Weekly Meal Planners We Love for Meal Prep (2024)

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!)

Read on to discover our absolute favourite weekly meal planners that will make your life so much easier.

Best Weekly Meal Planners (2024)

• 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 a handy app for storing all your recipes in one place. You can save recipes from the web or add your own favorites. It organizes recipes into categories, like “Quick and Easy” or “Kid-Friendly,” and lets you make edits and notes. While it doesn’t provide nutrition info for all recipes, it adjusts ingredient quantities based on serving size and converts measurements. Plus, it helps you plan meals by creating weekly or monthly meal plans and generating a customized grocery list based on your plan.

PlateJoy

PlateJoy revolutionizes meal planning for those with specific dietary needs. It offers personalized meal plans tailored to individual preferences, fitness goals, allergies, and dietary restrictions like diabetic or low FODMAP diets. Using 50 data points, the app crafts a unique meal plan just for you.

Nutritionists design the meal plans, covering breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Plus, PlateJoy provides chat support for any questions. It automatically generates a shopping list based on your plan and allows you to add your own recipes for full control over your meals.

PlateJoy also tracks your nutrition and progress by syncing with FitBit, adding meal nutrition info to your calorie tracker. This integration simplifies your health journey and keeps you aligned with your goals.

MealPrepPro

We’re big fans of the MealPrepPro app for its customisable approach to meal planning. It seamlessly fits into busy schedules, and caters to different portion sizes, goals, and tastes, offering over 1,000 diverse and easy-to-follow recipes.

MealPrepPro takes the hassle out of calorie counting by adjusting meal plans to your specific calorie and macro needs. It also accommodates various dietary preferences with more than 15 unique plans, including high-protein, vegan, Mediterranean, and keto lifestyles.

You can personalise your plan further by specifying any allergies or dislikes, ensuring recipes suit your needs. There’s also the option to include a partner in meal prepping, helping keep you accountable and motivated.

Plus, MealPrepPro 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.

Yummly

Yummly is a smart cooking app that customises recipes to suit your tastes and needs. It uses AI to suggest recipes based on your preferences, dietary requirements, and allergies. You can find recipes for various diets like vegetarian, keto, or low FODMAP, and even exclude allergens.

With Yummly’s free tools, you can easily search for recipes using filters like cooking time, cuisine, and ingredients you have on hand, helping you save money and reduce food waste. Subscribers enjoy features like smart meal planning with quick recipes and automatic shopping lists. Plus, the app provides step-by-step recipes, video tutorials, and integration with Apple Health for nutrition tracking.

Mealboard

MealBoard is a comprehensive meal planning, grocery shopping, and recipe management app designed to simplify the way you organize your meals and shopping lists. With its user-friendly interface, MealBoard allows users to create and manage meal plans for the week or month, store favourite recipes, and automatically generate shopping lists based on the ingredients required for planned meals.

This app aims to reduce food waste and save time by helping users shop more efficiently and prepare meals ahead of time. Whether you’re planning family dinners, tracking pantry inventory, or just trying to eat healthier, MealBoard provides a streamlined solution to meal preparation challenges.

Ideal for busy individuals, families, and anyone looking to streamline their kitchen routines, MealBoard makes meal planning, shopping, and cooking easier and more organised.

Plan to Eat

Plan to Eat makes meal planning and grocery shopping a breeze. You can import recipes from the web or add family favourites manually, keeping all your recipes in one place. Customise meal plans to fit your schedule, adjust serving sizes, and track leftovers and frozen meals.

The app generates a grocery list based on your meal plan and allows customization, including store-specific lists. You can easily share recipes and menus with friends and family, follow step-by-step cooking instructions, and find recipes quickly with a powerful search function.

Stay synced across all your devices with your Plan to Eat account. Try it free for 14 days, 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!

• https://www.eatwell101.com/meal-planner
• https://www.healthymealplans.com/
• https://www.foodwise.com.au/recipe-room/meal-planner/
• https://metnu.com/
• https://calories-in.com/
• https://www.automealplanner.com/
• https://scientificmealplanner.com/
• https://www.canva.com/menus/templates/meal-planner/
• https://onplanners.com/templates/free-printable-meal-planners
• https://www.livecrafteat.com/printable-weekly-meal-planner/
• https://www.etsy.com/au/market/meal_planner

Tips for 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. 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