Weekly Meal Planners We Love Using for Our Meal Prep

Weekly meal planners are a fantastic way to save time, money, and supercharge your health and fitness goals. Meal and food planners make it a breeze to choose the perfect meal plans and recipes, create shopping lists, and track all the nutritional information you need, right from your mobile or laptop (or via a printable sheet if that’s more your style!)

No matter if you’re always on the go and need quick meal planning, want to shed a few kilos, or love cooking up big batches of delicious food, there’s a weekly meal planner out there just for you.

Keep reading and get ready to discover our absolute favourite weekly meal planners that will make your life so much easier.

Best Weekly Meal Planners (2023)

• Best Overall: Paprika
• Best for Weight Loss: PlateJoy
• Best for Meal Preppers: MealPrepPro
• Best for Recipe Inspo: Yummly
• Best for the Budget Conscious: Mealboard
• Best for Flexibility: Plan to Eat
• Best for the Time Poor: Mealime

Paprika

Paprika is an awesome app that lets you create your own recipe collection. You can save recipes from the web or enter your own favourites. It’s like having a virtual recipe box! You can organise recipes into personalised categories that make sense to you, like “Quick and Easy” or “Kid-Friendly.”

Paprika understands that recipes are just guidelines, so you can easily make edits and add your own notes. And if you ever need to refer back to the original recipe, it’s just a click away.

While Paprika displays nutrition info for some recipes, it doesn’t calculate it for all. But don’t worry, it can adjust ingredient quantities based on serving size and convert measurements for you.

Planning meals? Paprika makes it a breeze. You can create weekly or monthly meal plans using your saved recipes. It even generates a customised grocery list based on your plan, and you can add other items you need.

PlateJoy

PlateJoy is a game-changer for those with specific dietary needs. It provides highly personalised meal plans that cater to individual preferences, fitness goals, allergies, and even specific diets like diabetic or low FODMAP. The app goes above and beyond by using 50 data points to create a unique meal plan tailored just for you.

The meal plans are carefully designed by nutritionists who are readily available for support through chat. They cover all the essentials, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. To make things even more convenient, PlateJoy automatically generates a shopping list based on your meal plan. You also have the freedom to add your own recipes manually, giving you full control over your culinary experience.

PlateJoy understands the importance of tracking your nutrition and progress. By syncing the app with your FitBit, it automatically adds the nutrition information of your meals to your calorie tracker. This integration simplifies your health journey and keeps you on track with your goals.

MealPrepPro

As meal prep pros ourselves, we love using the MealPrepPro app. With its customisable approach, MealPrepPro offers a flexible plan that seamlessly integrates with busy schedules, portion sizes, goals, and taste preferences. You’ll gain access to a diverse collection of over 1,000 nourishing and easy-to-follow recipes.

MealPrepPro automates the process of calorie counting by adapting your meal plans to your specific calorie and macro needs and also caters to a variety of dietary preferences with more than 15 unique plans available, including options for high-protein, vegan, Mediterranean, and keto lifestyles. 

You have the freedom to personalise your plan by specifying any allergies or dislikes, ensuring that the recipes you receive are tailored to your specific needs and preferences.

One of the unique aspects of MealPrepPro is the ability to engage in meal prepping with a partner. By adding them to your breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even your entire meal plan, you can embark on a shared health journey and set joint goals. This promotes accountability, motivation, and the enjoyment of delicious meals together.

Simplify your grocery shopping experience with MealPrepPro’s intelligent grocery list feature. This handy tool consolidates all the necessary ingredients and organises them by aisle, making your shopping trips efficient and stress-free. 

Plus, MealPrepProm meals are developed in collaboration with registered dietitians. This ensures that your body receives the optimal fuel and nutrition it needs to thrive on your health journey.

You can also track your progress effortlessly by logging your meals daily and syncing seamlessly with Apple Health, giving you insights into your nutritional intake and overall health.

Yummly

Yummly is a smart cooking app that caters to your personal tastes and preferences. Powered by AI, it suggests recipes tailored specifically to you, learning from your favourite cuisines, saved recipes, dietary needs, allergies, and food tastes. Whether you’re following a vegetarian, keto, paleo, or low FODMAP diet, Yummly provides personalised recipe recommendations based on your chosen preferences, even excluding recipes containing ingredients you’re allergic to.

With Yummly’s powerful free tools, finding the perfect recipe is a breeze. Their unique filters allow you to narrow down your search based on factors such as cooking time, course, cuisine, occasion, diet, allergy, nutrition, and more. Additionally, you can reduce food waste by searching for recipes based on the ingredients you have on hand, helping you save money and make the most of your pantry items.

Yummly also offers advanced features for subscribers, including smart meal planning designed for your busy life. Enjoy a selection of mouth-watering recipes that are ready in 30 minutes or less, with automatic shopping lists that can even be delivered to your door in select markets. The app provides step-by-step recipes with video tutorials, timers, and other helpful tools to make cooking a breeze. Plus, you can personalise your recipes by adding private notes and seamlessly integrate nutrition information into your Health app through Apple Health integration.

Mealboard

Yummly is a smart cooking app that caters to your personal tastes and preferences. Powered by AI, it suggests recipes tailored specifically to you, learning from your favourite cuisines, saved recipes, dietary needs, allergies, and food tastes. Whether you’re following a vegetarian, keto, paleo, or low FODMAP diet, Yummly provides personalised recipe recommendations based on your chosen preferences, even excluding recipes containing ingredients you’re allergic to.

