Best free meal planning apps (2026)

We make Siloh. Here's how we judged:

1. What the free tier really includes. Can you plan a full week and get a grocery list without a trial or a card?
2. Where the paywall sits. We note exactly which planning features need a subscription.
3. Recipes and grocery lists. Does the plan turn into a shopping list you can use?
4. Platforms. iPhone, Android and web.
5. Will it be around. We left out apps that are shutting down.

A note on Mealime: it was a common pick for this list, but Mealime says it will shut down on October 21, 2026, and that all personal data will be deleted when the app closes. Its closing page points users to Meals Hub in Albertsons Companies store apps, which it describes as 100% free. We didn't rank Mealime for that reason.

Comparison table

1. Samsung Food

Best for: a free weekly meal plan and shopping list built from recipes you save.

• Pros: Lets you browse a large recipe library, save recipes from anywhere, make and share meal plans, and create shopping lists. Works on iPhone, Android, the Samsung Galaxy Store and the web.
• Cons: The AI features, tailored 7-day meal plans and nutrition goal tracking are part of Food+. Some Food+ features are mobile only.
• Price: Free. Food+ is $6.99 a month or $59.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial. Prices vary by country.

2. Prepear

Best for: planning a full week on a calendar for free, from your own recipes.

• Pros: The free tier includes saving and importing recipes with no limit, unlimited cookbooks, a weekly meal planning calendar, and grocery lists generated from your plan with adjustable servings. Works on phone, tablet and computer.
• Cons: Cook Mode on other people's recipes, every meal plan on Prepear and creator content need Prepear Gold or a purchase.
• Price: Free. Prepear Gold is an optional in-app subscription.

3. Eat This Much

Best for: having the app pick meals to hit a calorie target.

• Pros: The free plan generates daily meal plans, tracks what you eat, scans barcodes, and saves custom foods and recipes. It plans to a calorie target and diet type you choose.
• Cons: Weekly planning, the automatic grocery list and grocery delivery are Premium only, so the free tier is a daily tool.
• Price: Free. Premium is $5 a month with an annual subscription.

4. Siloh

Best for: people who train and want free logging, recipes and grocery lists in the same app as their workouts.

Siloh is a nutrition and training app that plans your meals and your workouts as one system, so training days and rest days eat differently. The honest catch for this list is that the meal plans themselves are Siloh Pro. Free means you do the thinking. Pro, Siloh does it.

• Pros: No paywall on food logging, recipes, grocery lists, run tracking with GPS, streaks or the weekly report. Households can share dinners scaled per person with a combined grocery list.
• Cons: AI meal plans, training-day and rest-day fueling and the AI coach need Pro. iPhone only for now, with Android coming soon. It's a newer app (launched July 30, 2026), so there are fewer reviews to go on.
• Price: Free. Siloh Pro has a 7-day free trial, then $19.99 a month or $149.99 a year.

5. MyFitnessPal (free tier)

Best for: logging what you eat, not planning it.

• Pros: A long-running calorie counter with a large food database, on iPhone, Android and the web.
• Cons: The meal planner, recipes, grocery app syncing and automated ingredient lists are Premium+ only. The barcode scanner is a paid feature too.
• Price: Free to log. Premium is $79.99 a year. Premium+ is $99.99 a year or $24.99 a month.

Not free, but often recommended

• Plan to Eat has no free plan. It offers a 14-day free trial with no card, then $5.95 a month or $49 a year.
• Paprika Recipe Manager 3 is a paid app sold separately on each platform. The Windows version is $29.99, and its trial has no time limit but caps you at 50 recipes and no cloud sync.

How to choose

If you cook from your own recipes and want a week on a calendar plus a shopping list, start with Samsung Food or Prepear. If you'd rather not choose meals at all and have a calorie number, Eat This Much's free daily plans are the quickest test. If you lift, run or fight and want your food tied to your training, Siloh's free tier covers logging, recipes and lists, and Pro builds the plan around your sessions.