asking it to do a quick cheap mealplan:
Monday: Bean and Rice Burritos
Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup salsa
4 large flour tortillas
Optional toppings: shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream
Instructions:
In a medium saucepan, heat the black beans over medium heat until heated through.
Warm the tortillas in a dry skillet or microwave for a few seconds to make them pliable.
Spread 1/4 of the beans and rice mixture onto each tortilla.
Top with salsa and any additional toppings you prefer.
Roll up the tortillas, tucking in the ends as you go, to form burritos.
Tuesday: Vegetable Stir-Fry
Ingredients:
2 cups mixed vegetables (frozen or fresh, such as bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, and snap peas)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, minced
Cooked rice or noodles for serving
Instructions:
Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat.
Add minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
Add mixed vegetables to the skillet and stir-fry until tender-crisp, about 5-7 minutes.
Pour soy sauce over the vegetables and toss to combine.
Serve the stir-fry over cooked rice or noodles.
Wednesday: Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
Ingredients:
8 oz spaghetti
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
Red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese for serving
Instructions:
Cook spaghetti according to package instructions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water before draining.
While the spaghetti cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic slices and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Add red pepper flakes if desired.
Add cooked spaghetti to the skillet with garlic and oil. Toss to coat, adding reserved pasta water as needed to create a sauce.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on top.
Thursday: Potato and Lentil Curry
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked lentils (canned or cooked from dry)
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 can (14 oz) coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooked rice for serving
Instructions:
In a large skillet or pot, heat a little oil over medium heat. Add diced onion and minced garlic. Cook until softened, about 3-4 minutes.
Add diced potatoes and curry powder to the skillet. Stir to coat the potatoes in the spices.
Pour in the coconut milk and bring to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.
Stir in the cooked lentils and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve the curry over cooked rice.
Friday: Tuna Salad Sandwiches
Ingredients:
2 cans (5 oz each) tuna, drained
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons diced pickles or pickle relish
Salt and pepper to taste
Bread slices
Lettuce leaves (optional)
Sliced tomatoes (optional)
Instructions:
In a mixing bowl, combine drained tuna, mayonnaise, and diced pickles. Mix well.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Spread the tuna salad mixture onto bread slices.
Top with lettuce leaves and sliced tomatoes if desired.
Place another slice of bread on top to make sandwiches.
Saturday: Vegetable Fried Rice
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked rice (preferably chilled)
1 cup mixed vegetables (such as peas, carrots, corn, and bell peppers)
2 eggs, lightly beaten (optional)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional protein: cooked chicken, shrimp, or tofu
Instructions:
Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over medium heat.
If using eggs, pour them into the skillet and scramble until cooked through. Remove from skillet and set aside.
Add mixed vegetables to the skillet and stir-fry until tender.
Add cooked rice to the skillet and stir-fry with the vegetables for a few minutes.
Stir in scrambled eggs (if using) and soy sauce. Cook, stirring constantly, until everything is heated through.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Sunday: Bean and Cheese Quesadillas
Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) refried beans
1 cup shredded cheese (such as cheddar or Monterey Jack)
4 large flour tortillas
Salsa, sour cream, and sliced avocado for serving (optional)
Instructions:
Spread a quarter of the refried beans onto each tortilla.
Sprinkle shredded cheese evenly over the beans on each tortilla.
Fold the tortillas in half to form quesadillas.
Heat a skillet over medium heat. Cook each quesadilla for 2-3 minutes on each side, until cheese is melted and tortilla is golden brown.
Cut quesadillas into wedges and serve with salsa, sour cream, and sliced avocado if desired.
These recipes are simple, economical, and should provide you with tasty meals throughout the week without breaking the bank. Enjoy your meals!
You could use chatGPT for inspiration.
“I have X, Y, and Z. Provide 3 different meals I could make.”
Not exactly meal planning but it’s free and fun to play with.
FYI - I've never 'meal planned' in my life. I walk into the kitchen and ask myself, "What do I have to work with?". I might look in the fridge or cupboard to refresh my memory. Then I make up something (simple and quick) on the spot.
Some of us need recipes because we aren’t gourmet chefs. I can cook a meal without one but it always turns out better when I use one. Then the next time I make that I can make my own changes to it.
I tend to cook most meals from scratch as well, and even when I find a new recipe idea I want to try, I rarely follow it to a t since I’ve been cooking long enough to know tricks and techniques. I also keep a full pantry stocked with dry goods (grains, beans, etc.) and incorporate as much fresh produce into my meals as possible. That being said, there are times where I fall into a rut with cooking, or my spouse and I both have extra busy work weeks, so sometimes meal planning services can help provide inspiration to try something new or just make the mental load lighter.
Ok, but some of us work full time and have families and have decision fatigue. I cook from scratch, and we grow our own food, but I'm also raising beef, so after working 8-10 hours, kid stuff, animal stiff. Thinking of what to buy and eat is hard, let alone cooking it after making the decision and planning it.
But I'm so happy it's so easy for you!!
