Weekly planning
How to plan a week of meals from recipes you already saved
Plan meals in a weekly calendar using recipes from your own library, then create the shopping list directly from that plan and share it with your household. The point of a meal planner is not the grid; it is that the plan produces the shopping and the shopping matches what you meant to cook.
What Palato does
- Plan meals in a weekly calendar and create shopping-list items from the plan.
- Organize saved recipes in custom lists and search the saved collection.
- Dinner Roulette supports a real-time group vote on items from the saved collection.
- Palato is available for iPhone and Android.
Step by step
Plan a week in Palato
- Build the library firstImport recipes from supported links, websites, photos, screenshots and notes so the plan draws on food you already want to eat.
- Fill the weekPlace recipes on days in the weekly calendar, or let the Smart Planner generate a plan from your planning settings.
- Generate the shopping listCreate shopping list items from the plan, then add anything else the household needs.
- Share itShare the plan and the list with your household so whoever reaches the shop first can do the shopping.
In detail
Why most meal plans fail in week two
Meal planning usually fails for an unglamorous reason: the plan is made from an idea of how you should eat rather than from food you have already decided you like. A week built out of aspirational recipes collapses the first evening somebody is tired.
The second failure is the gap between plan and shopping. If the list has to be written by hand afterwards, it will be written badly, or not at all.
Planning from your own collection
Palato plans meals in a weekly calendar and creates shopping list items from the plan, using the recipes you saved rather than a catalogue somebody else wrote.
The Smart Planner creates a week plan from your selected planning settings with a deterministic, rules-based algorithm. It does not use AI or a language model, which means the plan is predictable and you can adjust the settings and try again without guessing what changed.
The shopping list is the deliverable
Shopping list items can be added manually or from planned meals, checked off, combined where supported, and shared. Combining is the difference between one line for onions and four.
Because supported offline changes are queued for synchronisation after connectivity returns, ticking items off in a basement supermarket still works.
When the household has opinions
Household management supports invitations, shared planning, shared shopping lists and membership controls, so the plan is not one person's private document.
Dinner Roulette supports a real-time group vote on items from the saved collection, for the evenings when the plan needs to be abandoned honestly rather than silently.
Common questions
- Does the meal planner use AI?
- No. The Smart Planner uses a deterministic, rules-based algorithm on your selected planning settings. It does not use AI or a language model. Palato does use AI for recipe import and, after ten saved recipes, for a personalised suggestion.
- Does the shopping list build itself from the plan?
- Yes. Shopping list items can be created from planned meals, and further items can be added manually.
- Can two people edit the same plan?
- Yes. A household can share a recipe library, meal plans and shopping lists, with invitations and membership controls.
- Can I see nutrition information for a planned week?
- Recipe details can show calculated or estimated nutrition information. It is general information, not medical or dietary advice.
Explore Palato
Get your kitchen into one app.
Free to start. Import, plan, shop, and share with your household, on iPhone and Android.