Not sure what to cook this week? In the Planner tab, Buddy plans your lunches and dinners from the recipes you've saved. You can change any meal and put the whole week on your grocery list.
Tip: Don't see the Planner tab? Update MealBuddy to the latest version.
Before you start
Buddy plans with your diet and allergies in mind, so the Planner needs your OK first. If you haven't given it yet, the tab shows Buddy needs your OK first. Tap I agree to continue. If you tap Not now, you go back to the Recipes tab. See "Your Diet, Allergies and What Buddy Knows" for what this means.
Planning your first week
Open the Planner tab and tap Plan my week. Answer a few short questions:
- How many people do you cook for? Buddy scales every recipe and your grocery list to this number.
- When should the plan start? Pick today or one of the next 6 days. A plan week runs for 7 days from that day.
- Which meals should we plan? Choose lunch, dinner or both, day by day. Tap Lunch or Dinner to choose it for the whole week, or tap Select all.
- How much time do you have to cook? Choose Up to 30 min, Up to 60 min or More than 60 min. This covers prep and cooking together.
- Which recipes should Buddy use? Pick the recipe lists Buddy may choose from. Under Always include, tap Add to pick recipes Buddy puts in every week.
Tap Plan my week. Buddy needs a few minutes, so you'll see Buddy is planning your week. You can leave the app and come back later.
Your week
The plan shows each day with its meals. Tap a meal to open its recipe. Once some days have passed, choose From today or All week to see only the days ahead or the whole week.
If a day has no meal yet, it says Nothing planned yet. Fill it with:
- Surprise me: Buddy picks a recipe for you
- Pick recipe: choose one from your recipes
- Describe: tell Buddy what you feel like eating, by typing or by voice, and Buddy writes a new recipe
If a recipe in your plan isn't saved in your recipes yet, its recipe page tells you. Tap that message to save it.
Changing meals
To change meals, long-press a meal. Tap more meals to select them too. Then choose:
- Remove to take them off the plan
- Change to replace them. Then choose Surprise me, Pick recipe, Describe or Adapt. Pick recipe and Describe work for one meal at a time. With Adapt you tell Buddy what you want, for example "Make it vegetarian" or "Move it to Monday".
- Groceries to put them on your grocery list
Meals on days that have passed can't be changed.
Changing the whole plan
Tap the ⋯ at the top right and choose Edit this plan. Tell Buddy what to change, by typing or by voice, for example "More chicken, nothing on Sunday", and tap Adapt.
If you change the number of people or the days, Buddy asks Every week or just this one?
What your plan remembers
When you tell Buddy something about your plan that should last, like "no pork", Buddy remembers it for future weeks and tells you so. To see these, tap the ⋯ and choose What your plan remembers. To delete one, tap the trash icon next to it and confirm with Forget.
Adding your meals to the grocery list
Meals still ahead have a basket button in the bottom right corner of their card (an icon without a label). Tap it to put that meal's ingredients on your grocery list, or tap it again to take them off. To add all meals at once, tap Add on the card that shows how many meals aren't on your grocery list yet.
Ingredients are scaled to the number of people in your plan. If you have more than one grocery list, MealBuddy asks which one your plan should use. To change it later, tap the ⋯ and then the grocery list row.
Planning the next week
In the last two days of your week, Buddy offers to plan the next one. Tap Plan next week. You see last week's settings: People, Starts, Meals, Time to cook and Recipes. Tap one to change it, then tap Plan with these.
Once the next week is planned, switch between This week and Next week at the top. If a week ended and nothing comes after it, the tab shows Your week is over with a Plan next week button.
Rating your week
In your week, Buddy asks How would you rate this week's plan? You can answer at any time during the week.
Planning together
Cook with a partner or family? Share your plan, so you all see and change the same weeks.
- Share your plan: tap the ⋯, choose Share plan and send the link. People who join use your plan instead of their own. Everyone needs the latest version of the MealBuddy app.
- Join a plan: open the link and tap Join plan. If you already have a plan, the app tells you that the shared plan will replace it.
- See who's on it: once your plan is shared, tap the ⋯ and choose Manage members (or View members if you joined someone else's plan).
- Stop sharing (owner only): on the members screen, tap Stop sharing. Everyone goes back to their own plan, and the link stops working. To take one person off, tap the × next to their name.
- Leave a plan you joined: tap the ⋯ and choose the leave option with the owner's name, for example Leave Sam's plan, or Leave plan on the members screen. If you had a plan of your own before, you see it again.
Notifications
MealBuddy can remind you to plan your next week before this one ends, and tell you when somebody changes a plan you share. Turn these on or off in Profile > Notifications with Meal planner reminders and Plan changes.
Good to know
- Buddy plans lunches and dinners only. There are no breakfast or snack slots.
- When Buddy plans a week, it picks from the recipe lists you chose, plus the ones you always include. Save more recipes to get more variety.
- You can plan for 1 to 20 people.
- Always include can hold up to as many recipes as meals you plan in a week.
- You can see this week and, once it's planned, the next week. Older weeks aren't shown.