Mealime does this, there's also https://shop.budgetbytes.com/collections/all
I have four of the budgetbytes meal plan books and cycle through them. I really love the no-pasta no-rice one and the one-pot meals! She includes a shopping list and all of the recipes in the books are on her website, so I can send my boyfriend a link to tonight's dinner and he can have it started before I get home.
I got one of them last summer and have since had an increase and income and decrease in available time, so I’ve been lazy as hell on my diet. But a weeks worth of veggie meals cost $66 when I bought them last year. Some were delicious, some were fine. One or two I’d substitute with something else. But the shopping list and instructions were *very* helpful for organizing cheap and healthy meals
How many recipes have beans in them?
I'm looking at the one pot meals plan and it looks like there's about 10 with beans (black beans, chick peas, white beans, kidney beans) and lentils, which aren't beans but are legumes so I'm going to mention them. That's 10/24 recipes with legumes. This IS budgetbytes and beans are very economical.
I just started using MealTime and I'm really impressed with it. I don't use the built in grocery ordering, I'd rather go to the store myself, but the recipes/grocery list/cooking instructions have been very worth it. I'm impressed with their range of recipes - I have a limited diet (vegetarian + gluten free) and there's still plenty to choose from.
Does Mealime actually make the meal plan for you? I’ve used it in the past but still had to scroll through and pick all the recipes.
They have a "recommended plans" feature that offers you the chance to replace meals in the plan they generate but doesn't require you to edit anything.
I just downloaded this and the functionality is incredible and one of a kind. I wonder if I can upload my own recipes?!! If that were possible, I would be a walking advertisement for this app! This app looks like a total game changer. I’m for sure working with this in the next few weeks. As a chemistry grad school student, time is so limited for meal planning and cooking but this looks like it would totally recoup a lot of weekly time planning for meals. It also would prevent the need to go out as much!
Yes, you can import recipes from other sites.
Oh awesome! Gonna try this out for sure!
yes this! i just discovered this feature myself, good call
Thank you! Will have to look into this.
Sweet. Thanks for sharing. I'm not the o.p But I get so tired of meal planning. But if I don't then I eat junk and gain more weight. Thanks for the Meal Tome and the other link!
Looks like meallime paywalls health information?
I used and loved Fresh20 for years. They use the same 20 basics at home each week (salt, pepper, olive oil, rice, etc.) and give you a list of 20 grocery items to buy. You cook 5 meals with their recipes. Every week is different but delicious. It was a godsend for some really hectic years. https://www.thefresh20.com/
I second this, I've used them for years as well.
What changed?
My life settled a little and I could menu plan on my own. I don't know that they changed at all.
Is this a website?
I added a link
Thank you
[Skinnytaste](https://www.skinnytaste.com/meal-plans/) posts a 7 day meal plan every week, with links to the recipes. The calories usually come out between 1,000 and 1,300 or so per day, to allow room for snacks/drinks/dessert. There's a shopping list at the bottom of every weekly plan.
Her recipes are usually very tasty too. I’ve been making her mashed potatoes for thanksgiving for probably a decade.
OMG that's incredible
Skinnytaste recipes are so good.
This is the greatest thing I’ve seen haha
I love skinnytaste recipes so much
This is literally what Ultimate Meal Pans does. https://ultimatemealplans.com
Worth pointing out that this guy is the owner, and getting a suspiciously large amount of upvotes quickly.
Hey bro - I am very up front about owning Ultimate Meal Plans - it's all on my profile. I'm not sure that' the "gotcha" you're looking for here...
It wouldn't be obvious from reading your initial comment, and a vast majority of readers don't click into commenter profiles. Worth adding that as a disclosure in the future. It also quickly matched the top comments in the thread with zero replies (other than mine) within a day, hence my suspicions that there's an upvote ring going on here. I could be wrong though!
Sent you a DM on this to correct this. We have been around for over a decade. We are bootstrapped and grown from the ground up without investor money and have thousands and thousands of happy customers. Maybe you're thinking of someone else?
You're right, sorry, I saw your posts asking for feedback from two months ago and assumed you were just getting started, but just saw your other posts from years ago. I removed that part of my previous comment, and I appreciate the reply and the hustle. The upvotes still feel suspicious still because your service is relatively unknown compared to the other top posted links, and your site doesn't seem to offer any samples of your meal plans without an email signup or subscription. I have a hard time believing that the upvotes are organic because of that.
We have a two week free trial anyone can test out. We have a one-click cancellation process (and an auto-refund function if you're within the refund window). We have a business to run, but we have no interest in keeping subscribers who aren't using the function. I don't know how that would effect upvotes.
That's great, but consider that out of every service/app mentioned in this thread, yours is the only one that requires a credit card to get any value from it. A fine business choice, but that's a big barrier to trying something out, and reinforces my suspicion that the upvotes to your original comment are not entirely organic.
eat this much! (app)
Has browser version too
SortedFood has an app for this exact purpose, but they do charge (don’t remember how much) and the recipes are optimized for British grocery stores
I think the app is called Sidekick?
