Starting college and being responsible for everything—including cooking—in addition to attending class and studying can be a lot, particularly if you live off-campus or don’t have a meal plan through your university.
One way to help simplify the cooking and meal planning part of college life is to use the eMeals app to reduce some of the stress around this particular item on your to-do list. The goal of this meal-planning app is to help busy people save money, eat better, and stress less about mealtimes—all things that college students can benefit from.
How does it work?
When you sign up, you’ll pick one of eMeals’ primary meal styles—there are 15, including nine health-focused plans. And then, you’ll choose the size you want to make. eMeals offers a family meal plan that serves 6 and a two version that serves 2 to 3, so there are options if you are cooking for a large group or just want to cook once or twice a week and eat leftovers on busy nights or when you just don’t feel like cooking.
Every Wednesday, new recipe ideas are delivered to the app. All of the recipes include a photo, so you can scroll through and select options that look good to you. Choose as many or as few as you need for that week, depending on your schedule, and then the app generates a curated shopping list for you, combining various packages so you only buy what you need to make those meals, which minimizes food waste and also helps keep your budget in check.
eMeals provides all the meal inspiration students need as well as easy-to-follow directions to make the meals they’ve chosen. They don’t need to visit multiple websites to find recipes they like and want to make. It’s all there in the app for them.
The meal team, which is made up of culinary experts and registered dietitians, focuses on ease and variety when creating the weekly meal plans. This includes ease of preparation and cleanup, meaning we don’t call for three different bowls when we can streamline the method so you only use one. We are well aware that few people enjoy (or really have time for) a lengthy clean-up process, so that’s top of mind as these meals are created and tested in the test kitchen.
Variety is also a focus, offering different protein sources, varied flavors (Mexican dishes, Mediterranean flavors, Asian meals, etc.), and a range of easy and approachable cooking techniques.
The app allows you to save your favorite recipes from eMeals or any other website so they are easy to find later. There’s also a search function where you can find meals based on what you already have in your pantries. Cooking from your pantry is the least expensive and quickest way to get dinner ready.
How much does it cost?
eMeals offers a free two-week trial period, and then it’s just about $5 per month. I would encourage students, particularly those living in off-campus housing, who are interested in at-home cooking to save money or eat healthier or any other reason to give it a try. There’s something for everyone in the app, and you are sure to find options that taste great and that don’t take forever to make.
Saving money
Cooking at home is always going to be less expensive (and healthier) than eating out, and having a plan for the week and an organized grocery list can help save even more. On average, our subscribers save $2,000 per year on groceries by using eMeals.
We also have a Budget-Friendly plan that incorporates less-expensive ingredients with a particular focus on using the same staple ingredients each week in new ways to help people save money by being able to pull leftovers of those ingredients from their pantry and combine them in fresh ways so they don’t get bored with their meals.
Eating healthy
All of eMeals’ recipes include a nutrition analysis, so subscribers can find something that works with their dietary needs and their schedules. Additionally, there are nine health-focused plans, including gluten-free, plant-based, low-calorie, low-carb, etc., that can help refine the recipes even further to better meet their particular health goals and needs. Each of these meal plans is created and nutritionally analyzed by a registered dietitian, too.
Saving time
Students have a lot on their plates, so finding ways to save time on daily tasks is crucial. When life gets hectic, having a plan always makes things easier. For meal planning, eMeals can be the solution as it helps our subscribers save an average of 2 hours each week.
Instead of searching multiple websites to find something that looks good, you can spend a little bit of time in the app figuring out what your meals will be for the week and let eMeals create the shopping list. And, since the app syncs up with grocery delivery and pick-up services like Walmart, if you are really pressed for time, you can have someone else grocery shop for you. You’ll free up both time and mental energy to focus on the rest of your to-do list.
There are also meal plans that are designed to get a meal ready quickly. The 30-Minute and Quick & Healthy plans are specifically created to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less, and many of the other plans also have quick options. There are also often 5-ingredient recipes that use smart shortcut ingredients to easily make delicious meals.
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Preparing meals at home doesn’t have to be time-consuming, complicated, or expensive, and eMeals can show students how easy it can be without having to devote lots of time to figuring it all out. The hard work is already done in hopes of making busy semesters a lot easier and more manageable.
By Rachel West, RD, senior nutrition editor at eMeals
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