Best apps · Meal planning
The 5 best AI meal planner apps in 2026.
An AI meal planner should do the part you dread: deciding what to cook all week around everyone's tastes, the budget and what's already in the fridge. The apps that promise it work very differently, and "AI" means different things on each. Here's what each one actually does.
By Hedgehog Chef · · 5-minute read
The short answer
Hedgehog Chef is our pick for households: its AI planner drafts the week from your own saved recipes, pantry and budget, and changes nothing until you approve. Samsung Food+ makes tailored AI plans from a 240,000-recipe catalog, Ollie writes recipes for your family with AI, and Prospre and Eat This Much generate plans to exact calorie and macro targets (they describe their generators as software and algorithms rather than AI).
- 1. Hedgehog Chef: best for planning from your own recipes, pantry and budget
- 2. Samsung Food: best for AI plans from a huge recipe catalog
- 3. Ollie: best for AI-written recipes for a family, with little setup
- 4. Prospre: best for hitting exact macros with your own recipes
- 5. Eat This Much: best for automatic plans to a calorie target
At a glance
| App | Best for | Price | Without paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Hedgehog Chef | Best for: planning from your own recipes, pantry and budget | Price: Hedgehog Chef Plus ($5.99/month or $49.99/year, on sale soon), for the whole household | Without paying: A 14-day free trial with everything, no card needed; no free plan after it |
| 2. Samsung Food | Best for: AI plans from a huge recipe catalog | Price: Samsung Food+: $6.99/month or $59.99/year | Without paying: Free with ads: recipes, a meal planner (3 saved plans) and a shopping list |
| 3. Ollie | Best for: AI-written recipes for a family, with little setup | Price: Monthly or yearly; prices are shown in the app, not on the website | Without paying: A one-month trial that needs a payment method; no free plan found |
| 4. Prospre | Best for: hitting exact macros with your own recipes | Price: Pro: $9.99–$14.99/month or $49.99–$79.99/year in the App Store | Without paying: Generated plans with limits, and ads on Android |
| 5. Eat This Much | Best for: automatic plans to a calorie target | Price: Premium: $59.99/year ($5/month) or $14.99 month to month | Without paying: One day's meal plan at a time, food tracking and custom recipes |
How we chose
We make Hedgehog Chef, so it's first on this list: that's our bias, stated up front, and its cons are as honest as everyone else's. The other apps are in the order we'd suggest them for this job. Everything we say about them comes from their own websites, help pages and app-store listings, checked on October 13, 2026 and linked at the end, and each entry says who should pick it instead of ours. We left out store ratings, which change daily.
What we looked at:
- Where the recipes come from: yours, a catalog, or written by AI
- What it plans around: tastes, diet, budget, what's in the fridge, nutrition targets
- Whether you stay in control: review before anything changes
- Whether it plans for a household or one person
- What it costs, and what's free
The apps
Our app
1. Hedgehog Chef
Best for planning from your own recipes, pantry and budget
Hedgehog Chef's planner uses Claude, an AI model from Anthropic, and works from what's already in your kitchen: your saved recipes, your pantry and expiry dates, grocery prices and the week's plan. Ask "plan a week of high-protein dinners under $150" or "use up the spinach before Friday" and it proposes a plan and a shopping list as cards you can review, edit and apply. Nothing changes until you approve. When your recipes run short it can write new ones, and every plan is checked against the household's allergies and diets (with a reminder to check labels yourself).
You get 60 questions a day, and one setting turns every AI feature off for a person. Hedgehog Chef has no free plan: every kitchen starts with a 14-day free trial with everything included and no card, then Hedgehog Chef Plus ($5.99/month or $49.99/year, on sale soon) covers the whole household.
Pros
- An AI planner: ask for “a week of high-protein dinners under $150” and it proposes a plan and a list from your recipes, for you to approve
- Uses your pantry, expiry dates and prices, so plans use food up and fit a budget
- You review every change before it's applied
- Up to 8 people, each with their own login, on one subscription
- Works with Claude: save, search, plan and shop by talking to it
Cons
- Works best once you've saved some recipes; it can suggest new ones, but there's no big catalog to browse
- Not a macro-tracking diet app: it shows nutrition but doesn't log what you eat
- No free plan: after the 14-day free trial it's Hedgehog Chef Plus ($5.99/month or $49.99/year, on sale soon)
- New: launched in 2026, so it doesn't have years of track record yet
- Platforms
- Any web browser, installable as an app on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and Chromebook
- Price
- Hedgehog Chef Plus ($5.99/month or $49.99/year, on sale soon), for the whole household
- Without paying
- A 14-day free trial with everything, no card needed; no free plan after it
2. Samsung Food
Best for AI plans from a huge recipe catalog
Samsung Food's Food+ subscription adds tailored AI meal plans, built from its catalog of more than 240,000 recipes and your preferences, plus a "Use It Up" feature for your Food List. The free tier has a weekly planner you fill yourself, with ads.