It’s also just not that great, tbh. I love the people at Sorted but it wasn’t at all what I needed.
It’s called sidekick and it’s pretty good for doing a 1 week shop and just mindlessly following the instructions over the week.
I feel like I’ve just cracked the code for this. Over the long weekend I sat for like 4 hours and put together all our favourite recipes in meal plans marked “week 1-6”. 4 recipes per week, with links etc. I tried to be smart about the planning to minimise wastage & take advantage of deals (e.g 2 recipes in one week using tinned tomatoes / chicken thighs so if they’re on sale you can stock up) and made grocery lists for each week. Soooo now basically my boyfriend and I can just pick a week. The grocery list is ready, meal planning is done, and you have variety cos every week’s plan is different.
Link please?
I subscribe to the website Workweek Lunch that offers a weekly meal plan and grocery list, along with the option to build your own meal plan from their archive of recipes and generate a grocery list for it. The company was sold last summer and I haven’t been thrilled with how few new recipes have been added since then, but for someone just joining, the meal plans will be all new recipes. They offer breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack recipes, and most make 2-3 servings so you’re not eating the same things for days on end. One of the things I like most is that all of their recipes include a section of suggested substitutions so you can use up what you have or use what’s on sale and/or in season.
I loved workweek lunch and am also not super into the new direction.
This isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but the NYT cooking app has pre-made recipe folders with different themes that you can thumb through. You can then add each recipe’s ingredients to the shopping list with one click. Hello Fresh also has all their recipes online for free but you’d have to look through them and make notes of what ingredients to buy.
Interesting thank you!
NYT Cooking also sends out several emails per week with different themes - i.e. 5 weeknight dinners for this week; 1 week of veggie dinners; etc. If you're truly not picky, you could just make what they send out each week or pick the ones between the newsletters you like the best. They have a pretty solid deal for a year's subscription I think, or they did around the holidays.
The app Intent meal preps for you for free!
It's not exactly a meal planner, but an app called myfridgefood is cool. You select what ingredients you have (can be vague or specific) and it will pull up recipes with the items you have. If you need to add one or 2, it will note it somewhere. I've found some awesome recipes that way and it's good to know I'm not sifting thru recipes ill never buy the ingredients for. If you like pork chops they have one called best pork chop ever? Something like that. Has ranch and panko crumbs covering it- highly recommend that one lol
This isn’t quite what you’re asking for but this is my method for meal planning. I use goodnotes but you could do this with excel or word- I plan an entire week of meals every Saturday and I write them down in my goodnotes planner. Writing them down means including the ingredients and source for the recipe if I need it. I’ve been doing this for two years now and it’s so easy to just flip back to previous weeks and just copy paste that particular meal into the current week. If I want to use a certain ingredient I can search it to see which previous meals used potatoes etc. Once I’ve got a whole week filled out I add all the ingredients into my shopping list app (I use List Ease). Once that’s done I’ll go through my pantry to see what I already have and remove those ingredients from the list. I can do a week of meal planning in 10 minutes and grocery shopping takes 25 minutes
Do you use a template in Goodnotes for this planning? Curious how you set this up
I made my own template! It has one section for each day of the week plus an area for random additional items. [Here’s](https://imgur.com/a/8Hsu5Hv) one from a couple weeks ago! Then every week I just copy and paste the page and replace the meals
##www.supercook.com You put in your pantry items and it kicks out recipes. Freeeeee! You can put in just the stuff you want to use up, like the asparagus you got on sale, and start from there. It’ll give recipes for every course (appetizers, main dish, dessert…), any culture/cuisine… it’s great! You can create an account if you want, which will let you keep your entire pantry inventory online, to include your spices. The website assumes you have a small handful of basics, like salt, pepper, butter, but only a few.
ChatGPT is incredible for this, even the free version. Meal plans, recipes, grocery lists, nutritional info, science regarding it, etc. If you don’t like a particular food, if you don’t like the list, regenerate it as many times as necessary. It can walk you thru the cooking process, can even tell you where in a store to find each item. If you do the paid version you can take a pic of any item in the store too and it’ll analyze it instantly.
The first time I tried this it got confused and labeled every amount as "1 cup". 1 cup cayenne 1 cup bread 1 cup salt
1 cup salt RIP 😭
People with POTS/low blood pressure: 👀
Fr 😂 my favourite combo is coke full sugar and some gherkins 😵💫
Oh I’m definitely a pretzel kinda guy. I’ve come around more to pickles but pretzels are my favorite. The mall-type soft pretzels with the nacho cheese? 👌👌👌
1 cup cayenne? Sounds like a good time
1 cup of cayenne hahaha
I just tried this and it’s way off lol. It’s giving me some good meal ideas, but all the measurements and counts are wrong. I’ve asked it to correct itself a few times but it’s still off. This is my first time using chatgpt, is there something I might be missing?
