Hello! I’m so excited to announce that you can now create a custom meal plan and generate a grocery shopping list from my recipes! You can watch this video walkthrough of this tool, or just dive right in with the meal planner below!
Let’s get to meal planning!
There are two ways to add recipes to your meal plan:
- Click the calendar icon at the top of any individual recipe, and the recipe will be added to your meal plan -OR-
- Click “Meal Planner” in the top menu of my website to come to this page. You can then choose recipes from the dropdown menu right above the meal planner.
Step 1: My Suggested Meal Plan for This Week:
To add these recipes to your meal plan, click “Save to Meal Planner” and reload this page before going to Step 2. If you want to build your own meal plan from scratch, skip this and go on to Step 2.
January 1 Saturday Day 1 | January 2 Sunday Day 2 | January 3 Monday Day 3 | January 4 Tuesday Day 4 | January 5 Wednesday Day 5 | January 6 Thursday Day 6 | January 7 Friday Day 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dinner | ||||||
 7-Layer Tacos (4) |  Cabbage Roll Casserole (6) |  5-Ingredient Southwest Chicken Rice Bowls (4) |  Slow Cooker BBQ Pork Chops (4) |  Easy Vegetable Beef Soup (4) |  Thai Salmon Salad with Oil-Free Dressing (3) |  Main Dish Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes Recipe with Chicken (6) |
| Extra Recipes | ||||||
 Peanut Butter Chocolate Yogurt Fruit Dip (4) |  Layered Pistachio Pudding Dessert (16) | |||||
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Click on a recipe for more details
Selected Recipe:
Selected Recipes:
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| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
Step 2: Customize Your Own Meal Plan:
Now you can delete and add recipes to your meal plan to make it your own. Once you have it just the way you like, move on to step 3.
May 21 Today Day 6716 | May 22 Tomorrow Day 6717 | May 23 Wednesday Day 6718 | May 24 Thursday Day 6719 | May 25 Friday Day 6720 | May 26 Saturday Day 6721 | May 27 Sunday Day 6722 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dinner | ||||||
| Extra Recipes | ||||||
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Click on a recipe for more details
Selected Recipe:
Selected Recipes:
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| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
Step 3: Customize Your Grocery List!
Once you’ve picked out everything you want to make, it’s time to click “Generate Your Grocery List.” You can delete ingredients you already have and add extra things you need at the store like milk, toilet paper, wine, you name it!
Finally, you’re ready to print your list or click “Save” to view it on your mobile phone or email it. If you have questions or problems, always feel free to email me!
kaycorn says
I’m loving this idea – I’m so lost when it comes to meal planning! However, I’m having trouble with the actual mechanics of the calendar. When I clock add to calendar from a recipe, it goes through the motions but never shows up when I come back to the calendar. Also, if I stay on the calendar and add things from the search field, I can drag them where I want them just fine. But, when I leave the page to view a recipe and come back to the calendar, everything is gone! Am I doing something wrong?
Reb says
Is it just me or is there only 1 red meat dish (with the sausage possibly?) for the whole week? I was under the impression for adequate iron levels red meat should be 3-4 x per week….. maybe thats just hearsay
Kyra says
Hi Reb! We typically think of red meat as the only or best way to get iron, but that’s actually not true! Legumes like beans and lentils, spinach and other leafy greens, nuts, whole grain wheat products, chicken, fish, and eggs are all sources of iron! Plus, many cereals and rice are now fortified. So there are plenty of ways to sneak iron in other than chowing down on cow.
Jenny says
This is fantastic! But when I click on a recipe, it just seems like it’s loading forever. It never pulls up the instructions.
the impossible game says
Thank you for your sharing. Thanks to this article I can learn more things. Expand your knowledge and abilities. Actually the article is very practical. Thank you!
canne says
what makes these meals any healthier than other versions?
canne says
Where do you find the nutrient information on these recipes?
Tho says
Hi I’m so happy to be on this site and I can’t wait to try your recipe they all looks yammy
thanks again Andi
Andi Gleeson says
I’m so happy to have you! Thank you!
Julia R says
Andi,
I got a little overzealous selecting recipes I wanted to try and saved for this week’s dinners. I’m pretty confident I won’t be able to try all 27 of them this week, but am having trouble dragging them to the next-week’s calendar. Is there a trick?
