An AI meal planner that keeps the plan in your notes

Updated

An AI meal planner does not need to be a separate app with its own account and its own list of recipes you will never cook. Your agent can do the planning, and the plan can live in your notes, where you already look. One note for the week. One note for the shopping. Both easy to change on a Tuesday.

A week in one note

You ask: "Plan dinners Monday to Friday. Quick on weekdays, something vegetarian twice, and use up the half bag of rice. Put it in a note called This week."

The note it writes:

  1. Monday: egg fried rice with frozen peas
  2. Tuesday: chicken tacos
  3. Wednesday: lentil soup with bread
  4. Thursday: pasta with tomato sauce and spinach
  5. Friday: vegetable curry with the rest of the rice

That is the whole plan. A numbered list, one line a day, bold day names. You can read it at a glance on your phone, which matters more than a beautiful layout you have to zoom into.

A grocery list that matches

You ask: "Now make the grocery list for this week's plan. I already have rice, pasta and onions."

The agent reads the This week note and writes a Groceries note as a checklist, grouped by where things are in the shop, leaving out what you said you have. The two notes stay connected only in the way that matters: the list was made from the plan. How that list works through the week is covered in let your AI agent write your grocery list.

Swapping a day

Plans change. Someone is out on Wednesday, or the chicken is still frozen.

You ask: "Swap Tuesday and Thursday in this week's plan, and add sour cream to the grocery list."

The agent edits the same This week note so pasta is on Tuesday and tacos on Thursday, then adds sour cream to Groceries. Nothing new is created. The next time you open either note, it is simply right.

This is the part a separate AI meal planner often gets wrong. It regenerates a whole new week when you only wanted to move one dinner. Editing the note you already have keeps the rest of your week intact.

Keep a favourites note

After a few weeks you know which dinners worked. Write that down once, and the planning gets better.

You ask: "Start a note called Dinners we like with these."

  • Lentil soup, double batch, freezes well
  • Fish tacos, the kids eat them
  • Pasta with tomato sauce, the fallback when nobody wants to cook

From then on: "Plan next week. Use at least three from Dinners we like, and nothing we had this week." The agent reads your favourites, reads the current plan, and writes a new week into This week. You can also ask it to archive the old plan first if you like to look back at what you ate.

Ask for what you actually cook

  • Give constraints. "Thirty minutes on weekdays, one pan if possible."
  • Say what to use up. "Half a cabbage and a tin of chickpeas."
  • Keep recipes separate. Put a recipe you love in its own note, and let the plan just name it.
  • Star this week's plan. Starred notes are easy to find in a simple notes app with a lot of notes.

Look back before you plan

If you archive each week's plan instead of overwriting it, your notes quietly become a record of what you ate. Search for "This week" and the old plans are there. The agent can read them too: "Look at the last three archived plans and do not repeat anything we had twice."

A plan is a starting point, not advice

An agent is a helpful planner, not a nutrition expert. It does not know your health, and it can be confidently wrong about ingredients. Treat every plan it writes as a starting point you check.

  • If you have allergies or intolerances, read every ingredient yourself. Do not rely on the agent to catch them.
  • If you are eating for a medical reason, pregnancy, a condition or a medication, talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian. They are the right people for that plan.
  • If a child's diet or an eating concern is involved, the same applies.

Used that way, an AI meal planner is simply a faster way to answer "what are we eating this week?" and to have the answer on your phone.

Set it up once

Your agent needs to reach your notes. In Claude, open Customize, then Connectors, press the plus button, choose Add custom connector, paste https://verysimplenotes.com/mcp, press Add, then Connect and sign in. The full walkthrough is in Claude connectors for your notes.

Very Simple Notes is a simple notes app with numbered lists, checklists and no visible markup, synced with Apple or Google sign-in, and a connector so your agent can plan the week in your notes. It costs $0.99 a month, and the first month is free.

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