Ultimate Meal Planner

Explore

This Meal Planner is an ingredient tracker, grocery list builder, meal planner, and recipe organizer in one.

ā€‹

I have struggled to find an app that does everything I want so to Airtable I went.

ā€‹

ā€‹

Recipe Organizer

ā€‹

Grid View

The primary list. When adding a lot of recipes at once, this is the easiest place to add and quickly categorize them.

ā€‹

Gallery

This is a gallery view of ALL recipes that shows a few of the recipes and the last time it was made. This is a helpful view when looking for the old favorites.

ā€‹

Plan

This view ONLY shows recipes that have a Meal Plan date that is the current day or later. Once your meal plan is built, this is where you get your weekly/monthly overview. You have the power to plan however far ahead!

ā€‹

New

This are recipes that have not yet been used in a meal plan.

ā€‹

By Type

This is a Kanban view that organizes it by dish type.

ā€‹

By Region

This is a Kanban view that organizes by region.

ā€‹

Notes

When I add a recipe I add the demo picture if available, then try and remember to take a picture when I actually made this. (I'm pretty terrible, and when I do they're terrible. I have a two year old so getting meals made is an accomplishment in itself, no time for perfect photo shoots!)

I use Misfits Market for produce, so sometimes my produce is a grab bag, but it's very easy to mix and match veggies, so if I alter a recipe a bit, I'll leave notes about the different way I plated. Or if I made tacos instead of sandwiches, or flatbreads instead of a saladā€¦ gotta keep it interesting.

And oh yeah, I'm a vegetarian. But no worries, you can easily add your own categories to include meat.

ā€‹

Ingredient Organizer

Okay, this can sound overwhelming, but it's not that bad if you just add the ingredients as you add recipes, then before you know it, your entire kitchen cabinets are in your food cabinet.

ā€‹

Full View

Every single item, every single field. Fully unfiltered, ungrouped, the full grocery store. Customize the categories to your liking. I know "Savory Fruit" is confusing. We all know tomatoes and avocados are fruits, but they don't really go there, so this is what I came upšŸ¤·šŸ¼ā€ā™€ļø

> The most important part to remember is STATUS.

Status determines what shows up in the rest of these views.

  • On Hand - things you have in stock.
  • En Route, MM - things that are on the way from Misfits Market. I get my boxes on Thursdays so I know anything in this category I won't have until Thursday, so I can't use those in my meal plan until later in the week.
  • En Route, other - things that I have already ordered whether it's dry goods being shipped or a curbside order I'm waiting to be fulfilled. I often schedule curbside a couple of days in advance.
  • Restock - things I am out of.
  • **In Cart **- things that are in a grocery cart but is not yet processed (in other words, status subject to change)
  • Prepare - ingredients I need to prep ahead of time. Cooking beans from dry, making sauces to freeze, condiments such as chili garlic sauce and ketchup, spice blends, grains, etc.
  • **Out of season **- ingredients I won't be getting soon, but don't want to delete from the list.
  • Not needed - not out of season, but not on the list either.

ā€‹

Grocery List

Anything marked as "Restock". When you're making something and run out, switch the status to restock, and next time you go to make your online grocery list, BAM, here you go. If you want to turn this into a printable grocery list, I recommend adding an "aisle" field to the master and make sure it's in this view for sorting that makes more sense. Being a mom to a toddler during the pandemic, I plan to do curbside pickup for the rest of my life.

ā€‹

Available Ingredients

This Kanban view organizes "On Hand" ingredients by their location. (fridge, pantry, freezer, etc) (And yes, I have a garden, but it's mostly peppers, don't be too impressed)

ā€‹

Ingredient Status

This Kanban view organizes all ingredients by status. This is where I can easily see the ingredients that I won't have until later in the week.

ā€‹

Prep

List of items that I need to prep over the weekend.

Explore
Updated May 17, 2021 at 1:48 PM
Copied 99 times

Bethany Curran

I have loved databases since I was learning HTML back in the Xanga days. There was a massive void in my life after Bento was discontinued, but alas, AirTable has filled that gaping hole.
Explore the base
Grocery List
Full View
Available Ingredients
Ingredient Status
Prep
Grid view
Gallery
Plan
New
By Type
By Region