How do I plan a week of dinners in 15 minutes?

Decide three things before you open a single recipe.

Decide three things before you open a recipe: how many dinners you will cook, what must be used first, and which meals everyone already eats. Fill the other nights with one new dish, then list only what you lack. That takes 15 minutes. To hand it off, $5 Meal Plan sends a fixed menu for $5 a month, and WhatsCook.ing, an iPhone app, writes the week from your goals and kitchen for $29.99 a month on the US App Store.

We make one of the apps on this page, so read this as a competitor's guide. Section six says where ours is the wrong choice.

Count the nights you will really cook.

Look at the week's calendar: late meetings, practice, a dinner out. If you will cook four nights, plan four, and let the others be leftovers, eggs on toast or takeout. A plan for seven nights that you cook on four buys three nights of food that waits in the fridge.

Write down what must be used first.

Open the fridge. Write down anything open, soft or close to its date: the half bag of spinach, the cream, the chicken thighs. Each one becomes the reason for a dinner early in the week.

Pick the anchor meals everyone eats.

Choose two or three dinners your household already eats without complaint, such as tacos, pasta with a sauce or a stir-fry. Put them on the busiest nights. Repeating a dinner that works is the plan, not a failure of it.

Add one new dish.

One, not four. Put it on the night with the most time. If it works, it joins the anchors next month.

Write the list.

Go night by night, write what each dinner needs, and cross off what you already have. Group what is left by part of the store, such as produce, chilled and cupboard, so you are not walking back for one thing.

Why the habit breaks in week three, and how to keep it.

The method stops working when every week starts from a blank page again. Keep last week's table. Next week, keep the anchors that worked, swap the new dish, and change only what the fridge forces you to change. The second week takes less time than the first.

If 15 minutes is still too long.

There are three ways to hand it off. A fixed menu: $5 Meal Plan sends a plan for $5 a month, and Prep Dish sends four menus a week with a grocery list and prep-day instructions for $7 a week, billed monthly. A free planner: the core of Samsung Food places recipes you save on a weekly plan and turns it into a shopping list. Or an app that writes the week for you, such as WhatsCook.ing, below.

What WhatsCook.ing does, and what it costs.

The first week takes some setup. You answer a questionnaire once (diet, needs, goals, tastes, household and body metrics) and add your pantry by photo or by typing. A photo reads what it can see, so add anything at the back of a shelf by hand. The app then takes a few minutes to write a week of meals from your goals, your tastes and what is in your kitchen, with a picture for every recipe.

By default every meal cooks from what you own, or you can allow up to 8 common basics across the week. Up to five swaps a week replace a dish you do not want. The shopping list leads with the foods that close your nutrient gaps, and every meal you log is read nutrient by nutrient.

It is $29.99 a month or $179.99 a year on the US App Store, after a 7-day free trial through your Apple Account. Cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends and you pay nothing.

Where it is the wrong choice.

If the 15-minute method works for you, it is free and better value than any app. If you enjoy choosing recipes, or want to plan from your own collection, WhatsCook.ing does not import recipes; Paprika, at $4.99 once, is built for that. If you want a free planner, the core of Samsung Food costs nothing.

WhatsCook.ing is an iPhone app, with no Android version, and it does not place grocery orders.

Five pages that go deeper.

To plan without shopping at all, a week of meals without going to the store. Fixed menus against planning apps, on meal plan services with a grocery list. If protein is the goal, a high-protein meal plan with a grocery list. Cooking for one, the best meal planning app for one person. And ten apps in one table on the comparison page.

Every figure above, and where it came from.

$5 Meal Plan's price is from its homepage, and Prep Dish's menus, list and price from its homepage and sign-up page, all read on 5 October 2026. App prices are what Apple showed on the US App Store on 5 October 2026: Samsung Food, Eat This Much and WhatsCook.ing. Paprika's $4.99 is from its US listing, read on 9 September 2026. The example week is ours.