14 Weekly Meal Planners That Take the Stress Out of Dinner

Prefer to do all your planning on paper? This structured meal-planning notebook from Plum Paper is a great way to keep your weekly meal plans, grocery lists, and favorite recipes organized.

It contains six months of meal planning and grocery list pages, along with sections for recipes and restaurant and grocery store info. The planner is also customizable. You can select or create your own cover and opt for add-ons such as a to-do list, fitness pages, and meal-planning stickers. I like that these planner spreads have lots of white space for you to write detailed meal plans that include sides and desserts.

If you choose to customize it in multiple ways, this planner can rapidly become more expensive than most other meal planner notebooks on the market. As a spiral-bound option, it’s also bulkier than other slim planners that may be easier to tuck into a purse or bag.

This meal planner from Papier provides over one year of weekly meal-planning sheets for around $20, making each sheet very reasonably priced.

This planner is a tear-away pad that can be hung on a wall. Each spread features ample room for a week of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Each weekly page also comes with a tear-away grocery list to take shopping with you.

However, because this is a tearaway pad, it’s not made for planning very far in advance. It also may not be a good option if you’re looking to store recipes or lists of your family’s favorite meals.

If your family is always asking what’s for dinner, this magnetic dry-erase meal planner is exactly what you’re looking for.

“Mine has become one of our most essential kitchen tools,” says Sasha Bard Chamberlain, RDN, of Chamberlain Nutrition Consulting in Richmond, Virginia. “It’s posted right on the fridge where everyone can see, keeping us organized during busy weeks and cutting down on the constant ‘Mom, what’s for dinner?’ chorus.”

This one also comes with several magnetic dry-erase markers, so it’s quick and easy to add to or change the meal plan. These dry-erase boards are inexpensive and can be reused endlessly — much longer than paper meal planners, which may offer only six months to a year of planning sheets.

That said, the markers can be difficult to erase. The thin acrylic also may break or crack easily, especially if dropped.

If you like to carry your meal planning notebook with you, a slimline one that fits easily into a purse or backpack is likely to be much more convenient than a bulkier spiral-bound notebook.

This Petite Planner from Erin Condren is slim, but it includes a year of weekly meal-planning spreads with shopping lists. It also has a pocket for coupons or stickers, and extra pages for your family's favorite meals and for tracking prices. All of these features make it a good shopping companion.

Because it's not spiral-bound, it may not lie flat. Also, there's not a great deal of space to write out each meal because of the size of the book.

You can use the meal-planning pages as a food journal, as well. This planner also features room for a grocery list, in addition to space for starting measurements and goals, monthly reviews, and a year-end review.

However, it lacks a space to plan or record snacks. Based on our research, the pages are also a bit busy and lack space for writing out detailed meal plans.

Tear-away meal planners like this one from Bloom feature weekly sheets that can be torn off the calendar and discarded. They're great for people who plan only one week at a time, and also for keeping the meal plan on display for the entire household.

This meal planner is magnetic, so it can be mounted on the refrigerator. It also features a grocery list separated by food groups. The lists are perforated, so they can be removed from the calendar when you're ready to go shopping.

The planner has 60 sheets per pad, so it can be used for over a year of meal planning. But the cardboard backing may separate from the magnet before you've used all of the sheets. Also, the corners of the pages may begin to curl over time.

If you have a printer at home, printable planning tools like the Meal-Planning Binder from CloudyMindStudios are inexpensive and convenient. This one costs under $5.

The meal planner includes a weekly meal-plan template, a blank weekly meal-planning page, a blank grocery list page, and over 400 meal ideas. It also features a monthly meal rotation template and a leftovers tracker. You can print one week at a time, or you can print a full year of these blank templates to use in a binder.

Before I got my Skylight Calendar, this is how I preferred to meal plan. I bought printables to do my weekly meal plan, create a pantry stock list, and record all of my family's favorite meals and snacks. I kept them all in the meal-plan tab in my home binder, which also included categories for bills, home maintenance, and gardening.

Although this printable set offers hundreds of meal ideas, it doesn't include any recipes for the listed meals.

Easel-style meal planners can be prominently displayed on your counter or dining table for easy viewing. They also may fit better with your home decor than other meal-planning tools.

