Meal Planning Apps With a Shopping List: Which UK Apps Actually Merge Your Ingredients
By Alex Fahey, founder of Chop it. Last updated 16 August 2026. App prices checked on the UK App Store on 5 August 2026.
Pick four recipes for the week. A bolognese, a curry, a soup and a traybake. Three of them want an onion and one wants two. The list your app hands you should say "5 onions". Plenty of them say "1 onion", "1 onion", "1 onion", "2 onions" on four separate lines, and leave the adding up to you in aisle three.
That is the difference between a shopping list feature and a shopping list that works. Every app in this category claims one. They are not doing the same thing, and the gap only shows up once you are standing in a supermarket.
Three jobs separate them, so I have gone through each of the main UK options against all three. If you want the wider comparison covering recipes, planning and price, that is in the full guide to UK meal planning apps.
The three jobs a shopping list has to do
Merging. Combining the same ingredient across several recipes into one line with the right total. This sounds trivial and is the thing most apps do worst, because it means understanding that "1 onion, diced", "1 large onion" and "2 onions, finely sliced" are the same shopping item.
Sorting. Putting the list in the order you walk the shop. Produce together, dairy together, freezer last. A list in recipe order sends you back across the store four times.
Pantry awareness. Leaving off the things you already own. You have salt. You have olive oil. You almost certainly have rice. An app that adds them every week trains you to ignore your own list, which defeats the purpose.
Most apps do one of these well, some do two. Very few do all three.
How each app handles it
Cherrypick
The most complete answer if you shop at one of three supermarkets. Your plan becomes an actual basket at Sainsbury's, Tesco or Asda, with real prices, so merging is not a display problem but a purchasing one: the basket contains a quantity of onions, priced. You can scan your fridge and cupboard so it skips what you own, which is the strongest pantry feature in this group.
The catch is the retailer list. Shop at Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons or Waitrose and the main reason to use it is gone. Some features are limited to Sainsbury's.
Price: free tier; Plus £3.49 a month, Pro £6.99 a month, both 25% off until 4 September 2026.
Chop it
This one is mine. Merging across the week was the reason the shopping list got built the way it did, so ingredients are stored as structured quantities rather than lines of text, and four recipes wanting onions produce one line with the total. Recipes can come from a website, a photographed cookbook page, a social video or something written in ChatGPT, and they all merge the same way once they are in.
Pantry awareness works from the other direction too: add what you have, or photograph a veg box or a shop, and plan from those ingredients rather than against them.
The limitation: iPhone only, no Android, and it is a newer product than most on this list.
Price: free to start; Pro £3.99 a month or £34.99 a year.
Mealime
Mealime's list is the cleanest to actually shop from. It merges properly, sorts by aisle without being asked, and the whole thing is designed around getting you out of the shop quickly. For a straightforward week of quick dinners, it is hard to beat and the free tier covers it.
Where it stops: there is no pantry. It does not know or care what you already own, so oil, stock and staples reappear every week and you learn to skim past them.
Price: free; Meal Planner Pro £2.99 a month, the cheapest paid tier in this comparison.
Samsung Food
The most capable free list here. Save recipes from anywhere, drop them onto a week, and get a merged list across iOS, Android and a genuine web app without paying. For a household where one person plans on a laptop and another shops on Android, that combination is unusual at no cost.
Merging is generally reliable. Pantry handling exists but is lighter than Cherrypick's or Chop it's. The product has grown broad enough that finding things takes longer than it should.
Price: free core; £6.99 a month or £59.99 a year for premium.
AnyList
The best shared list, and that is a different job from the best generated list. Two people can edit the same list at once, in the shop and at home, and it updates immediately. If your problem is coordination rather than compilation, nothing else here is close, and £14.99 a year covers the whole household.
Recipes and meal planning exist and feed the list, though they are thinner than the dedicated planners. No pantry awareness.
Price: free; Complete £9.99 a year individual, £14.99 a year household.
Plan to Eat
A well-organised list grouped by aisle, generated from a calendar that is the nicest to use in this group. Merging is solid. It suits households cooking from a fixed set of their own recipes rather than discovering new ones.
Two things to know before committing: there is no free tier after the 14-day trial, and the app was built for a US audience, so some ingredient names and conventions need translating.
Price: £49.99 a year after a 14-day trial.
Paprika 3
Paprika builds a list from whatever recipes you have clipped, grouped into categories, and does it competently. The appeal is the payment model rather than the list: £4.99 as a one-off iOS purchase, with other platforms sold separately, which over three years undercuts every subscription here.
No pantry awareness, and no supermarket connection. It organises what you bring it.
Price: £4.99 one time on iOS. Desktop apps sold separately.
Which to pick
| If your problem is | Use |
|---|---|
| Knowing what the week costs before you buy it | Cherrypick |
| Recipes arriving from cookbooks, websites, social and AI | Chop it |
| Getting through a shop quickly, for free | Mealime |
| A free list that works on iPhone, Android and web | Samsung Food |
| Two people shopping from one list | AnyList |
| Never paying a subscription again | Paprika 3 |
Two things worth doing whichever app you choose
Check the merge on your first week. Plan four recipes that share an ingredient and look at what comes out. You will know within thirty seconds whether the app is combining quantities or listing them separately, and it is better to find out before you have built a habit around it.
Tell it what you already own. In the apps that support a pantry, ten minutes adding your staples once removes about a third of every subsequent list. In the apps that do not, keep a short mental list of the categories you never need to buy and skim past them.
The list is the part of meal planning that touches your actual week. A plan you never shopped for is a nice document. Get the list right and the rest tends to follow, so try the quick weeknight recipes with whichever app you pick and see what its list does with them.
Frequently asked questions
Which meal planning app has the best shopping list in the UK? It depends which job you need done. Cherrypick turns the list into a priced basket at Sainsbury's, Tesco or Asda. AnyList is the best shared list for a household. Mealime produces the cleanest aisle-sorted list on a free tier. Chop it is built around merging ingredients from recipes that arrived from different sources.
Do meal planning apps combine duplicate ingredients? The good ones do, and it is worth checking rather than assuming. Plan four recipes that each use onions and look at whether the list gives you one line with the total or four separate lines. Apps that store ingredients as structured quantities handle this more reliably than apps storing them as text.
Is there a free meal planning app with a shopping list? Yes. Samsung Food has the strongest free tier, covering saving, planning and a merged list across iOS, Android and web. Mealime's free tier is usable on its own. AnyList and Cherrypick both have free versions, and Chop it is free to start.
Can I share a shopping list with my partner? AnyList is built around this and does it best, with real-time editing for a household at £14.99 a year. Samsung Food supports sharing too. Most other apps here assume one person doing the shop.
Prices verified on 5 August 2026 from UK App Store listings and in-app subscription screens. Subscription pricing changes often, so check the current listing before buying.