How to Plan Your Weekly Meals with Mealime

Mealime is a meal planning app built around one idea: take the guesswork out of the weekly question "what are we having for dinner?" You set up your food preferences once, and the app handles the planning from there.

When you first open Mealime, it asks about dietary preferences. You can choose from several eating styles — omnivore, pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan — and flag any allergies or ingredients you want to avoid. If you eat gluten-free or dairy-free, those are options too. You also specify how many people you are cooking for, which controls portion sizes throughout the app.

After setup, Mealime shows you a curated set of meal suggestions based on your profile. You can browse and add meals to your weekly plan, or tap "Build My Plan" and let the app suggest a full week of dinners. Most recipes take 30 minutes or less and use a short ingredient list — the app is specifically designed for people who want practical weeknight cooking rather than elaborate productions.

Once you have chosen your meals for the week, Mealime generates a complete grocery list. The list is organized by store section — produce, meat and seafood, dairy, pantry items — which makes shopping much faster than zigzagging around the store. As you shop, tap each item to check it off.

When it is time to cook, open a recipe in the app for large-text, step-by-step instructions with the screen staying on. Each step is clearly written without assuming cooking knowledge.

Mealime is free for core features. Mealime Pro, which costs around $5 per month or $30 per year, unlocks a larger recipe library and more customization options.

Compared to Yummly, Mealime is more structured — it is built specifically for weekly meal planning rather than casual recipe browsing. If you want a system that tells you what to cook each night and exactly what to buy, Mealime is worth trying.