This one from Glory & Grain Co. on Etsy is made of wood, with seven dry-erase lines to record your weekly menu. You can also customize the top engraving to add your family name or any other text you prefer.

With limited space on each chalkboard strip, this menu board probably only has enough room to write out one meal per day. This board also doesn't come with an easel stand, so you’ll need to purchase one.

Want to streamline your planning? Consider an all-purpose planner that also includes room for meal plans.

The Purpose Planner Notebook Undated is a detailed weekly planner designed to help you maximize your productivity. Each day on the weekly layout features an area for recording your food intake or planning breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Because it's undated, you can begin using it at any time.

I find the Purpose Planner's weekly spreads to be a little too busy for my taste, but I know people who love these planners. They're also very highly rated. That said, the meal-planning and recording lines don't have much room, so you may not be able to write detailed meal plans.

The Skylight Calendar 2 is a smart display with several features that make it easier for families to manage schedules, chores, and meals. Without a subscription, it features a calendar that syncs with several other calendars, as well as chore and task lists.

The paid subscription unlocks a suite of meal-planning tools, including recipe lookup and storage, and a handful of other features. It can generate grocery lists based on your meal plan and quickly digitize handwritten or printed recipes, including those from cookbooks, so they can be added to your meal plan.

I have and use a Skylight Calendar in my home. It’s on display at our breakfast bar, right where anyone in the family can use it to check the meal plan, search the calendar, and mark off their chores or tasks for the day. I find that the subscription is worth paying for, but more-affordable alternatives are definitely available. A smart-home hub, like the Amazon Echo Show, can offer many of the same features, along with additional smart-home features.

Paprika is a recipe organizer that’s available as a smartphone app or a program to use on a PC. You can import recipes from anywhere on the web, and then use your stored recipes to create meal plans and grocery lists.

Paprika also has a full suite of tools that are helpful for cooking. For instance, it lets you cross off ingredients as you add them or set timers based on the times in the cooking instructions.

Paprika allows you to sync across multiple devices. But to store more than 50 recipes, you need to purchase the app. In addition, to use it on a desktop, you need to buy the paid Windows program. However, these prices are very affordable for a lifetime license.

Paprika has a bit of a learning curve and may be difficult for new users to use intuitively right away. Also, it has a basic, no-frills look that some people may dislike compared with sleeker-looking apps.

The eMeals app offers premade meal plans and syncs with popular grocery-delivery apps for streamlined grocery shopping. For busy families, its convenience can’t be beat.

My family has used eMeals in the past during busy seasons. I appreciated that I could choose as many meals as I wanted per week from a large assortment of recipes. I also liked that I could automatically import my grocery list directly to the Walmart app. An annual subscription is affordable too, at roughly $5 per month. Plus, eMeals allows you to add personal recipes and import recipes from the web.

However, the app provides limited customization options for the meals it offers, unless you’re already a proficient cook and you know how to make substitutions yourself. Also, it may be difficult to cancel the service if you choose to do so.

If more than one person in your household does the grocery shopping, AnyList is a good way to make sure everyone has the most up-to-date grocery list. The app allows you to create lists and organize recipes, and you can easily share your lists with other users in your household. AnyList Complete is a paid version that provides access to a suite of meal-planning tools. It also allows access to the AnyList web app for PC.

Editor Katie Tuttle and her household depend on this app to keep a running grocery list that she and her partner can view. “We use this app several times a week,” Tuttle says. “It’s a real lifesaver when my husband is at the store, and I suddenly remember I left an ingredient off the list. I also like that you can create categories (so, for example, we have a ‘Pets’ category for dog food and such).”

However, it’s easy to inadvertently tap the wrong item and remove it from the list. Learning to use the app also may be challenging for some people at first.

Mealime is a meal-planning app designed to help you create healthy meal plans tailored to your dietary needs and preferences. You can choose meals from its extensive menu of recipes, then build a shopping list based on the meals you choose.

Mealime offers a number of filters for food allergies, food intolerances, and specialized diets such as low-carb, flexitarian, pescetarian, and vegan. It also provides detailed nutrition information for every recipe.

The paid version, Mealime Pro, allows you to import your own recipes to create meal plans. However, the app can be buggy and difficult to use. Sometimes, the recipe instructions can be unclear or difficult to follow.