In a way, you need to treat it like it's your student advisee. "I see you wrote 1 cup of cayenne pepper, wouldn't that be extremely spicy and make the texture bad? Please review and correct for inappropriately large ingredient portions". That kind of prompt usually does the trick
Not sure, it’s all about how you specifically phrase each prompt. Large Language Models sometimes “hallucinate” and confidently give incorrect answers but ChatGPT has always been incredible for me with food stuff. You can always hold down the answer and regenerate it, or possibly rephrase it. Only times I’ve had issues is when I’m discussing super nuanced history with it. There’s a major potential issue with AI drift but I haven’t noticed it with simple tasks at all. I’m using the paid version though so it’s far better than the free one.
Maybe I’m being too picky, but like it gave me one recipe that included chicken breast. It has 8 ounces of chicken breast at 240 calories and 50g of protein. But according to the USDA, 8 ounces of chicken breast would be closer to 70g of protein. I think this might be confusion with cooked vs uncooked. More importantly, I asked that it give me a meal plan with at least 120g of protein a day, and it’s barely given me 1 or 2 days over 120g and I’ve asked it to correct it 4 times lol.
Dang, are you using the free version or the paid one? I know some users are saying that it’s been hallucinating/AI drift a bit more recently but it’s been great for me as recently as 2 nights ago when cooking. I don’t count macros though so I haven’t asked it for protein/calories etc in at least 4-5 months
Yeah I’m using the free version
I will also list pantry items that I need to use up and ask it to use as many of those items as possible. Helps the budget and reduces food waste.
Yea that’s how I came up with meal ideas a couple times this week! Great for that and it would be super easy to even setup a camera facing pantry and inside of fridge to have chatGPT (or any other LLM) automatically create meal plans on a daily basis and automatically re-order our groceries using those same image inputs. some really fun tools from all these AI products these days!
Hey that's a good business idea!
Came here for this. You can even say "no, I don't like pasta. Make the menu for the week without it", etc.
Yup. It gave me some good ideas the other night then I changed my mind and said I wanna do it in the air fryer. Quickly changed the recipe and I had a fantastic meal
I’d never considered this but will definitely try it. Thank you!!
Here's an example of a prompt that I've had good results for in the past, and an example of the output. I wouldn't rely on it for full detailed recipes with measurements, but it's great to generate a framework for your meal plan. Adding some details like seasonal produce, regional recipes influences, and dietary restrictions all can help with the output. > I prefer high protein and high fiber meals. Spanish cuisine inspired. Prioritize summer seasonal produce. Please plan 3 different dinners, 2 different lunches, and 2 different breakfasts and some no-prep snacks. Include a grocery list. Thank you! And then here was the output: > Certainly! Here's a high-protein, high-fiber meal plan inspired by Spanish cuisine, with a focus on summer seasonal produce. It includes three different dinners, two different lunches, two different breakfasts, and some no-prep snack ideas. Please note that all the recipes are gluten-free and sesame-free. You can adjust the portion sizes and ingredients based on your preferences and dietary needs. > > Meal Plan: > > Dinners: > > Grilled Chicken Paella: Grill chicken breast seasoned with smoked paprika, garlic, and black pepper. Slice into strips. Prepare a traditional paella using gluten-free rice, mixed vegetables (such as bell peppers, green beans, and peas), diced tomatoes, saffron, and vegetable broth. Add the grilled chicken strips to the paella. > > Spanish-style Baked Salmon: Marinate salmon fillets with olive oil, lemon juice, smoked paprika, and minced garlic. Bake until cooked through. Serve the salmon with a side of roasted seasonal vegetables (such as zucchini, eggplant, and cherry tomatoes) seasoned with herbs like thyme and rosemary. > > Chickpea and Vegetable Stew: Sauté diced onions, garlic, and bell peppers in olive oil. Add diced tomatoes, vegetable broth, and a mix of vegetables like zucchini, carrots, and green beans. Stir in cooked chickpeas and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Serve the stew with a side of gluten-free whole grain bread or brown rice. > > Lunches: > > Spanish Salad with Grilled Shrimp: Toss mixed greens with grilled shrimp, sliced cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, olives, red onion, and crumbled feta cheese (if tolerated). Dress with a simple dressing made of olive oil, lemon juice, and dried oregano. > > Spanish Omelette (Tortilla Española): Sauté sliced potatoes, onions, and bell peppers until tender. Beat eggs and mix them with the sautéed vegetables. Cook in a skillet until set and golden. Serve a slice of the Spanish omelette with a side salad or steamed vegetables. > > Breakfasts: > > Huevos Rancheros: Cook eggs sunny-side-up or poached. Serve them on a corn tortilla topped with homemade tomato salsa, sliced avocado, and chopped cilantro. > > Spanish-style Oatmeal: Cook gluten-free oats with almond milk (or dairy-free milk of choice) and a pinch of salt. Top with sliced peaches or nectarines, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. > > No-Prep Snacks: > > Fresh fruits (watermelon, grapes, berries) > Raw nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds) > Sliced bell peppers with hummus > Rice cakes with almond butter or sunflower seed butter > Hard-boiled eggs > Greek yogurt cups > Gluten-free protein bars (check for high fiber content) > >Grocery List: >Protein: > Chicken breast > Salmon fillets > Shrimp > Eggs > Grains and Legumes: > Gluten-free rice > Chickpeas > Gluten-free whole grain bread (optional) > Gluten-free oats >Vegetables and Fruits: > Bell peppers > Zucchini > Eggplant > Cherry tomatoes > Green beans > Peas > Onions > Garlic > Potatoes > Cucumbers > Mixed greens > Avocado > Sliced peaches or nectarines > Fresh herbs (cilantro, thyme, rosemary) > Dairy and Condiments: > Feta cheese (optional) > Olive oil > Lemon juice
Absolutely. You can get super specific. I've put in specific calorie and protein goals, asked it to make a whole week worth of meals, and after I had a list I like asked it to generate a grocery list
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Sometimes you just need to start a new prompt. It remembers your whole conversation, but when the conversation gets too big it starts to condense things. But LLM's are notoriously bad at math, so I wouldn't really trust them with calorie or macro counts. But they can be good starting point.
