We compared eight UK meal planning apps for 2026. Mealia is the best overall for supermarket integration: the only app that builds your grocery basket at all four major UK supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons) with a budget set upfront, on a free 1-week trial then subscription. Cherrypick is the best free option with basket building for Sainsbury's and Tesco, MUNCH is best for Aldi and Lidl shoppers, Mealime is best for simple meal prep, and Tesco Real Food is the best free retailer-owned planner.
There are dozens of meal planning apps available in the UK, and most reviews skip over the thing that matters most: whether the app actually connects to the supermarket you shop at. A beautifully designed planner that leaves you typing forty ingredients into the Tesco app by hand has not really saved you any time.
This guide compares eight meal planning apps available to UK households in 2026. Three things separate them in practice:
Mealia is our app, so we will say that plainly upfront. But this comparison only works if it is honest, so we have been clear about where rivals beat us: some of these apps are completely free, one covers Aldi and Lidl prices when we do not, and a couple are simpler if all you want is a recipe list.
Mealia is an AI grocery assistant built around the UK's big four supermarkets. You set your weekly budget, household size and dietary preferences first, then swipe through recipes to build your weekly plan. Mealia turns that plan into a complete, itemised grocery basket at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons, matched to real products, and you check out inside the supermarket's own website or app as normal.
The budget-first design is the part most other apps get backwards: you set the spend limit upfront and the plan is built to fit it. Because the basket lives in your normal supermarket account, you can add household essentials to the same shop, keep your delivery slots, and keep earning Clubcard, Nectar or Morrisons More points.
Pricing: free 1-week trial, then subscription (pricing shown in-app). iOS and Android, UK only.
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Who it's for: households that do an online shop at any of the big four and want the planning, the budgeting and the basket handled in one go. See the Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons guides for supermarket-specific detail.
Cherrypick (formerly Lollipop) is the strongest free option for people who want recipe-to-basket automation. You plan meals from its recipe library, every ingredient is added to a supermarket basket automatically, and you can top up the basket with the rest of your weekly shop. Its deepest partnership is with Sainsbury's, with Tesco also supported for online fulfilment, and it can be used as a shopping-list tool for in-store trips at Asda.
Cherrypick has built a large user base on the strength of being free at supermarket prices, and its recipe quality is good, including a budget-focused "Spend Less" range. The company has announced paid Plus and Pro tiers, so expect some features to move behind a subscription, but the core product remains free.
Pricing: free. Paid Plus and Pro tiers have been announced; details in-app. iOS and Android.
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Who it's for: Sainsbury's and Tesco online shoppers who want basket automation without paying for it, and who do not need a hard weekly budget enforced.
MUNCH takes a different approach: instead of connecting to a supermarket's online checkout, it tracks supermarket prices, including Aldi and Lidl alongside Tesco and Sainsbury's, and uses AI to generate meal plans that fit a budget you set. Because Aldi and Lidl do not offer full online grocery shopping in the UK, no app can build an online basket there, so MUNCH's price-aware planning plus an in-store shopping list is about as good as Aldi and Lidl integration can currently get.
It is completely free with no premium tier, which makes it especially popular with students.
Pricing: free. iOS and Android.
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Who it's for: Aldi and Lidl shoppers, students, and anyone who shops in person and wants budget-led plans without paying for an app. For more on stretching a food budget, see our meal planning on a budget guide.
Mealime is one of the most polished meal planning apps anywhere, and the best choice if you simply want good, fast recipes and an automatic shopping list. Most recipes take around 30 minutes, the interface is genuinely beginner-friendly, and the free tier is usable rather than a teaser.
What Mealime does not do is connect to any UK supermarket. The shopping list is well organised, but you take it to the shop (or retype it into your supermarket app) yourself, and there is no budgeting feature or UK price data.
Pricing: free; optional Pro tier (US pricing $5.99 per month or $49.99 per year; UK pricing shown in-app) adds nutrition information and extra recipes. iOS and Android.
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Who it's for: people who want help deciding what to cook and are happy to handle the shopping themselves.
Samsung Food (formerly Whisk) is a free recipe-saving and meal planning app with an enormous community recipe library. Its standout feature is saving recipes from anywhere on the web into one organised collection, with a weekly planner and categorised shopping lists attached. A premium tier, Samsung Food+, adds AI meal plans and nutrition tracking.
For UK shoppers the limitation is the same as Mealime's: no automatic basket building at a UK supermarket, and no budget control. It is a planner and recipe manager, not a shopping assistant.
Pricing: free core app; Samsung Food+ premium at $6.99 per month or $59.99 per year (UK pricing shown in-app) with a 7-day trial. iOS, Android and web; works on any phone, not just Samsung devices.
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Who it's for: keen home cooks with recipes scattered across the internet who want one organised library with a planner attached.