Also, would pinning recipes that interest me to Pinterest be the only way to generate my own personal list of favorites without necessarily adding them to this week’s dinner? If you had a “favorites” feature that would add recipes to my own personal recipes-I’d-like-to-try-at-some-point-list, in addition to the “add to dinner” and “print recipe” options, that would be helpful (maybe there is a way and I am just missing it!? – this happens to me at times! ;) Thanks!
Andi Gleeson says
I love this comment so much. It makes my whole week to know you found 27 recipes that you want to try! I’m sorry to say that I don’t think there actually is a way to drag the recipes to another week. I’m sorry! I know that’s a pain. I think you will have to delete it from your meal plan, and then when you add it again, add it to a future week. Because this software wasn’t written specifically for my site, I’m a bit limited on what options I can offer, or I would work on this! I will definitely pass it on as a feature request though.
As for the favorites feature, I do think I have the potential to make this happen. It would require creating logins for subscribers though to keep saved recipes, and I haven’t worked out the logistics of that. I’ll let you know if I’m able to add this option in the future. Thank you for using my meal planner, and sorry I can’t make all your requests happen for now! xo
Julia R says
This is ingenious! Thank you for designing this to make meal-planning and shopping so easy. I am new to your site and just happened upon it from a FB post. I am pleased and excited – thinking this may help make my busy life as a night-shift nurse with three teenage boys at home so much easier! With heartfelt thanks to you (and a bit of awe!) :)
Andi Gleeson says
Hi, Julia! I’m so, so happy to hear that this feature is useful for you! I hope you’ll come back to say hello again soon if you can find time in your busy schedule! :)
Ansel says
Love the idea of creating a meal plan, but I’ve tried this now in a few different browsers and I can’t seem to get it to save a plan, nor generate a shopping list. The SAVE button produces a blank popup. In Chrome, it originally allowed me to move a recipe to the plan, but now it does nothing when I try to drag a recipe to the Dinner category on any date. I did get a message asking me to remove my popup blocker, which I did do, but it doesn’t help. Do you have a recommended browser, and are there settings I need to adjust to make your planner work for me?
Andi Gleeson says
Hi, Ansel. I’m sorry to hear about the problems you are having with this feature. It’s supposed to make your life easier not cause frustration! I just tried using the meal planner in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari on my Mac and in IE on a virtual Windows computer. Unfortunately, I am not able to replicate the problem, which makes it difficult to help fix it. I did see the request to open pop ups a couple times (the list opens in a new tab is why), but once I approved the request, it worked fine. I’m going to check with my developer to see if he has any ideas. I’m not sure how much time you want to spend on this, but he might be interested in doing a screenshare or something so he can see the problem firsthand. I’ll email you when I hear back from him. Thanks for your patience!
Grace says
Can you set up a menu and shopping list for a month in advance?
Andi Gleeson says
Hi, Grace! Yes, you can use the arrows at the top corners to go between weeks, and when you click “Generate Shopping List” just enter the dates you want to use. Thanks for asking!
Celeste Stroblas says
Can you import recipes from other web-sites?
Andi Gleeson says
Hi, Celeste. Sorry, but this only works with recipes from my site for now. Thanks for asking!
CAROLYNN HARDCASTLE says
you are amazing!! thank you so much for this. i am a very busy person who works 10 hour days away from home, takes care of 2 disable persons, and a small ranch. I think this is going to help me so much.
Andi Gleeson says
I’m happy that you’re happy, Carolynn! Thank you :)
Chef Grace says
Thank you! I enjoy and use and share many of your recipes and this is awesome!
Andi Gleeson says
Thank you so much, Grace!
Brenda Windsor says
I love this! The whole concept, recipes, meal planning, and grocery list. Now, could you please add a way to send to phone for easy, paperless shopping?
Andi Gleeson says
Yes! I have that! :) When you get your list just the way you want it, click “Save” That takes you to a screen where you can email the list to yourself (or someone else) or copy/paste a link to your unique list. It has checkboxes you can mark as you shop.
I only just realized recently that you can drag ingredients around in the list (before saving) to group them together by category. I’m going to see if there is a way for me to categorize ingredients within the software so that could be a bit more automated, but I think that’s a bigger project that will take some time. Thanks so much, Brenda!
Diana says
Can’t wait to try this. Sounds delicious.
Andi Gleeson says
Thanks so much, Diana!
ELIZABETH CALDWELL says
THANKS FOR THE TUNA CASSEROLE RECIPE
Andi Gleeson says
You are so welcome. Glad you like it!!