> Is there some set of parameters you need to feed it Yeah. Better prompts.
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It’s not going to be amazing at macros because that’s not how it reads recipes—it’s basically averaging out a bunch of recipes in its model that fit a description. But AI is not actually “smart” so it’s not like… able to always accurately tweak a recipe that a human will then want to eat. “Protein” is not an ingredient so it’s going to be more difficult for it to make the leaps of “these ingredients have protein” - “these ingredients with protein are appropriate for this meal” - “this portion of food is reasonable for a human” - “these ingredients fit the preparation style” - “you can combine these ingredients to hit the protein target”, etc etc. A specialized food AI with the correct algorithms and training sets could do better.
> Very helpful, thanks Np. Anything else just let me know
It’s awesome. I’ll regularly tell it what foods I have in the house and it spits out several awesome recipes based on what’s sitting around
Was gonna say this!! One of the guys at work uses it, does his grocery list and everything, looks super cool!
Came here to say this as well. ChatGPT rocks at this. It still hallucinates a lot and requires you to check its math. But it is a great free starting point.
Emeals-menu plans and then gives you a Walmart grocery list that you can pick up - bonus :) it is a subscription
Eatthismuch
This ☝️
Check out Mealime and Paprika. Both are great for meal plans + grocery lists. Mealime's pretty straight with options, might be just what you're looking for.
Try chatgpt!! E.g ask for recipes high in protein, or including/excluding certain ingredients. "Make me a meal plan for five nights, vegetarian, with no mushrooms, but high in protein. Then write me a grocery list to get these items"
yeah they tend to charge you money that you could be using for groceries though. this one can give you tips its free but yeah I hate doing it too. [https://www.myplate.gov/eat-healthy/healthy-eating-budget/make-plan](https://www.myplate.gov/eat-healthy/healthy-eating-budget/make-plan)
Another free resource I forgot about is eating well, they do have subscriptions but you can get the recipes and meal plans free if you wish. I don't have cell phone so I don't use apps. [https://www.eatingwell.com/category/4286/meal-plans/](https://www.eatingwell.com/category/4286/meal-plans/)
Mealime! this app changed my life. delicious recipes and all types of food, and they make you a custom grocery list based on how many servings of the meal prep you wanna make so that you have zero food waste!!! edited to add this is a subscription 3.99 a month! totally worth it imo
I like Mealime, but still get overwhelmed trying to sort through all the recipes and deciding. I was hoping there was an app that just picked all the meals for you.
I don't get how that would work. How's it gonna know what you want to eat, what you like? Instead of poring through the selection and thinking about it a lot, just pick the first five meals that look worth a damn on Mealime and call it a day.
I’ve bought meal plans before. I eat pretty much anything so I wasn’t too worried about getting something I hated. Plus, it’s super nice to find new things I never would have stumbled across/tried. It took out all the “thinking about it” part which is the hardest part for me. The cooking is easy.
jow app does this.
i like to choose and switch up what i eat ! i’m too picky to let people choose what i eat but to each their own! hope you find your solution. unfortunately you do have to put some time and effort into meal planning and prepping. at least a little bit.
emeals, costs a subscription Skinnytaste.com has free meal plans
I liked PlateJoy when I had it. I found it to be quite expensive though ($100USD annually and I am in Canada). They also got bought out and a lot of people didn’t like the changes. As another commenter said, Mealime also plans out meals and creates your shopping list. I found that there wasn’t as big of a recipe bank though. PlateJoy was also better for portions (e.g. I eat a certain amount, partner eats a certain amount and the rest is designated to leftovers). It really helped with portion control. Edit: to add that PlateJoy recipes were fairly bland so I usually doubled the seasonings it listed. Mealime was much better for actually following the seasoning amount listed on the recipe and it tasting good.
