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Few pleasures in life can top a delicious, home-cooked meal. Thanks to modern conveniences such as the air fryer and Instant Pot, cooking at home has never been easier. That said, making time to cook, sorting through recipes to explore new meals, and experimenting with ingredients can complicate a straightforward task. Sure, you can hit up Google for recipes, but sometimes that just doesn't cut it. In those instances, you should upgrade your cooking game by using meal planning apps.
What Is a Meal Planning App?
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. 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 all, no one wants to shuffle through papers or search for files to find a recipe when it's cooking time.
Note that meal planning apps are typically subscription-based services. The prices vary, but you can expect to pay $3 to $5 per month to use their many features that extend beyond organizing recipes (more on those in a bit). Of the services we've tested, Paprika Recipe Manager is the lone exception; it's a one-time, $4.99 purchase.
Meal Planning Features You Need
There are key criteria that you should seek when selecting the ideal kitchen companion. Above all, a meal planning app should give you access to a trove of recipes. 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. Many of the apps listed here combine those useful elements.
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. The best meal planning apps also let you create and customize a digital pantry to inventory your kitchen goods, which can be used in conjunction with an in-app grocery list for easier shopping.
Several meal planning apps tap your phone’s camera to assist you in the kitchen. Some let you scan produce you have on hand to find recipes, while others let you scan items in your pantry for easier inventory management. Video supplements are a common feature, too. 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.
Invaluable Tools for Home Cooks
Meal planning apps streamline home cooking and kitchen management in many ways. Check out the apps listed here to see which one suits your needs. And for even more high-tech approaches to cooking, check out the best smart kitchen tools we've tested.
If you wish to forgo cooking, but want to enjoy a quality meal, take a look at our recommended prepared meal-kit delivery services and vegetarian and vegan meal-kit delivery services.
![Best Meal Delivery Services for 2020](https://zmgvideos.mashable.com/cms/2020/5/a78f1648-04b6-0e14/uploaded_thumbnail.jpg)
Our Top Tested Picks
SideChef
- RELATED:
- Best Meal-Kit Delivery Services
- Best Prepared Meal Delivery Services
- Best Vegetarian and Vegan Meal-Kit Delivery Services
Best for Editing Recipes
Paprika Recipe Manager
- Helpful cooking instructions
- Excellent pantry system
- Saves recipes from across the web
- Customizable recipes and lists
- Lets you add your own recipes
- Creates well-consolidated grocery lists
- Smartly prevents your phone from entering sleep mode, so you can easily glance at recipes
- One-time purchase
- Syncing between multiple devices requires multiple app purchases
- Relatively pricey desktop version
- Lacks recipe recommendations and video instructions
Paprika is the workhorse of cooking apps. The recipe manager may not be a visual powerhouse, but its excellent customization, pantry system, and meal-planning features are second to none.
Best for Categorized Cooking Ideas
Chefling
- Great pantry management
- Non-subscribers can use the meal-planning tool
- Excellent recipe suggestions
- Well-designed food categories
- Smartly prevents your phone from entering sleep mode while reading recipes
- Searches YouTube for recipes
- Strong visual appeal
- Occasional performance issues
- Some redundant data entry
- Requires an internet connection
- Lacks video content
Chefling combines elegant visuals with a customizable feature set to deliver an attractive and useful cooking assistant.
Best for Personalized Meal Plans
SideChef
- Great visual presentation
- Excellent recipe selections and suggestions
- Lets you order ingredients online
- Intuitive meal-planning calendar
- Smartly prevents your phone from entering sleep mode while reading recipes
- Terrific recipe-organizing tools
- Lacks a pantry system
- Doesn't let you edit recipes
- Intrusive shopping system
- Doesn't consolidate grocery items
SideChef is a cooking app with excellent presentation, and many useful meal-planning and grocery-shopping options. However, a few limitations prevent it from being the top chef's assistant.
Best for Community Features
BigOven
- Intuitive meal-planning options
- Attractive design
- Lower subscription fee than competing cooking apps
- Short, snappy video content
- Prevents your phone from entering sleep mode, so you can easily glance at recipes
- Meal planning and editing locked behind subscription
- Difficult to edit recipes on mobile
- Lacks a pantry system
- Doesn’t consolidate grocery items
- Requires an internet connection
- Potentially expensive recipe-scanning feature
BigOven is a feature-packed cooking app with useful social tools, but it's clunky on mobile, and lacks the pantry system needed to compete with the category's major players.
Best for Guided Video Instruction
Yummly
- Useful, preference-based recipe recommendations
- Great visual presentation
- Compatibility with Instacart for online grocery ordering
- Expansive video content for free users and subscribers
- Lacks recipe-editing functionality
- No pantry management tools
- Doesn't consolidate grocery data well
- Some basic features are locked behind a monthly subscription
- Requires an internet connection
Yummly offers useful recipe-collecting and grocery-shopping tools, as well as cool video lessons. However, the app lacks a pantry, and has no recipe-editing functionality.