Build a meal planner app that writes your shopping list for you
Meal planning saves money and evening decisions, but only if the plan turns into a shopping list without retyping. A good meal planner app holds your recipes, lets you drop them onto a week, and combines the ingredients into one list grouped by aisle. Anticode can build that as a private app on your device. It can't fetch recipes or prices from the web, so the recipes are yours.
The three parts of a meal planner
The week grid
Seven days by the meals you actually plan. Many households only plan dinners; others plan lunches for work too. Let each slot hold a recipe, a free-text note ("leftovers", "eating out", "freezer pizza") or nothing. Dragging a recipe between days, and copying last week's plan as a starting point, cover most of the editing people do.
The recipe box
Each recipe needs a name, servings, ingredients as structured lines (quantity, unit, item), and the method. Tags such as quick, vegetarian or batch-cook make it easy to fill a busy Tuesday. The structured ingredient lines matter most: "2 onions" can be added to the shopping list; "a couple of onions, chopped" can't be totalled.
The shopping list
Generated from the week: every ingredient from every planned recipe, scaled to the servings you set, combined where the item and unit match (two recipes with 1 onion each become 2 onions), and grouped by aisle (produce, dairy, tins, frozen). Add a pantry list of things you always have, so salt and oil don't appear every week, and let people tick items off in the shop or add extras by hand.
The tricky details
- Unit mismatches. One recipe says 200 g of spinach and another says a bag. Either keep units consistent in your recipes or accept that some lines stay separate.
- Scaling. A recipe for four planned for two should halve its ingredients, but "1 egg" halved needs a sensible rounding rule.
- Leftovers. Planning a double batch on Monday that covers Wednesday's lunch is common. A "cook extra" option that doubles the quantities and fills a later slot handles it.
- Dietary needs. Tagging recipes, and filtering by tag when filling the week, is simpler and more reliable than trying to detect allergens from ingredient names.
Describing it to Anticode
Be specific about your household and the list: "A weekly meal planner for a family of four. Dinners only, Monday to Sunday. A recipe box with servings, structured ingredients and tags. Copy last week's plan. A shopping list that combines ingredients, groups them by aisle and skips pantry staples. Tick items off on my phone in the shop." If you have recipes already, include a few in the request so the starting data is real.
The model writes the planner as one app that runs in the browser. Your recipes, plans and lists save on the device you use and stay there between visits. Installed on your phone's home screen, the shopping list is one tap away in the supermarket.
Adding your recipes in bulk
Typing a recipe box in by hand is the biggest chore. Ask for an import box where you paste recipes in a simple format, such as a title line, then ingredient lines, then method, separated by a blank line. That's much faster than a form per recipe, and you can keep your master list in any text file.
What it can't do
Anticode apps run in a sandbox with no network, which sets some firm limits for a meal planner app:
- No recipe import from websites. It can't read a URL and pull out the recipe. Paste the text instead.
- No supermarket prices or online ordering. The list can't check prices, add items to a grocery delivery basket or know what's on offer.
- No nutrition database. Calories and macros would have to be entered per recipe by you; the app can't look them up.
- No AI meal plan generator inside the app. It can't call a model to invent recipes on demand. A "plan my week" button can only choose from your own recipes, for example at random within your tags.
- No shared list between partners. Each phone holds its own data; if two people shop, share one device or send the list as text.
If you plan meals as a business (a meal-prep service or a nutritionist sending plans to clients), you'll need shared data and client accounts, which this app can't hold. A meal prep business website with an order or enquiry form is a better fit for taking orders.
Questions people ask
Can the meal planner app suggest meals?
It can pick from your own recipes by rule: random, least recently cooked, or matching a tag. It can't invent new recipes, because there's no AI or network inside the app.
Can I print the shopping list?
You can ask for a print-friendly view of the list, or copy it as text to send in a message.
Will my recipes be lost if I change phones?
They stay in the old phone's browser. Ask for an export and import so you can move them, and keep the exported file as a backup.