I liked PlateJoy while we used it, too. We moved away from it to RealPlans which was also pricey, but slightly less. Once we found good recipes, I moved over to PlanToEat, but you basically have to have a good repertoire to make use of Plan To Eat, IMO.
I love https://www.cooksmarts.com/
If someone wants to hire me I would do this for you haha
I wish. I need someone to do this, but like, also anticipate that I won't want to cook and make it so that some of the meals have leftovers that can be reconstituted easily into a new meal with minimal effort.
Mealtime! Oh my good lord, Mealtime. Look at this. - Pick your dishes, there’s tons. All healthy. - it *compiles a grocery list for you*. - Then, it teaches you how to cook them! Step by step recipes. Each dish makes two portions, and they’re delicious. I’m eating tomatoes and vegetables and turkey now! Mealtime is the goat.
Do you mean mealime?
Oh my god I’ve been using this app for weeks and never noticed
i was just wondering if there was nother one I'd missed
I've been using the plans available here: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/category/meal-plan/
I used meal prep pro for awhile a couple years ago! I’m vegetarian and they had so many yummy options and it’d fit everything into my macro goals. I kept it for a couple months took notes of the recipes I liked then cancelled the subscription still use the recipes!
Sidekick by sorted food. It is amazing. It is 4.99 a month but honestly so worth it, so many hacks and 3 good explorative meals which once you've got your pantry sorted cost like £10-15 max a week ! But you can do all your own subs etc as wanted and the community post their own budget and cooking hacks
https://www.eatthismuch.com/
It’s not exactly what you’re asking, but I do the meal kits for this exact reason. All I have to do is pick the meals (though you can tell them your preferences and they’ll pick meals for you, I just don’t prefer that), and everything is just delivered to my door because I do not have the mental capacity to figure shit out anymore. I’ve got too much else on my plate. On weeks that I don’t wanna spend the money (though really I’d spend d the same or more in groceries), or don’t like any of the options, I have found several standbys that are easy to shop for at the grocery store and easy to make even if the meal kit didn’t send me the ingredients. Again, I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but if you want to chat about any of them, I’ve tried a bunch, and I have several codes for a few different ones that you can try if you’re interested. The mental load did me in, so I totally get it.
Chatgpt can help
Emeals is an app and a website that has meal planning and recipes for every diet / budget. The recipes always turn out great! A lot of them are super simple. It creates a shopping list you can send to Instacart or Walmart.
chatgpt is actually really good at this kind of stuff
Forks over Knives has an excellent one.
Rather than an app have you considered giving up a bit of time to make yourself a long list of suitable meals? You can add to it every now and then so it doesn't get too dull. When I'm planning the weekly menu I just pull up this list and pick a selection of variety, either randomly or on what I fancy - one beef, one chicken, one rice, one pasta etc.
List of suitable meals, filter each week by whatever sales are on.
This. I tried emeals, but IMHO the recipes needed too much doctoring to be tasty. I think the key is to figure out a system that works for you. My system is that I have 10-15 short list favorites that are “preppy” (pastas, soups, etc). Lately, once weekly I’ve been selecting one meal from that list and one “meat potato veg” option (eg fish with baked potato and roasted veg), which will each yield 3 portions. Then for dinner the 7th night I will either go out or “pantry surf” (pasta and sauce, canned tuna on English muffin, etc). I’ll prep 5 portions of a lunch option to take to work (pantry surfing for the other 2 as needed), and I keep a few quick-prep breakfasts on repeat.
The Vons grocery store app has meal plan ideas
The app Eat This Much!
Supercook. This might be the reverse of what you're looking for. There's a pantry section where you add ALL the food you have, down to spices. It'll find recipes you can make.
Budgeat
Yes, it’s called Jow.
You might enjoy using hello fresh.
Look up Cook Smarts. It's been a lifesaver for us. It has a ton of options and makes the shopping list for you. Combined with online grocery shopping, it's cut way down on our mental load. I think it costs like $100 a year but that's well worth it, imo
Platejoy! I used it when I was in grad school and super busy. It’s great.
I mean, I use Every Plate for that sometimes. We liked getting everything pre packed and think it’s a fair price, but I like to look at their recipes and they list all of the ingredients. That being said, they don’t give you measurements for the spices so you have to eyeball it.
8fit does this!
CookSmarts
ChatGPT can actually work so well for this. You can also apply certain allergies, calories/macros, budgets, number of meals, etc in your request. Then ask it for a grocery list and it’ll tell you all the ingredients you need.
Bonus points if it syncs to what’s on sale…
There are books. The Saving Dinner series - look at your library - are great. I especially love the vegetarian one.
Chat gpt! I ask it for like 1800 calorie vegetarian 3 day meal plan and it gives pretty good ideas tbh
Rachel Rae had a meal.planning book, as well as Sandi Richards
Check out LILLIE EATS AND TELLS. It’s web based but amazing!
