Mealie

Mealie is a self-hosted recipe manager, meal planner, and shopping list application. It allows users to centralize their culinary data in a single database, facilitating the organization of meals and the tracking of necessary ingredients. The software provides a dedicated space to store digital copies of recipes, ensuring that cooking instructions and ingredient lists are accessible from a central location.

The software is deployed as a server-side web application, commonly using Docker for installation. Users interact with the system through a reactive web frontend to manage their recipe collections and plan weekly menus. This setup allows for multi-user access, making it a tool for the whole family to coordinate meals and grocery needs through a browser interface.

Key features

• Recipe imports from URLs or manual data entry
• Meal planner for scheduling weekly cooking
• Shopping list organized by supermarket sections
• Recipe grouping via custom cookbooks
• REST API for third party application interactions
• Localisation support for over 35 languages
• Docker based deployment

The application utilizes a REST API backend and a frontend built with Vue. This architecture enables a responsive user interface that handles data updates dynamically. By providing a public API, the software allows developers to create integrations with other third party applications, extending the utility of the recipe database beyond the standard web interface. The system is designed to be flexible, supporting both the automated scraping of recipe data from the web and the manual creation of family recipes through a built-in UI editor.

Mealie serves as a centralized tool for individuals and families who want to host their own recipe and meal planning data on their own hardware. It focuses on the intersection of recipe storage, calendar-based planning, and grocery list generation.