Housekeepa Help - Meal Planning

Meal Planning

Advanced meal planning with multi-meal support, AI classification, and automatic distribution. Plan breakfast, main meals, and secondary meals while coordinating with your household inventory to reduce food waste.

Quick Start

  1. 1 Navigate to desired week using arrows
  2. 2 Drag meals from available list or click day to add
  3. 3 Coordinate with inventory to use items before expiry

Key Features

  • Multi-meal planning: Breakfast, main meals, and secondary meals
  • Auto-distribute: Automatically assign meals based on expiry dates
  • AI classification: Smart meal role suggestions (main dish, side, etc.)
  • Portions tracking: Automatically reduces inventory when meals are planned
  • Defrost notifications: Alerts for frozen items that need defrosting
  • Drag-and-drop: Intuitive meal scheduling interface

Calendar Navigation

Navigate through weeks easily with our intuitive controls:

Previous Week
Use the left arrow or click the previous week button
Next Week
Use the right arrow or click the next week button
Today
Jump to current week with the Today button
Day Navigation
Use up/down arrows to move day by day

Managing Meals

Plan and organise your meals efficiently:

Adding Meals

  • Click on any day in the calendar
  • Enter meal name and details
  • Add ingredients from inventory

Editing Meals

  • Click existing meal to edit
  • Remove meals from plan or reschedule
  • Drag and drop to move meals

Best Practices for Caregivers

  • Plan meals around store cupboard items that are approaching their expiry dates to minimize waste

  • Use drag-and-drop to quickly move meals between days when schedules change

  • Coordinate meal planning with other caregivers and family members for better household management

  • Plan weekly menus in advance to streamline grocery shopping and food preparation

Multi-Meal Planning

Plan multiple meals per day with our advanced multi-meal system:

🌅 Breakfast

Start the day right with breakfast planning. Perfect for cereals, yogurts, and morning treats.

🍽️ Main Meals

Plan lunch and dinner with ready meals, ingredients, and complete dishes.

🍎 Secondary

Add snacks, sides, and supplementary items to complete your meal planning.

How to Use Multi-Meal Planning:

  1. 1 Drag items from your inventory to specific meal slots (breakfast, main, or secondary)
  2. 2 Items are automatically classified by AI to suggest the best meal type
  3. 3 Portions are automatically tracked and reduced from your inventory
  4. 4 View your complete daily meal plan with all components organized

Auto-Distribute (Admin Only)

Let Housekeepa automatically plan your meals based on expiry dates to minimize food waste:

Smart Meal Distribution

How it works:

  • • Prioritizes items closest to expiry
  • • Distributes one meal per day across the week
  • • Automatically reduces portions from inventory
  • • Respects existing meal plans

Benefits:

  • • Reduces food waste significantly
  • • Saves time on meal planning
  • • Uses items before they expire
  • • Creates balanced weekly schedules

💡 Tip: Use Auto-Distribute at the start of each week, then manually adjust or add additional meals as needed.

AI Meal Classification

Housekeepa uses AI to suggest the best meal roles for your inventory items:

🍖

Main Dish

Primary protein or complete meals

🥗

Side Dish

Vegetables, salads, accompaniments

🍞

Carbohydrate

Rice, pasta, bread, potatoes

🍎

Snack

Fruits, treats, light bites

🤖 Smart Suggestions: The AI learns from your corrections and becomes more accurate over time. You can always override suggestions and teach the system your preferences.