Mela β Better recipe organising and meal planning π±
For years, Iβve had to stay organised with meal planning to cook for a family of five. Weekly planning is essential to avoid repeating the same dishes too often and to keep meal times stress-free. Until recently, I managed everything with a mix of Obsidian to keep track of recipes and some manual effort to handle shopping lists and planning.
While Obsidian was great for organising recipes, it came with a few quirks. For example, adding ingredients to our shopping list had to be done manually. And if my girlfriend was cooking, I also had to make sure she had access to the right recipes. Managing these details became more tedious as life got busier.
Then, I found Mela, a modern recipe and meal planning app designed for iOS and macOS, created by Silvio Rizzi.
Silvio Rizzi also created Reeder, the RSS app I use daily to stay on top of everything Iβm interested in, so I knew that UX and UI-wise Mela would be pleasant to use.
Mela has quickly transformed my process of cooking and meal planning. Now, I can save recipes directly from the web, scan them in, or add my own. Each saved recipe gets stripped from possible ads and other clutter, only showing the required ingredients and cookings steps.
For easy retrieval, you can tag recipes, like I do with a few items as main ingredient (pasta, potatoes, β¦), type (hot, soup, dessert, β¦), and time to quickly find what I need.
Where Mela really shines is via its Calendar and Reminders integration.
Each weekend when I do my meal planning I can assign a recipe to its calendar which automatically makes it appear in our family calendar. Each calendar entry links back to the recipe, simplifying prep for whoever is cooking that day.
Resource - mela.recipes
Additionally, for each meal I plan, I can push all groceries to our Reminders list, making grocery shopping much easier.
Mela is intuitive and budget-friendly, making it a perfect fit for our familyβs meal planning needs.
If youβre looking for a way to simplify meal planning, Mela might be the app you didnβt know you needed.
The app is available for $ 4.99 on iOS and $ 9.99 on macOS.