Plan Meals from What You Have Using Cooklist

Cooklist approaches meal planning from a different angle than most recipe apps. Instead of showing you recipes and then sending you to buy ingredients, Cooklist starts with what you already have. You tell Cooklist what is in your pantry and refrigerator, and it suggests recipes that use those ingredients — helping you cook more of what you already own before buying more.

This approach has two practical benefits. First, it reduces food waste. Most households throw away a significant amount of food because items get forgotten in the back of the refrigerator or pantry until they spoil. Cooklist surfaces recipes that use what you have before things go bad. Second, it often saves money on groceries because you are not buying new ingredients for a recipe when you already have what you need.

Adding items to your Cooklist pantry can be done manually — you search for an item and add it — or by scanning a grocery receipt. The receipt scan feature reads your grocery store receipt (you can take a photo of it or connect a store loyalty card) and automatically adds all the items you purchased to your pantry inventory.

Cooklist also connects to major grocery delivery services. When you do need to buy additional ingredients, you can order them directly through the app from services like Instacart, Walmart Grocery, or Amazon Fresh without switching between apps.

The weekly meal planning view lets you drag recipes onto a calendar just like other meal planners. Cooklist highlights which recipes you can make entirely from your existing pantry and which ones require a few additional purchases — so you can prioritize the pantry-friendly options.

Cooklist is free to use with core features. A premium subscription adds additional features like advanced pantry tracking and more grocery store integrations.