How to Create a Weekly Meal Plan

Your Weekly Plan is a freeform canvas, not a rigid calendar grid. There are no fixed Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner slots to fill—you build the week the way you actually cook. The full plan, shop, and cook loop is free forever, with no ads.

Already onboarded? Your first week is done for you. During setup, PrepSmart's first-week planner seeds your Weekly Plan and Recipe Box before you ever see a price—so you can open the Plan tab and start from a head start, not a blank page.

What's on the Canvas: Meal Tiles

Your Weekly Plan is made of Meal Tiles—labeled workspaces you name yourself. Instead of "Tuesday Dinner," you might make a tile called "Taco Tuesday," "Meal-Prep Sunday," or "Date Night." Drop one recipe or several into a tile; it's your space to organize the week however it makes sense to you.

Step 1: Open the Plan Tab

Tap the Plan tab at the bottom of your app to open your Weekly Plan canvas. If you just finished onboarding, your seeded tiles and recipes are already here.

Step 2: Add a Meal Tile

Tap + Add Meal Tile and give it a name—anything you like ("Taco Tuesday," "Quick Weeknights," "Leftover Remix"). The label is yours; there are no required days or meal types.

Step 3: Add Recipes to a Tile

Open a tile and add recipes from:

• Recipe Box: recipes you've already saved
• Explore: discover new recipes and creators
• Food World: your personalized, diet-filtered universe of recipes and creators

Everything you see is shaped by your Food World—your diet is the organizing principle, so suggestions already fit what you can eat (your YES list). You can pull in your Starter Recipes (the free diet-matched set included with every account), recipes from creators, brands, stores, and appliances you follow, plus the 3 free recipes you get from every creator you follow (yours to keep, forever).

Step 4: Set Servings

Each tile has a servings control with options for 2, 4, or 6—4 by default. Set it to match who you're feeding:

• Adjust servings per tile (everything in that tile scales together), or
• Adjust an individual recipe inside a tile

Recipe ingredient amounts—and your shopping list—auto-scale to the servings you pick. Cooking just for yourself one night? Drop that tile or recipe to a smaller count and the quantities follow.

Step 5: Build Out Your Week

Add as many tiles as you want, and leave room where you want it—there's no obligation to fill a grid. A takeout night just means no tile. Want to reuse a recipe across two tiles? Go for it.

To keep a recipe for later, save it to your Recipe Box so it's one tap away next time.

Step 6: Your Smart Shopping List Builds Itself

You don't generate a list as a separate step—your Smart Shopping List is auto-aggregated from your Meal Tiles. It:

• Combines ingredients across every tile and removes duplicates
• Organizes items by aisle, and is store-aware
• Scales quantities to each tile's servings
• Cascades on edits—change a recipe, swap a tile, or adjust servings, and the list updates itself

You can still tweak the list by hand—add, remove, or adjust anything before you shop.

Sending it to Instacart? Instacart export is in development and works as a handoff: you export and hand off your shopping list to shop there. It's not a one-tap or live checkout.

Step 7: Cook

When it's time to cook, open your Cook List to work through the recipes in your plan. Cooking for a household? Flex Steps let you divide cooking tasks across the people helping, so one pass gets more done with many hands.

Tips for Better Planning

Lean on your Food World. Because diet is the organizing principle, your suggestions already match what you can eat. Change your diet anytime—it's non-destructive, and nothing is deleted.

Mix your creators. Follow a few different creators (following is always free) to keep tiles fresh—some are great for fast weeknights, others for weekend cooking. You get 3 free recipes from every creator you follow, kept forever.

Name tiles by occasion, not by clock. "Taco Tuesday" and "Big Batch Sunday" are easier to plan around than rigid time slots.

Right-size servings up front. Setting 2 / 4 / 6 (default 4) per tile keeps your Smart Shopping List accurate so you don't over- or under-buy.

Want More? (Optional Upgrades)

The core plan-shop-cook loop is free forever. Two independent upgrades are available if you want them—add either, both, or neither:

• PrepSmart+ ($4.99/mo or $39.99/yr, with a 7-day free trial): Save & reload any week, Import any recipe, Shop smarter, and One pass, many hands.
• Creator subscriptions: unlock a creator's full catalog beyond your 3 free recipes. Each creator sets their own price (most around $2.99–$9.99/mo), decided in-app. This is separate from PrepSmart+—you never need PrepSmart+ to subscribe to a creator. Follow is always free; Subscribe is the paid step.

Need Help?

If something in your Weekly Plan or Smart Shopping List isn't behaving, reach out to support. If you can't find recipes that fit, check the diet guides section—or explore more creators to grow your Food World.