I am here to once again profess my love for Sorted’s Sidekick recipe packs app. I had written about it before the update and rebrand (when it was still called Meal Packs and gave you a free credit each week), but things are quite different, and better, now so here’s my latest thoughts.
A wee disclaimer – this is not sponsored, but for the amount I recommend this app to my friends, Sorted really should have me on commission.

So what is it? Sidekick is a meal planning and recipe pack app that helps you come up with your meal plan for the week ahead. They combine several meals for the week into a pack, with one shopping list, which makes life easier and means to waste less money and food because it’s all coordinated for you.

I started using Sorted’s app at the beginning of lockdown when I had tonnes of time for cooking but found it hard to think of new ideas each week. Now that life is much busier, having that thought process simplified is even more beneficial for me. I love cooking but it can be so easy to get into a cycle of making the same meals all the time, so Sidekick encourages me to have more variety and I learn more by making things I never would have thought of.

They have different pack categories including; low-cost, speedy 15m recipes, less than 8 ingredients, one-pot meals, and ones you can make in the microwave. You can also filter through the packs by dietary requirement, including; veggie, vegan, gluten-free, and pescatarian. They have a calendar feature which you can use to plot specific meals in for each day of the week, but there’s also some packs that are particularly for meal prepping at the weekend and reheating during the week to save time when you’re busy. Within the shopping list section, you have the ability to toggle between 2 or 4 portions of each meal, which is handy if you have people coming over. Then once you’ve finished planning, been shopping and are ready to cook, the recipe instructions are written or read out on the app and all the timers are included so it makes things super easy.

I really love the philosophy behind this app that combines making your life easier with saving you time, money and food waste – wins all around. Here’s a summary of why I like it:

• It helps you think of new ideas
• You learn a lot about how to use the food you already have in the house
• It relieves the effort of trying to think of your own weekly meal plan
• You don’t have to think about what you’re needing from the supermarket either
• Because you get a shopping list and not actual produce delivered, you can easily swap out ingredients you don’t like
• You also don’t have to use it every week, if you’re busier or out of the house a lot, you can just not use it
• Having the guides and timers in the app make it so easy
• You waste less food which is great for the planet
• The recipes are super tasty

For all those benefits, it only costs £49.99 per year (so just over £4 a month) which is totally worth it for me – and I’ll keep shouting about it to my pals until everyone is using it.

Find out more at Sorted’s website