I tested apps by looking through each and seeing everything they offered. Since I was testing both paid and free apps, I wanted to make sure that the paid apps gave a considerable amount more than the free apps did if they were going to rank higher than the free apps. 

Some of the apps restrict features like uploading your own recipes if you don’t have the paid version, so I wanted to see which allowed you to do that and which didn’t. Most of the free apps or free versions offer fewer recipes than if you get the paid version, so I wanted to make sure those apps still had a lot of recipes to choose from so that it was still worth using for a while without having the paid version.

I also looked at which apps connected to grocery delivery apps so that you could get everything done all through the same app. Lastly, I focused on the range of dietary restrictions and options offered on each app. The apps that had more options scored higher on the list.

eMeals has a wide range of meal plans to choose from like keto, slow cooker, diabetic, paleo, and more. 

You pick the best plan for you, which gives you seven recipes a week. You can add recipes to your plan and get a grocery list that you can even order from the app. You get practically everything you need to start cooking all from one app. 

The app is only free for 14 days and then is $29.99 for 3 months or $59.99 for 12 months. Luckily by using the free trial, you get access to everything on this app and can choose whether or not it’s worth buying to you.

While this does not matter to everyone, many people looking for recipes want to cook everything from scratch. 

That’s part of the joy of cooking. However, many of the recipes on eMeals use store-bought mixes as part of the ingredients rather than giving the information to make it yourself. This isn’t how every recipe is, but we noticed a lot of the desserts were like this. So much of the joy of baking is doing it all yourself! Nevertheless, there are still plenty of recipes that don’t use store-bought ingredients, and if you don’t mind this, then this won’t be a problem for you.

Another small issue with this app is that it took a minute to figure out how to navigate through different types of meals and look at multiple recipes at once. When using the app, you pick a meal plan based on your preferences like keto, vegetarian, low-budget, etc. Then you’re given 7 meals for that week. However, you can still look at lots of other recipes. It just takes a moment to figure out how to. You can scroll from your meal plans and look at “occasion menus,” which are loaded with recipes for many different occasions.

Since this app is mostly focused on healthy recipe options, there is less variety than eMeals since eMeals offers plenty of options for lovers of junk food and yummy greasy food. 

This app has a paid version, which allows you to look at many recipes for free for as long as you want. Users of the free version may get bored after a few months and want the paid version in order to unlock all of the recipes.

By using the paid version, you can also add your own recipes to your meal plan. For those who want to use these apps as a complete organizational tool for their weekly meals, then the paid version may be best for you. This app also tells you what cookware you need for each recipe before getting to the instructions, which is amazing! You can order your groceries by linking the app to Instacart or other grocery delivery apps, making this app a great convenience tool.

This app is part of the Forks over Knives business, which released a popular documentary in 2011 that encouraged lots of people to consider veganism. 

Luckily, the app is not overrun by scary statistics or images of factory farms. Instead, it’s loaded with beautiful recipes! Many vegans just getting started struggle to find vegan recipes that taste good and don’t feel like eating the same thing over and over again. This is a great app for finding a variety of vegan dishes.

The free app has tons of recipes to choose from and the ability to save recipes as a PDF to view for later or save outside the app. This is great for people who like printing recipes for when they cook. The annual plan is $119.99, the quarterly plan is $33.99 every 3 months, and the monthly plan is $19.99. The paid version gives you accents to more recipes and access to their online community. We found that there is plenty of amazing stuff to get out of the free version that there is no need for the paid one unless you run out of recipes.

Prepear feels similar to Pinterest in a way since many recipe pins are from food bloggers. 

This app’s recipes all come from food bloggers, and many food bloggers have multiple recipes on the app. If you like recipes from one of the food bloggers, you can open up their blog and look at their whole website. Like the other major meal planning apps, you can save the ingredients from recipes to a shopping list and check off what you already have on hand.

While Platejoy had a lot to offer, the user interface was hard to navigate and often confusing. We wanted to stick to promoting apps that were easy to use. However, this app still has many great recipes and is worth a try.

Paprika is a great resource if you have a bunch of your own recipes, however, it can be very time-consuming to use. Still, it is a good option for the home chef that already has lots of recipes to choose from.

Plan to Eat is another great planner for those that have lots of their own recipes. Ultimately, we think the other recipe-included apps are much easier for most people to use on a regular basis to plan meals and discover new recipes.

Unfortunately, the BigOven interface was clunky and kind of busy. It also has less features than the other apps, which made it less appealing in comparison. We were focused on apps that had the best user experience and were easy to navigate.

This app was not chosen, because it costs $13.99 a month, which comes to $167.88 a year and was significantly more than the other apps we tested. We wanted to make sure that the paid apps we were testing were around the same cost and benefit ratio.

This app was not considered, because it did not include recipes on the app and was focused on users inputting what they were eating instead to keep up with a diet-focused meal plan. We were interested in apps that had recipes on them.