The Meal Planner That Actually Stuck: Plan to Eat

Plan to Eat makes it easy to store your recipes in one place, menu plan from them and then auto-create a shopping list.

Meal planning sounds simple enough. Until you’re the one juggling ingredients, schedules, picky eaters, and a brain that’s already fried.

You’ve tried paper lists, apps, spreadsheets, or whatever trend was floating around Pinterest that year. And you know how fast a system can fall apart.

I’ve always loved being in the kitchen, and I’ve been trying out meal-planning systems since high school, long before I had a family to cook for. I started with paper and pen, graduated to early recipe software, went back to paper, mixed in a dozen other methods, and every one of them worked…until they didn’t.

Then Black Friday 2012 rolled around, and I finally got curious about Plan to Eat. I had friends who raved about it, but I didn’t want technology anywhere near my meal planning. (No, I didn’t have a good reason. I had just taken a stubborn stance.)

But their free trial made me raise one eyebrow, their 50% off sale made me raise the other.

Thirteen years later, I’m getting ready to buy yet another subscription.

(Even full price, this online meal planner is more than worth the price. But $25 during their annual Black Friday sale is even better.)

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Importing Recipes: How Plan to Eat Solves the Pinterest Problem

In the age of Pinterest, how many of us have a gazillion recipes pinned?
How many screenshots do you have of recipes you saw while scrolling through Instagram?
Forgotten links in a group chat accompanied by “OMG, you guys need to make this ASAP”?

Maybe you remember those recipe ideas when you plan next week’s menu, or, if you are like me, you don’t!  Plan to Eat solves this problem.

There are several ways to import new recipes, but the method I use most often is the recipe clipper, a browser extension. When you are on a website with a recipe you want to save, click the clipper. It scans the page for ingredients and directions. Save, and you are done.

If you’re often on mobile devices, there’s also an easy way to add recipes to the app. Use the ‘share’ feature on your mobile browser to deliver the recipe straight to the Plan to Eat mobile app.

You can also scan a photo or screenshot, paste a recipe link, or enter a recipe manually.

I now actually use all those recipes I’ve saved from the internet!

Tip from a Power User:

Create basic “recipes” so you do not forget the ingredients, even if you do not need instructions. In my baked potato “recipe,” I list potatoes, butter, sour cream, bacon bits, and green onions. I don’t need directions to make them, but having the ingredients grouped keeps me from leaving anything off the shopping list.

I do the same thing for my husband’s daily breakfast. He eats a breakfast sandwich and yogurt every morning, so I saved those ingredients as a simple recipe. They land on the shopping list automatically.

I even have a ‘recipe’ for those extras I may need every Thanksgiving/Christmas season, like aluminum foil & paper towels.

Finding Recipes Fast With Tags, Filters, and Leftovers

Once your recipes are loaded, it’s time to plan.

1. I start by searching for recipes that use leftovers or that half of a bell pepper lurking in the produce drawer, so ingredients don’t go to waste. Or search by the main ingredient, which is helpful for large cuts of meat or if you want to double-up & cook two nights’ meals in one night.
2. Next, I use the search feature to pair sale ingredients with recipes we already have.
3. Last up, I use tags and cuisine filters to match our meal themes.

From the recipe box page, you can either add a single recipe to the meal planner or add it to the queue, which you can access on the planning tab. (The queue is basically a holding spot for recipes you want to use soon.)

Tip from a Power User:

Get creative with your categories & tags. For example, I have a category for holiday meals, and tags for meals that use Costco ingredients or pantry ingredients. Create the ones that fit the way you actually plan.

Drag-and-Drop Meal Planning That Fits Your Week

When you’re ready to plan your week, it’s as simple as clicking the plan tab and dragging the recipes into each day of the week and their mealtimes.

Need to add a single ingredient or a reminder? Use the + sign to pop it in. If you need to add a note, add it the same way.

If you have standard fare you serve together, you can save all of those recipes and notes as a menu for quicker planning. Taco night, burgers on the grill night, or that beloved birthday meal. You can even save an entire week of recipes. Our Thanksgiving week menu has stayed the same for years because this feature makes it easy to drop in.

Tip from a Power User:

I have a set of notes saved as a menu. Each note covers something I need to remember about our weekly schedule, such as whose turn it is for dinner or which nights my teens have activities. I drag that note menu into the planner each week, so I plan meals around our actual life.

The Shopping List That Practically Builds Itself

Now, my absolute favorite feature!

Plan to Eat creates a grocery shopping list from your planned recipes. When it is 5:15 and dinner needs to be on the table STAT, you can feel confident you didn’t forget to add a key ingredient to your shopping list that week.

Items you buy every week but are not part of a recipe, like cereal or bread, can be saved to a staples list.

If you shop at more than one grocery store, Plan to Eat will remember which ingredients you purchase at which store. In the future, your shopping list items will be added to the lists of each of your specific stores.

Tip from a Power User:

One of my “stores” is called Not Right Now.

You know those ingredients or household items you run out of but absolutely do not need to replace this minute? They go on that list, so they stop haunting your brain. Right now, mine includes aloe vera gel & sunscreen, and votive candles for next year’s jack-o-lanterns.

(Apparently, I like to plan ahead in oddly specific ways….)

A few more tips from a long-time user.

1. The app offers a streamlined step-by-step cooking view. It shows you one step at a time, which means no more losing your place halfway through the directions. Check off ingredients as you add them and tap to move to the next step.
2. The prep notes feature lets you add anything that needs to be handled ahead of time. It keeps the “don’t forget” tasks out of your head!
3. Do you order your groceries for pick-up? This is another of my favorite features. Open the shopping list, select the items you want to order, and then click the Deliver Groceries button. Plan to Eat sends your list straight to your local grocery pickup options, including Instacart and Walmart, so you can finish the order in just a few taps.
4. See your weekly meal plan in your favorite digital calendar. Subscribe to calendar feeds for your notes, ingredients, recipes, or all of them if you like everything in one place.

I’m still a loyal user. tl;dr version

The features and the flexibility keep me using Plan to Eat more than a decade after I first tried it. It works with the way real families cook, plan, and change their minds. It has kept my meal planning simple, consistent, and manageable. If you want a system that finally sticks, this one is worth trying.

If you want to give Plan to Eat a try, mid-November is the perfect time. Start their free two-week trial now, and it will finish just as their Black Friday sale begins, which means you can lock in half off your first year. It is an easy way to see whether it simplifies your meal planning as much as it has simplified mine.