Pros
- Tailored AI plans with Food+
- Huge catalog with nutrition scores
- Grocery ordering through 23 retailers
- Free tier for manual planning
Cons
- AI plans need Food+ ($6.99/month or $59.99/year)
- Ads on the free tier
- Many recipes open on the creator's site
- Platforms
- iPhone and Android apps, the web, and Samsung Family Hub fridges
- Price
- Samsung Food+: $6.99/month or $59.99/year
- Without paying
- Free with ads: recipes, a meal planner (3 saved plans) and a shopping list
3. Ollie
Best for AI-written recipes for a family, with little setup
Ollie learns your family's tastes from a few questions, then plans weekly meals with recipes "written just for you using AI", builds an aisle-sorted grocery list, and can send it to Instacart or Amazon Fresh. You can also snap your fridge for meal ideas.
Prices aren't on its website, the trial needs a payment method, and the company now leads with a separate texting assistant, so weigh the meals app's long-term focus.
Pros
- Fully AI-generated plans and recipes for a family
- Grocery ordering in a few taps
- Fridge-photo meal ideas
Cons
- No published prices; the trial needs a card
- Recipes are AI-written, not tested; we couldn't find a way to add your own
- The company's focus has moved to another product
- Platforms
- iPhone and Android
- Price
- Monthly or yearly; prices are shown in the app, not on the website
- Without paying
- A one-month trial that needs a payment method; no free plan found
4. Prospre
Best for hitting exact macros with your own recipes
Prospre generates a week of meals to any calorie, protein, fat and carb targets, with different targets per day, from your own recipes, imported ones or its library. It has a food diary with barcode scanning, and Pro adds an "AI Coach" that adjusts targets from your weigh-ins and logs. It also connects to Claude and ChatGPT.
Pros
- Exact macro targets, including cycling
- Plans from your own recipes
- Planner, tracker and grocery list together
- An AI Coach in Pro
Cons
- Built for one person's macros; no household support found
- Ads on Android's free tier
- iPhone only, no iPad app
- Platforms
- iPhone, Android and the web
- Price
- Pro: $9.99–$14.99/month or $49.99–$79.99/year in the App Store
- Without paying
- Generated plans with limits, and ads on Android
5. Eat This Much
Best for automatic plans to a calorie target
Eat This Much has generated meal plans to calorie and macro targets for years, with diets, allergy filters and per-day targets. Its own pages credit "our algorithms" rather than AI. Free accounts plan a day at a time; Premium plans the week, builds the grocery list and tracks a pantry.
Pros
- Mature, precise target-driven planning
- Usable free tier
- Grocery delivery integrations
Cons
- Weekly plans need Premium
- Mostly its own recipe database
- One plan scaled up for families
- Platforms
- iPhone, Android and the web
- Price
- Premium: $59.99/year ($5/month) or $14.99 month to month
- Without paying
- One day's meal plan at a time, food tracking and custom recipes
How to choose
Start with the recipes. If your household has favorites and you want the week built from them, pick a planner that uses your recipes: Hedgehog Chef, or Prospre if the goal is macros. If you'd rather be handed new recipes, Samsung Food+ draws on a large catalog and Ollie writes them for you.
Then check control. AI makes mistakes, so prefer planners that show you the plan before it changes your week, and always check allergens yourself.
Questions
What is the best AI meal planner?
For a household cooking its own recipes, Hedgehog Chef: it plans from your recipes, pantry and budget and asks before changing anything. For AI-written recipes, Ollie. For a catalog, Samsung Food+. For macros, Prospre or Eat This Much.
Can ChatGPT or Claude make a meal plan?
Yes, but a chat window doesn't know your recipes, pantry or prices, and its list doesn't sync to anyone's phone. Hedgehog Chef connects to Claude, so Claude can read and add to your actual kitchen; Prospre has a similar connector for macro tracking.
Is there a free AI meal planner?
Samsung Food's free tier lets you plan by hand; its AI plans need Food+. Eat This Much and Prospre generate plans for free with limits. Hedgehog Chef and Ollie offer trials.
Are AI meal plans safe for allergies?
Treat them as drafts. Filters help, but AI can be wrong. Check every recipe's ingredients for allergens yourself before you cook.
Sources, checked on October 13, 2026:
- What's in Samsung Food+
- Samsung Food meal planner (help)
- Samsung Food Food List (help)
- Samsung Food on the App Store
- Ollie meal planning
- Ollie FAQ
- Ollie for Meals on Google Play
- Prospre
- Prospre support
- Prospre mobile app
- Prospre on the App Store
- Eat This Much pricing
- Eat This Much FAQ
- What Eat This Much Premium includes (help)
Samsung Food, Ollie, Prospre, Eat This Much are trademarks of their owners (Samsung Food: Samsung Electronics; Ollie: Confabulation Corporation; Prospre: Prospre Nutrition Inc.; Eat This Much: Eat This Much, Inc.). Hedgehog Chef isn't affiliated with or endorsed by any of them. Prices are in US dollars as listed on the day we checked, and change; app-store prices can differ from website prices.
Spotted something out of date or wrong? Tell us at hello@hedgehogchef.com and we'll fix it.