I’ve been using Pepperplate for a few weeks now for meal planning and grocery list making, but I’m finding my initial enthusiasm about the website has waned a bit. There are definitely some things I love, and some things that are a bit frustrating. I think actually more than anything it has encouraged me to create something on my own that does exactly what I need. I’m also open to some other suggestions if you have any!
I think this is the longest stretch of meal planning and food prep I’ve done in my life. It’s part necessity – we were eating out too often and need to stick to a budget, and also part hobby because I like to cook and try new recipes. I also have a schedule now that allows for more hours in the day for food prep.
Right now my schedule is loosely meal plan on Wednesdays and grocery shopping on Fridays. Throughout the week if I see a recipe I like, I save it to Pepperplate and add it in when I create a schedule.
Some pros and cons of Pepperplate:
Pros:
- Smoothly imports recipes from other websites
- Easily creates a grocery shopping list from your recipes
- Easily creates a weekly/monthly meal plan or full menu
- Easy scaling of recipes to increase or decrease servings
- FREE!
- No ads
Cons:
- The app doesn’t work on my (new-ish) Galaxy S6. This is INCREDIBLY frustrating and the main reason I’m looking for something different. I would love to take my grocery list or recipes on the go.
- No ability to share meal plans with family/friends. I’d love to be able to easily send the week’s meal plan to my wife.
- No recipe suggestions or meal suggestion on the website itself. This is a huge selling point of other websites, even paid sites.
And now a few recipes I’ve tried lately that I really like. My main rules for recipes is that they need to be easily made in 30 minutes or less. Contain no wheat (wife and son cannot eat wheat), or be easily modifiable to be wheat-free, and contain no beef/pork as I don’t eat beef or pork. Also, that they contain some vegetables and are at least somewhat appealing to a 2.5 year old.
30 Minute Skillet Pasta Primavera (I used gluten free penne, next time I’ll use gluten free elbow macaroni)
Skinny Shrimp Scampi with Zucchini Noodles ( I used Trader Joes frozen cooked jumbo shrimp and they were great!)
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