Plan to Eat is the veteran of this list and takes the opposite approach to AI-led apps: it gives you almost no recipes of its own. You import your own collection, from websites, books or family scraps of paper, and drag and drop them onto a calendar; the shopping list builds itself from whatever you plan.
It is a paid app with no free tier, though there is a 14-day trial. Like Mealime and Samsung Food, it has no UK supermarket integration or price data.
Pricing: $5.95 per month or $49 per year (roughly £4 per month equivalent; billed in US dollars), 14-day free trial. iOS, Android and web.
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Who it's for: organised cooks with an established recipe collection who want a calendar, not suggestions.
Sidekick comes from Sorted Food, the UK YouTube cooking team, and it is really a cooking app with meal planning attached. Its "meal packs" group three recipes around one shared shopping list to cut waste, and the step-by-step guidance, with audio instructions and timers, is the best here for less confident cooks. Being UK-made, its ingredients match what is on UK shelves.
There is no supermarket basket integration or budget setting; you get a consolidated shopping list and take it from there.
Pricing: £36 for 6 months or £60 for 12 months, with a 1-month free trial. iOS and Android.
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Who it's for: people whose real goal is becoming a better, more confident cook, with planning as a side benefit.
Tesco's own Real Food meal planner is free, lives on the web rather than in an app, and does something most third-party planners cannot: it adds recipe ingredients directly to your Tesco online basket. You can browse weekly plans, build your own or borrow other customers' plans, and shop the lot through your normal Tesco account.
The obvious catch is that it is Tesco-only, and it exists to sell you Tesco products. There is no budget-first planning and the experience is more website than app. But as a free way to test whether recipe-to-basket shopping suits you, it is hard to argue with.
Pricing: free. Web-based; works with a standard Tesco online grocery account.
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Who it's for: committed Tesco shoppers who want a free taste of basket-building before deciding whether a dedicated app is worth paying for.
Mealia
Cherrypick
MUNCH
Mealime
Samsung Food
Plan to Eat
Sidekick by Sorted Food
Tesco Real Food
Start with where you shop, because that decides more than anything else.
If you shop online at Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons, Mealia is the strongest option, and for Asda and Morrisons online it is currently the only one that will build your basket. Budget-first planning is the other genuine differentiator: no other app on this list enforces a spend limit before you start picking meals. The honest counterargument is price: if you can live without Morrisons or Asda coverage and a hard budget, Cherrypick does the core recipe-to-basket job for free at Sainsbury's and Tesco.
If you shop at Aldi or Lidl, get MUNCH. Nothing else here covers discounter prices, and an app that plans to those prices and hands you a list is the right tool, not a compromise.
If you do not want supermarket integration at all, choose based on temperament: Mealime if you want easy decisions made for you, Plan to Eat if you want to organise recipes you already own, Samsung Food if you hoard recipes from the internet, and Sidekick if your real goal is becoming a better cook.
If you want to spend nothing and commit to nothing, Tesco Real Food (for Tesco shoppers) and Cherrypick are both free ways to discover whether recipe-to-basket shopping actually changes your week. In our experience it does, which is why we built Mealia around it. For wider context on cutting your grocery spend, see how to reduce your weekly food shop.
For most households, yes, provided the app fits how you actually shop. The savings come from two places: less food waste, because you buy only what your recipes need, and fewer impulse purchases, because the basket is built from a plan. If you currently shop without a list, almost any app on this page will pay for itself.
Cherrypick, if you shop at Sainsbury's or Tesco online, because it is the only free app with genuine basket building. MUNCH, if you shop in person, especially at Aldi or Lidl. Samsung Food and Mealime are also free, but neither connects to a UK supermarket.
Three of the eight apps in this guide build a supermarket basket for you: Mealia (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons), Cherrypick (Sainsbury's and Tesco), and Tesco Real Food (Tesco only). Mealia is the only one covering all four, and the only option at Asda and Morrisons.
No app can build an online basket at Aldi or Lidl, because neither offers full online grocery shopping in the UK. MUNCH is the best workaround: it tracks Aldi and Lidl prices and generates budget meal plans and shopping lists for in-store trips, free of charge.
Mealia is currently the only meal planning app with automatic basket building at Morrisons, alongside Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's. See the Morrisons meal planning guide for details.
Recipe boxes deliver pre-portioned ingredients for a fixed per-meal price; meal planning apps help you buy normal groceries from a supermarket. The supermarket route is substantially cheaper per portion and covers your whole shop, not just dinners. See Mealia vs HelloFresh and Mealia vs Gousto for full comparisons.
Adjustable serving sizes, dietary preferences that can differ across family members, and a way to keep the whole shop in one basket so the school snacks arrive with the dinner ingredients. A hard budget cap helps families on a fixed weekly spend. Our family meal planning guide covers this in depth.
Tasty, healthy, and budget friendly meal plan and grocery shopping done in a few clicks. Download Mealia today for free.
