Meal planning can save money, reduce waste, and prevent impulse buying. Plus, winging it at the last minute can leave spouses and parents feeling as if dinner time is D-Day. However, meal planning still takes a lot of preparation and effort that in turn causes people to rush impulsively through the grocery store aisles rather than shop strategically, making healthier and more affordable decisions.
But, guess what?! Technology is here to the rescue…AGAIN!
Here are three really awesome Android and iPhone apps for life’s most important question: What’s for dinner?
Whole Foods Market Recipes
This app features more than 3,000 recipes — all categorized by cuisine, dietary preferences (eg. vegetarian, gluten free) and more. In addition to a budgeting and shopping list creation tool, it’s also a great social platform. Users can add photos and recipes of their own, and comment on their favorite recipes added by other users.
Pro: If you frequent Whole Foods, this is a great tool for finding a sale.
Con: The shopping list function is right above the ‘copy and paste’ function. If an ingredient is in two recipes, it will be listed on your list twice.
AllRecipes.com DinnerSpinner
This app makes it almost too easy to make your dream dinners off of your cooking wishlist. You have the same categorized recipes and information as the website. In addition, with the DinnerSpinner Pro app (about $3), you have the convenience of transferring those recipes into a separate grocery list that you can access on the go. You can even scan grocery items to find recipes that incorporates them. Feeling spontaneous? Just shake your device for a random recipe on any day of the week!
Pro: It’s already your favorite website and its crowdsourcing feature means the recipes are great for everyday foodies like yourself.
Con: You have to pay for certain features including the most essential one: the shopping list function. The free version is also rife with ads.
Yummly Recipes and Grocery Shopping List
This app is probably our favorite. Not only can you search through all your favorite recipes from your top cooking and lifestyle sites across the web, you can also have ingredients delivered right to your doorstep. All you have to do is add ingredients to your Yummly shopping list, then tap them to shop from Instacart. Wala! Ingredients delivered straight to your door, without the hassle of running to the grocery store.
Pro: If you don’t have an ingredient from a recipe you find, you can have it delivered right to your doorstep.
Con: It does not have a meal planner calendar, so you might forget the names of the recipes you planned and shopped for.
Have fun playing with whatever app is right for you. Now, you can skip all the mental gymnastics of planning meals ahead of time and start moving in the kitchen instead. Maybe you’ll save so much money that you can skip clean up afterwards and let TalkLocal find someone to do that for you!
Tags: meal planning
