Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#1

Post by 35mm » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

How do you plan meals / food shopping?

I want to have a list of recipes which I rotate round every 4-6 weeks, which then creates a shopping list each week, minus any ingredients I still have in the fridge.

Does such a tool exist? All the meal planning apps are over complicated, focus on specific diets, and generally can’t seem to do this task.

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#2

Post by htaunay » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:32 AM UTC

In case you are into self-hosting, although Mealie's (https://mealie.io) main feature is recipes, it also has a meal planner.

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#3

Post by okuntilnow » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:33 AM UTC

I use Grocery on iOS for recipes and shopping lists. It does inventory management, but I don't use that so can't tell you how well it works.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grocery-smart-shopping-list/id...

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#4

Post by danmol » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:34 AM UTC

htaunay wrote: post #2

In case you are into self-hosting, although Mealie's ( https://mealie.io ) main feature is recipes, it also has a meal planner.

+1 for Mealie. Really easy to self-host as you can just run it in a docker container and it's got all the features in there.

For example, here's mine which I don't really use or meal planning, only for recipes, but it does have more than plenty of meal planning features built-in as well

http://fulgerica.recipes

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#5

Post by dairylee » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:35 AM UTC

I'm in a similar situation as yourself and I've been looking to do something similar.

One tool I've had bookmarked for this is Cooklang (https://cooklang.org/) which seems to cover most of the needs.

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#6

Post by FamosoRandom » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:36 AM UTC

I know the app "Jow" which is mostly used to create a chosen number of meal and to give you the exact quantity of ingredient needed from preparing the meal (with recipe instruction) and not so much "designed" for planning, but I use it for planning what I will eat for each weeks : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wishop.dev...

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#7

Post by jdhehdhcjd » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:38 AM UTC

Coopes is exactly what you are thinking about. There is a one time purchase available to enable a sync feature with family members, otherwise it is completely free: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/coopes-der-essensplan/id155508...

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#8

Post by _int3_ » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

That is 4 applications in one:

1. App to write down known and tried recipes ( for reference when you cook ) (EnRecipes)

2. Recipes, for ideas ( any cook book )

3. App to rotate written down recipes for healthy diet. based on app 1. data ( ??? )

4. App to take care of shopping list and fridge, based on app 1. and 3. data ( ??? )

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#9

Post by Raudius » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:50 AM UTC

We use an Airtable with a simple script block[0] for generating the shopping list. Its a bit cumbersome to input all meals/recipes, but unless you are constantly adding meals to your rotation it works really well.

[0] https://gist.github.com/Raudius/f24b9718c5bcb88eedc03bc8a5fa...

Re: Ask HN: Meal Planning App?

#10

Post by showsover » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:51 AM UTC

One app I haven't seen mentioned here yet is Paprika (https://www.paprikaapp.com/). I use it as a general storage for recipes that I tried and like as it's really easy to strip the entire lifestories you find in online recipes. It has a shopping list functionality as well as week planning.

The only downside is that it's quite pricey as you have to buy it seperately on each platform (ios, android, mac, pc). Personally I just have the ios version that works on both phone and tablet and use a browser bookmarklet to import recipes from my pc.