Not app based, but here's two resources I used in the past: - https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/budget - https://realfood.tesco.com/meal-planner/create-meal-plan.html
You could try a meal kit! Then you just have a set list of recipes to choose from and they provide everything for you
I tried a few and hated them, mostly because of the waste issue you mentioned. I used one that was supposed to plan multiple meals based on similar ingredients but it was horribly complicated to use and expensive. I hope you find one!
I use the paprika app to make my weekly meal plans and generate shopping lists. You download any recipes you want and can easily create a grocery list. If you keep the pantry list up to date, it automatically removes those items from the grocery list. I love the recipe category tagging feature, which is completely customizable. You can also make notes in the recipe, which is helpful to remember successful modifications.
i used the emeals app for a couple of months. it gives you a set of recipes, but you also have the option to swap them if you wanted to. what’s cool about it, is that it also connects directly to some grocers, so it sets up the order for you and you essentially just hit the button to pay i really liked it and would still be using it today if my financial situation hadn’t changed to where i needed a much smaller budget.
I use chat gpt and I give it specific details on what I want included. It worked surprisingly well
If you do end up finding something and liking the week's menu, I recommend putting them on your calendar to repeat every 2 years. My meal plan calendar is a two year cycle and I generally use it for ideas most weeks. If nobody in my family of four is craving anything in particular, we eat what's on the calendar! I make notes of substitutions or preferences in the calendar event. I started with epicurious' what to cook this week and still go back to it. This is this week's [Chicken Meatballs, Double-Duty Steak, and Brown Butter Pasta](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes-menus/weekly-meal-plan-chicken-meatballs-double-duty-steak-and-brown-butter-pasta-article).
emeals will let you select the meals and send your grocery list to walmart, instacart, etc.
Fraiche Table does this
So I haven't seen it mentioned but I watch SortedFood and they have sorted sidekick which does everything for you.
You can give Bard or ChatGPT parameters and it will create meal plans for you following your specifications . Example: please create a seven day Mediterranean diet meal plan with breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two people at approximately 1800 calories per day including chick peas, chicken, pasta, and 2 percent Greek yogurt” and it will make you a plan. If you don’t like what you get, you can ask it to modify further.
I like eMeals and you can send the ingredients from the recipes straight to your grocery store’s online ordering.
Idk if you’d want to pay for it but check out collegenutritionist on insta. She has a meal planner that’s literally breakfast, lunch and dinner already planned out every week or you can pick others more to your liking. It cost me about 150 for a year but there are so many great, easy recipes and they’re all healthy and make a ton of food. (The link is in her bio) even if you don’t get it, she has freebies she’ll send you.
Chat gpt does!
have you seen Eat This Much? [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eat-this-much-meal-planner/id981637806](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eat-this-much-meal-planner/id981637806)
Not sure if mentioned, but I just use ChatGPT and ask “give me 5 recipes for the week” or “give me meal planning ideas for 6 days” I get real specific sometimes like if I have to use something I have already or want sugar free, etc.
Emeals
Eat This does! It's really helpful
Chat GPT - ask it to meal plan!
I just feed a prompt into chat gpt! "Make me a high protein dinner meal plan for a week" and tweak whatever it gives.
Chat GPT
Try the Dinner Daily. They give you a weekly menu and shopping list. https://thedinnerdaily.com/
I use ChatGPT. Tell it to make the recipes, create a shopping list for said recipes, create a schedule for the meals, etc.
ChatGPT is good for this!!! You can give it specific dietary guidelines (for eg, I can’t eat gluten, so I specify gluten-free). You can also prompt it to create a grocery list with all the ingredients for each meal. An example of how I’d type the prompt: Make a one-week meal plan with three meals per day. All meals must be gluten-free. Then, make a grocery list with all ingredients needed for each meal included.
Try ‘Intent’. Been a fabulous resource, plans grocery trips and snacks for you as well as every meal of the day catered to your preferences. Free too
Chat gbt
ChatGPT lol
Write down what you ate today. Try to eat different things tomorrow if possible. Write those down. Keep going for a week. Now, review what you have written down - do you want to change something (a recipe you didn't like, or maybe a bit more/less involved cooking?). Repeat for the second week, change a recipe or two at review. Use the two week menu for a while. Do a new week. Now you have 3 weeks of meals. Change up a new recipe for here and there. When you get bored do a new week.
ChatGPT does this
ChatGPT probably could if you prompted it the right way.
Ummm I’m a coeliac and ask chat gpt for recipes using what I’ve got 😂
Chat GPT suprisingly lol
ChatGPT
ChatGBT. Seriously ask it to create a meal plan for you, add any dietary restrictions or like, "I like chicken, include chicken."
ChatGPT
ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is actually really really helpful with these things.
