Meal Planner
Plan a 7-day meal grid and auto-generate a grocery list from bundled meal ingredients.
Written by Golam Rabbani, Founder & Lead Engineer
How to use this meal planner
- Type a meal name into each day-and-meal cell of the grid — for example "oatmeal" under Mon Breakfast.
- Use the Notes column to add any per-day reminders or prep notes.
- Click "Generate grocery list" to compile all ingredients for recognised meals.
- Review the Grocery List panel; custom meals that were not recognised appear separately under "Custom meals — add ingredients manually".
- Click "Copy grocery list" to send the full list to your clipboard, or "Reset" to clear the grid and start over.
About this meal planner
The meal planner is a browser-based weekly grid that turns a seven-day meal schedule into a consolidated grocery list in one click. Fill in up to 21 cells — three meals per day across Monday through Sunday — and the tool looks each entry up in a built-in meal-to-ingredients table to produce a single, merged shopping list sorted alphabetically.
The lookup is case-insensitive and covers 25 common meals. For each recognised meal the planner tallies every ingredient it needs; when the same ingredient appears across multiple meals the count is accumulated and shown with a multiplier (e.g. "chicken breast ×3"). Meals that do not match any entry in the table are flagged under "Custom meals — add ingredients manually", so nothing in the plan is silently dropped.
For a worked example: enter "oatmeal" for Monday Breakfast, "caesar salad" for Tuesday Lunch, and "spaghetti bolognese" for Wednesday Dinner. Pressing "Generate grocery list" produces a list that includes, among others, banana, caesar dressing, chicken breast, croutons, garlic, ground beef, honey, milk, oats, olive oil, onion, parmesan (×2 — needed by both the salad and the bolognese), romaine lettuce, spaghetti, and tomato sauce. The "×2" on parmesan tells you to buy a larger portion because two recipes require it.
Your plan is saved automatically in your browser's localStorage and survives a page reload. The meal planner is aimed at anyone who wants a quick, friction-free way to draft a weekly menu and produce a ready-to-shop ingredient list without a separate app.
FAQ
- What is the meal planner and how does it build the grocery list?
- The meal planner is a weekly grid tool for planning breakfast, lunch, and dinner across seven days. When you click "Generate grocery list" it looks each meal up in a built-in table of 25 common recipes and merges all required ingredients into one sorted list, combining duplicates with a count.
- Can I add custom meals that are not in the built-in list?
- Yes. Type any meal name you like into a cell. If the tool does not recognise it, the meal appears in a separate "Custom meals — add ingredients manually" section so you know to add those ingredients yourself. Your custom entry is not discarded.
- Does the meal planner save my plan between visits?
- Yes. The grid is saved to your browser's localStorage every time you make a change. If you close the tab and return later the plan is restored automatically. Clearing your browser's site data, using a different device, or opening the page in a private/incognito window will result in an empty grid.
- Does the tool merge duplicate ingredients across multiple meals?
- Yes. If two or more meals in your plan share an ingredient, the planner adds the counts together and shows a multiplier — for example "parmesan ×2" — so you know you need a larger quantity. Each ingredient appears only once in the list.
- Can I export or share the grocery list?
- After clicking "Generate grocery list", a "Copy grocery list" button appears. Pressing it copies a plain-text version of the list — including the custom meals section — to your clipboard. You can then paste it into a notes app, message, or shopping app.
- Does this tool store my meal plan on a server?
- No. The meal planner runs entirely in your browser. Your plan is stored only in your device's localStorage and is never sent to a server.