Unless you have a passion for cooking or an unlimited budget for dining out, putting food in your body can feel like a Herculean task.
With busy schedules, dietary restrictions, burnout, cost barriers, food insecurity, and all the varied, messy, personal relationships we each have with food, meal planning and prepping often take a backseat.
But our bodies need fuel! And food is too good to miss out on.
To make it a bit easier, we’ve compiled some of our favorite resources dedicated to removing some of the big hurdles surrounding mealtime.
By the way, some of the links in this article (like books!) are affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!
Influencers who make mealtime easier
@epicuriousexpeditions
Carolyn of @epicuriousexpeditions. Photo courtesy of @epicuriousexpeditions/Instagram
Carolyn of @epicuriousexpeditions is an Instagram and YouTube content creator dedicated to celebrating food and culture.
But one special offering by Carolyn is her disability-friendly meal tutorials. These videos feature simplified prep steps and consider people who need to cook from a seated position, folks with limited time and energy, and a myriad of other accessibility solutions.
@dollartreedinners
Rebecca Chobat of Dollar Tree Dinners. Photo courtesy of @dtdinners/Instagram
Dollar Tree Dinners (@dollartreedinners on TikTok and YouTube, @dtdinners on Instagram) by Rebecca Chobat is a platform that provides mouthwatering inspiration, tutorials, and shopping guidance for extremely affordable meals.
She gets a majority of her ingredients from Dollar Tree and even challenges herself to stretch a $100 budget across 20 days, showing millions of followers how to dine right without breaking the bank.
@yummytoddlerfood
Amy Palanjian of @yummytoddlerfood. Photo courtesy of Yummy Toddler Food
Amy Palanjian, the brain behind @yummytoddlerfood, offers over 1 million Instagram followers tips, tricks, recipes, and compassion to help parents feed even the pickiest kiddos.
Her expertise, however, extends to anyone who finds the daily dining challenge, well, challenging. Thanks for teaching us how to hide veggies in pasta sauce, Amy!
Must-have cookbooks for easy and accessible meals
“Plant-Based on a Budget” by Toni Okamoto
“Plant-Based on a Budget” is a cookbook that offers delicious vegan recipes you can make for under $30 — and in under 30 minutes.
For anyone exploring a plant-based diet, or, frankly, anyone trying to reduce their grocery bills, this book offers sound, snackable wisdom.
Shop: Bookshop | Amazon
“Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips, and Recipes for the Disabled Cook” by Jules Sherred
“Crip Up the Kitchen” is a cookbook that reclaims the kitchen for anyone with a disability.
It features 50 recipes that use three main cooking tools, as well as support for pantry prep, meal planning, shopping, organizing, and kitchen safety for all.
Shop: Bookshop | Amazon
“The Ultimate Meal-Planning for One Cookbook” by Kelly Jaggers
“The Ultimate Meal-Planning for One Cookbook” helps solve the daunting issue of solo cooking. It offers 100+ affordable and low-waste recipes that are equally delicious and efficient.
With inspiration for one-to-two serving plates for all three meals of the day and tips for designing an enjoyable meal schedule, you’ll be glad you don’t have to share.
Shop: Bookshop | Amazon
The best apps for easy meal planning
FIG
The FIG app allows people to scan barcodes to quickly know if a food is safe for them to eat. Photo courtesy of FIG
The Food Is Good (or FIG) app was created by people who have food intolerances and allergies and wanted to make finding safe foods easier.
Whether you’re gluten-free, have food intolerances, or simply want to cut out certain ingredients, the app allows you to scan any grocery product and compare it to your profile to ensure you’re good to go.
Download: foodisgood.com
Cozi
The meal-planning feature on the Cozi app allows users to save recipes for future use. Photo courtesy of Cozi
While Cozi is a complete life organization app, its recipe box feature is essential for meal planning. In the app, you can save recipes you and your family like, and ingredients are automatically added to your grocery list.
From there, you can schedule the meal in your shared calendar. Essentially, the only thing it won’t do is cook your dinner for you!
Download: cozi.com
SuperCook
On app and desktop, Supercook suggests recipes based on ingredients users already have at home. Photo courtesy of SuperCook
Want to get more bang for your grocery buck? The SuperCook app will help you assemble recipes based on the ingredients you already have in your home.
Simply click through and select the ingredients (or leftovers!) you have on hand, and the app will outline zero-waste recipes that will leave you feeling satisfied.
Download: supercook.com
You may also like: This chef stretched $100 of groceries over 30 days to create affordable recipes: ‘This is what accessibility looks like’
A version of this article was originally published in The 2025 Food Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image by Katerina Holmes via Pexels