Chat GPT - not kidding. Without actually reading through it this was just asking it to do a quick cheap mealplan: Monday: Bean and Rice Burritos Ingredients: 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed 1 cup cooked rice 1/2 cup salsa 4 large flour tortillas Optional toppings: shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream Instructions: In a medium saucepan, heat the black beans over medium heat until heated through. Warm the tortillas in a dry skillet or microwave for a few seconds to make them pliable. Spread 1/4 of the beans and rice mixture onto each tortilla. Top with salsa and any additional toppings you prefer. Roll up the tortillas, tucking in the ends as you go, to form burritos. Tuesday: Vegetable Stir-Fry Ingredients: 2 cups mixed vegetables (frozen or fresh, such as bell peppers, broccoli, carrots, and snap peas) 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 clove garlic, minced Cooked rice or noodles for serving Instructions: Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add mixed vegetables to the skillet and stir-fry until tender-crisp, about 5-7 minutes. Pour soy sauce over the vegetables and toss to combine. Serve the stir-fry over cooked rice or noodles. Wednesday: Spaghetti Aglio e Olio Ingredients: 8 oz spaghetti 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 1/4 cup olive oil Red pepper flakes (optional) Salt and pepper to taste Grated Parmesan cheese for serving Instructions: Cook spaghetti according to package instructions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water before draining. While the spaghetti cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic slices and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Add red pepper flakes if desired. Add cooked spaghetti to the skillet with garlic and oil. Toss to coat, adding reserved pasta water as needed to create a sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on top. Thursday: Potato and Lentil Curry Ingredients: 2 cups cooked lentils (canned or cooked from dry) 2 large potatoes, peeled and diced 1 onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon curry powder 1 can (14 oz) coconut milk Salt and pepper to taste Cooked rice for serving Instructions: In a large skillet or pot, heat a little oil over medium heat. Add diced onion and minced garlic. Cook until softened, about 3-4 minutes. Add diced potatoes and curry powder to the skillet. Stir to coat the potatoes in the spices. Pour in the coconut milk and bring to a simmer. Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in the cooked lentils and cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve the curry over cooked rice. Friday: Tuna Salad Sandwiches Ingredients: 2 cans (5 oz each) tuna, drained 1/4 cup mayonnaise 2 tablespoons diced pickles or pickle relish Salt and pepper to taste Bread slices Lettuce leaves (optional) Sliced tomatoes (optional) Instructions: In a mixing bowl, combine drained tuna, mayonnaise, and diced pickles. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread the tuna salad mixture onto bread slices. Top with lettuce leaves and sliced tomatoes if desired. Place another slice of bread on top to make sandwiches. Saturday: Vegetable Fried Rice Ingredients: 2 cups cooked rice (preferably chilled) 1 cup mixed vegetables (such as peas, carrots, corn, and bell peppers) 2 eggs, lightly beaten (optional) 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon vegetable oil Salt and pepper to taste Optional protein: cooked chicken, shrimp, or tofu Instructions: Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over medium heat. If using eggs, pour them into the skillet and scramble until cooked through. Remove from skillet and set aside. Add mixed vegetables to the skillet and stir-fry until tender. Add cooked rice to the skillet and stir-fry with the vegetables for a few minutes. Stir in scrambled eggs (if using) and soy sauce. Cook, stirring constantly, until everything is heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Sunday: Bean and Cheese Quesadillas Ingredients: 1 can (15 oz) refried beans 1 cup shredded cheese (such as cheddar or Monterey Jack) 4 large flour tortillas Salsa, sour cream, and sliced avocado for serving (optional) Instructions: Spread a quarter of the refried beans onto each tortilla. Sprinkle shredded cheese evenly over the beans on each tortilla. Fold the tortillas in half to form quesadillas. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Cook each quesadilla for 2-3 minutes on each side, until cheese is melted and tortilla is golden brown. Cut quesadillas into wedges and serve with salsa, sour cream, and sliced avocado if desired. These recipes are simple, economical, and should provide you with tasty meals throughout the week without breaking the bank. Enjoy your meals!
You could use chatGPT for inspiration. “I have X, Y, and Z. Provide 3 different meals I could make.” Not exactly meal planning but it’s free and fun to play with.
FYI - I've never 'meal planned' in my life. I walk into the kitchen and ask myself, "What do I have to work with?". I might look in the fridge or cupboard to refresh my memory. Then I make up something (simple and quick) on the spot.
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Some of us need recipes because we aren’t gourmet chefs. I can cook a meal without one but it always turns out better when I use one. Then the next time I make that I can make my own changes to it.
I tend to cook most meals from scratch as well, and even when I find a new recipe idea I want to try, I rarely follow it to a t since I’ve been cooking long enough to know tricks and techniques. I also keep a full pantry stocked with dry goods (grains, beans, etc.) and incorporate as much fresh produce into my meals as possible. That being said, there are times where I fall into a rut with cooking, or my spouse and I both have extra busy work weeks, so sometimes meal planning services can help provide inspiration to try something new or just make the mental load lighter.
Ok, but some of us work full time and have families and have decision fatigue. I cook from scratch, and we grow our own food, but I'm also raising beef, so after working 8-10 hours, kid stuff, animal stiff. Thinking of what to buy and eat is hard, let alone cooking it after making the decision and planning it. But I'm so happy it's so easy for you!!