Weekly Meal Planning Made Easy with the Free Mealime App

What do you find is the worst part about meal planning: Coming up with the ideas, creating a grocery list or keeping things organized while at the store? (All of the above is an acceptable answer too!) This free meal planning app is about to change everything… It makes finding recipes, creating a grocery list and shopping on a budget so easy. Almost too easy. Here’s everything you need to know about this game-changing meal planning app.

A couple of years ago, a college friend (who is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist) introduced my husband and me to Mealime. I had been complaining about how I hated the whole meal planning process. Coming up with ideas took too much time and creating an organized paper grocery list wasn’t fun either. He recommended we check out Mealime, which he said would solve both of my biggest meal planning pain points.

And it did.

Why We Love Using a Meal Planning App

Although I love Pinterest and search for recipes when I know exactly what I want to make (Example: “cheesecake recipe”), this makes planning an entire week of meals way easier. You can select how many meals you want to make, scroll through options that fit your meal preferences – more on that below – and choose your favorites. From there, the app generates an organized grocery list for you, which you can add to. All the meals take about 30 minutes too, so you know about how long each will take beforehand.

We also find using a meal planning app saves us money at the store, because we go in knowing exactly what we need for the week. This helps us avoid overspending on food we might not eat.

While other cool services like HelloFresh or BlueApron come up with recipes and deliver all the ingredients to your door for a fee, we prefer this free alternative. Mealime is similar to those services in that it helps you come up with easy and healthy recipes to cook at home. The main difference is we actually do the grocery shopping ourselves, which we don’t mind since the app makes it quick and easy.

Note: It is possible to connect Mealime to delivery services like Instacart and Amazon Fresh if you’d like.

Also, we’ve LOVED probably 90% of the recipes we’ve tried. Some of our favorites include:

• Beef & Broccoli Stir Fry
• Thai Pineapple Fried Rice with Chicken
• Chicken & Bell Pepper Quesadilla with Pico de Gallo

Getting Started

After you’ve downloaded Mealime from the app store and create an account, getting started is easy. You can customize your eating preferences in the Mealime app’s settings. There, you’re able to select a menu type (Classic, Paleo, Vegan, etc.) and restrict foods you don’t like or are allergic to. For example, I have mushrooms, beets and eggplant marked as foods I don’t like, so the app won’t suggest recipes with those ingredients.

You can also choose your meal size in Settings, which will increase the ingredient quantities based on how much food you want to make. There are two options: Two servings and four servings. My husband and I usually go with the four servings option since we love having leftovers for the next day’s lunch.

Meal Planning + Grocery Shopping

You’ll build your meal plan by selecting how many meals you want to cook for the week and then scrolling through the meal options.

Once you’ve selected your meals, the app compiles the ingredients into a shopping checklist. Before heading to the store, you’ll review the list, mark off any ingredients you already have and add anything else you need. The app automatically organizes ingredients into the various sections of the store (Example: Produce, bakery, etc.), which is a new feature I LOVE.

Note: I recommend reviewing the instructions of each recipe before heading to the store. The app likes to make everything fresh, which is GREAT. But sometimes, I like to make tweaks to the recipes. (Example: I typically buy fresh, pre-made pico de gallo from the store rather than buying the ingredients and making it myself.) When we first started using the app, I didn’t review the instructions beforehand. I would buy all the ingredients listed and then get home and realize there was probably a shortcut that’s just as tasty. ;)

How to Use Mealime While Cooking

The app gives detailed step-by-step instructions for each recipe. You can either follow the steps in a list form like the photo below or I prefer using the “Cooking Mode,” which walks you through each step one at a time.

Limitations with the Free Version

There are a couple limitations with the free version of Mealime. One is that while you ARE able to “favorite” recipes you like, you can’t easily add your favorite recipes to your next meal plan. This hasn’t been too big of an issue for us though, because there’s a workaround with the free version. We favorite recipes we like so we remember what they are called and look like and then scroll through all options until we find one of our favorites.

Some other bonuses of the upgraded version of Mealime include exclusive recipes, nutritional information and calorie customization. You can get the added perks for $5.99 per month or $49.99 for the year – but again, we’ve only ever used the free version and love it.

Thoughts?

If you give the Mealime meal planning app a try or have questions, I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or connect with me on Instagram, @jessisrussell. And since you liked this post about cooking (which my husband and I love to do together), click here to see the other habits we believe you should form during your first year of marriage.