With Yummly’s powerful free tools, finding the perfect recipe is a breeze. Their unique filters allow you to narrow down your search based on factors such as cooking time, course, cuisine, occasion, diet, allergy, nutrition, and more. Additionally, you can reduce food waste by searching for recipes based on the ingredients you have on hand, helping you save money and make the most of your pantry items.

Yummly also offers advanced features for subscribers, including smart meal planning designed for your busy life. Enjoy a selection of mouth-watering recipes that are ready in 30 minutes or less, with automatic shopping lists that can even be delivered to your door in select markets. The app provides step-by-step recipes with video tutorials, timers, and other helpful tools to make cooking a breeze. Plus, you can personalise your recipes by adding private notes and seamlessly integrate nutrition information into your Health app through Apple Health integration.

Plan to Eat

With Plan to Eat, you can streamline your meal planning and grocery shopping with ease. The app offers a range of features to simplify your cooking experience. From importing recipes from the web to entering your family recipes manually, you can have all your recipes in one place. Plan personalised meal plans that suit your schedule, adjust serving sizes, reschedule recipes, and keep track of leftovers and frozen meals.

Upgrade your shopping list with the auto-generated grocery list based on your meal plan. Customise and organise your list, add extra items, and even create store-specific lists. Share recipes and saved menus with friends and family or send them via text or email. Follow step-by-step cooking instructions to make your cooking process seamless.

Finding the perfect recipe is made easy with a powerful search function that allows you to search by various criteria. Stay in sync with your Plan to Eat account across all your devices, ensuring that your recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists are always up to date. Try Plan to Eat for free for 14 days without providing payment information, and if you decide to continue, annual subscriptions can be purchased directly in the app.

Mealime

Mealime is the ultimate solution for busy people who want to eat healthier without sacrificing time. With this app, you can easily create a profile and customise your food preferences. The app then curates personalised recipes for your weekly meals, ensuring they can be cooked in 30 minutes or less.

The app’s recipe collection focuses on healthful options and caters to various dietary restrictions, including keto, paleo, and vegan. You can even import your favourite recipes from the web, although manual addition of recipes is not currently supported. 

While the basic version of Mealime is free, upgrading to the Pro version provides access to a wider range of recipes, detailed nutrition information, and additional features like filtering meals by calorie count, saving meal plans, and adding personal notes to recipes. With Mealime, eating well has never been easier or more convenient.

What About Printable Meal Planners & Digital Weekly Menu Planners?

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about the good old printable meal planner!

Whether you’re planning out your meal plans digitally via an Excel document or online platform, or want to print off your weekly plan, below are some of our non-app-based weekly meal planners!

1. https://www.eatwell101.com/meal-planner
2. https://www.healthymealplans.com/
3. https://www.foodwise.com.au/recipe-room/meal-planner/
4. https://metnu.com/
5. https://calories-in.com/
6. https://www.automealplanner.com/
7. https://scientificmealplanner.com/
8. https://www.canva.com/menus/templates/meal-planner/
9. https://onplanners.com/templates/free-printable-meal-planners
10. https://www.livecrafteat.com/printable-weekly-meal-planner/
11. https://www.etsy.com/au/market/meal_planner

Choosing a Weekly Meal Planner

• Price: Most meal planning apps offer a free version with basic features that work perfectly fine for most users. Give the free app a whirl or take advantage of a free trial before deciding if you want to upgrade to a premium version.
• Features: Shopping lists, recipes, nutrient tracking, videos, and even a supportive community – meal planning apps have it all! Choose an app with features that suit your needs.

• Goal Alignment: Whether you’re following a specific diet like keto, low carb or high protein, or gearing up for a big batch cooking extravaganza, make sure the app can help you achieve your goals faster.
• User-Friendly Experience: If you’re new to the world of meal planning apps or simply want something easy-peasy to use, go for a meal planner that’s beginner-friendly. Look for an app with a simple interface and intuitive design, making it a breeze to navigate.

Tips for Busy Weeknights and Picky Eaters

Life is busier than ever, so if you don’t even have the time to download an app to create a weekly meal plan let alone get to the grocery store to buy your ingredients, you’re not alone! 

That’s why our favourite way to save time, save money and save brain space (if you get it you get it) is to use a dedicated meal kit provider.

Our Favourite Australian Meal Kit Providers

• HelloFresh
• Dinnerly
• Marley Spoon
• EveryPlate
• Pepper Leaf

Meal kits are an absolute lifesaver when you’re dealing with crazy busy weeks where you don’t even have time to scratch your head let alone do the grocery shopping.

Trust us, meal kits make menu planning so much easier.

Imagine this: you’re swamped with work, appointments, and a million other things, and the last thing you need is the stress of figuring out what to cook for dinner.

Next thing you know, the next day a meal kit filled with delicious recipes turns up at your doorstep with pre-measured ingredients and super easy recipes.

No more wandering aimlessly in the grocery store, wondering what on earth to make.

And here’s the best part: meal kits are great for picky eaters too. They offer a wide range of options to suit different taste buds and dietary preferences.

So, whether you’re dealing with a little one who’s a tough food critic or a partner who can never make up their mind, meal kits have got you covered.

READ MORE: The Best Food Box Delivery in Australia