Meal planning

Best meal planning and grocery list apps for 2026

How the main options handle weekly meal calendars, dinner-party menus and shopping lists sorted by aisle.

A meal planning app comes down to two things: how fast you can plan the week’s dinners, and how tidy the grocery list is afterwards. The good ones turn your planned meals into a shopping list sorted by aisle in a couple of taps.

Here’s what each app does and what it costs.

  1. 1

    GratinOur pick (biased)

    Recipe manager on macOS, Windows, iOS, Android

    This is our app and we ranked it first, so keep that in mind. Gratin has a weekly planner for breakfast, lunch and dinner, reusable multi-course Menus for holidays and dinner parties, and a grocery list sorted by aisle that merges the same ingredient across recipes. It all works offline for free. With Hosted sync you can also ask Claude or ChatGPT to plan a week of dinners from your recipes.

    Cost
    The app is free. Hosted sync is $12/yr or $39 once, or free if you run your own sync server.
    Good for
    Home cooks who want one private recipe book on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, and want to bring their Paprika folders with them.
    Join the closed beta
  2. 2

    Plan to Eat

    Meal planner on Web, iOS, iPadOS, Android

    Built around a drag-and-drop monthly and weekly planning calendar, with scheduled prep and freezer notes that feed a shopping list sorted by aisle. Subscription only, at $49/year, and needs a cloud account.

    Cost
    14-day free trial, then $5.95/mo or $49/yr
    Good for
    Keen meal planners who put every breakfast, lunch and dinner on a calendar.
    Plan to Eat website ↗
  3. 3

    AnyList

    Grocery lists + recipes on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Android, Web

    The fastest shared household grocery list on phones, with a meal-planning calendar and web clipper on the $9.99–$14.99/yr Complete plan.

    Cost
    Free basic lists, or AnyList Complete at $9.99/yr ($14.99/yr household)
    Good for
    Households that mainly want a shared grocery list that updates live, with meal planning on the side.
    AnyList website ↗
  4. 4

    Paprika Recipe Manager

    Recipe manager on macOS, Windows, iOS, iPadOS, Android

    A reliable recipe book with weekly and monthly meal calendars, reusable menus and a pantry list, for a one-time fee per platform.

    Cost
    Bought once on each platform: ~$5 on mobile, ~$30 on desktop
    Good for
    Cooks who want a long-running app on every platform, with a built-in browser, and don’t mind paying per platform.
    Paprika Recipe Manager website ↗
  5. 5

    Pestle

    Recipe manager on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Web

    Clean meal planning and grocery lists for Apple devices, plus recipe import from social videos.

    Cost
    Free up to ~15 recipes, or Pro at $2.99/mo, $24.99/yr, or ~$40 one-time
    Good for
    iPhone and Mac cooks who save recipes from social videos and want AI import that runs on the device.
    Pestle website ↗
  6. 6

    Mealie

    Recipe server you run yourself on Web, Self-hosted

    An open-source server you run yourself, with household meal calendars, shopping lists and random-dinner rules.

    Cost
    Free and open source under AGPL-3.0; you run the server yourself
    Good for
    People who already run Docker at home and want a recipe server for the household.
    Mealie website ↗
  7. 7

    Tandoor

    Recipe server you run yourself on Web, Self-hosted

    The most adjustable meal planner you can run on your own server, for home-server fans who want detailed unit conversions and schedules for several people.

    Cost
    Free to run on your own server under AGPL-3.0, or hosted plans from ~$2/mo
    Good for
    Tinkerers who want the most adjustable meal planner and recipe database to run themselves.
    Tandoor website ↗

Questions about choosing a recipe app

Which meal planning apps sort the grocery list by supermarket aisle?

Gratin, Plan to Eat and AnyList all sort shopping lists by aisle. In Gratin you can also reorder and rename aisles to match the way you walk through your own store.

How does meal planning work in Gratin?

You add recipes to breakfast, lunch and dinner slots across the week, group dishes into reusable multi-course Menus, and send the week’s plan to your grocery list, sorted by aisle with duplicate ingredients merged. On Hosted sync you can also ask Claude or ChatGPT to build a meal plan from your saved recipes.

Your recipes, on your devices

Gratin launches soon. Leave your email and I’ll let you know when it’s out.

Want it sooner? Join the beta and get free sync for life →