A week planned, not one dinner
Choose meals for the week and the shopping list builds itself to match. Got a free Sunday? Try our batch cooking session planner too.
Try the batch cooking planner →Cook dinner tonight without the 6pm stand-off with your fridge
You meant to cook. Then work ran late, nothing in the fridge looked like a meal, and the takeaway app was already open. Cookly gives you a meal plan, a shopping list sorted by aisle, and weeknight recipes most households finish in 30 minutes, so there's an actual answer to what's for dinner before you reach for your phone. If you're stuck right now and can't face deciding, our 30-minute meal finder quiz asks a few quick questions about what protein you fancy, how many are eating, and what's already in the fridge, then hands you two or three recipes that fit tonight. Or if you've already got a few odds and ends open, half a pepper, some leftover rice, a bit of cheese going hard at the edges, try our What Can I Cook Tonight? (Fridge Ingredient Matcher): type in three to six ingredients you've got in and it matches them against Cookly recipes, flagging which ones are under 30 minutes and which are worth batch cooking for later in the week. If a free Sunday afternoon is on the cards, tell our batch cooking session planner how many hours you've got and how many weekday dinners you want covered, and it works out which recipes to cook, in what order, and how many portions each one makes, so the planning is done before you pick up a knife. If you want to see the numbers for your own household, our takeaway vs home cooking cost comparison tool gives you a rough side-by-side based on what you'd normally order. If you're wondering whether a Cookly subscription actually pays for itself, our cook vs order break-even calculator takes your usual takeaway frequency and spend and works out how many home-cooked weeks it takes to cover the cost, laid out as a simple payback timeline; it's a rough estimate based on what you tell it, not a guarantee. And our weekly meal budget planner takes it a step further: tell it your household size, how many dinners you want to cook this week, and your budget, and it works out a cost-per-meal target plus what that could mean for your monthly spend against ordering in. Like any estimate built from what you put in, it's a starting point.
Plan a batch cooking session for the week ahead Read the story behind CooklyThree things that get dinner sorted
No fixed idea what to cook and half an hour to sort it. Cookly turns that into a plan, a list and a straight look at the cost.
Stuck on what to cook tonight
Answer a short quiz on protein, diet and time to get two or three recipes matched to your evening, ready in around 30 minutes.
Try the meal finder quiz →Match what's in your fridge
Enter three to six ingredients you've already got and see matching recipes, flagged for under 30 minutes and for batch cooking.
Try the fridge matcher →The real cost, side by side
Use our takeaway cost comparison tool to see how a home-cooked dinner stacks up against the takeaway you'd otherwise order, portion by portion.
Try the cost comparison →When home cooking pays for itself
Enter your typical takeaway spend and see how many home-cooked weeks it takes to break even, as a rough guide only.
Try the break-even calculator →Set your weekly food budget
Enter your household size, planned dinners and weekly budget for an estimated cost per portion and projected takeaway savings. Figures are estimates.
Try the budget planner →Everything you need to get dinner on the table, without the evening scramble
You get in tired, hungry, and there's half a bag of frozen peas and no plan. That's the exact moment Cookly is built for, not the calm Sunday afternoon when everything feels manageable.
A week of dinners, already decided
You don't have to think up seven meals from nothing. Cookly gives you a week of dinners worked out in advance, with most meals on the table in 30 minutes and a few taking a bit longer because they're worth it. If it's just tonight you're trying to sort rather than the whole week, the 30-Minute Meal Finder Quiz asks a handful of quick questions about what you fancy, who's eating, and what's already in the fridge, then hands you two or three recipes that fit. The plan accounts for what's realistic on a Tuesday evening, not what looks good in a cookbook.
Shopping lists that match the plan
One shop covers the whole week, because the list is built directly from the meals you're actually cooking. It's sorted by aisle, so you're not doubling back through the shop for one forgotten item, and there's no mid-week dash for something you didn't know you needed.
Ingredient swaps built into every recipe
Recipes tell you upfront what you can swap and what you can't. Chicken thighs become canned chickpeas, double cream becomes crème fraîche, and the dish still works. Half a fridge of odd bits and pieces is often enough to cook from the plan, even when it doesn't match exactly. Try our What Can I Cook Tonight? (Fridge Ingredient Matcher) to see how this applies to your situation: enter three to six things you already have and it points you to recipes that use them, flagging which are under 30 minutes and which are worth batch cooking.
Cost per portion, before you cook
Each recipe shows a rough cost per portion, worked out from typical supermarket prices, so you're not guessing whether tonight's dinner is a £1.50 meal or a £4 one. Prices move about depending on where you shop and where you live, so treat the figure as a guide rather than a promise. If you want to see how a week of these dinners stacks up against ordering in, the Takeaway vs Home Cooking Cost Comparison tool walks through it with your own numbers. If you'd rather start from your budget than from a recipe, the Weekly Meal Budget Planner takes your household size, how many dinners you want to cook this week, and your total food budget, then works out a cost-per-meal target and flags whether that's realistic against Cookly's recipe range.
Batch cooking that covers two nights, not just one
Some recipes are flagged for batch cooking, meaning one session in the kitchen makes enough for two nights. Cook it on Sunday and Tuesday's dinner is already sorted before Tuesday happens. Each batch recipe states how many extra portions you'll get, so there's no arithmetic involved. If you're not sure how many recipes fit into the time you've actually got, the Batch Cooking Session Planner asks how many free hours you have on Sunday, or whichever day suits, and how many weekday dinners you want covered, then suggests which recipes to make, in what order, and how many portions each one produces.
Freezer-friendly recipes, clearly marked
Some dishes freeze well and some fall apart in the process, so a recipe is marked freezer-friendly only when the whole dish, swaps included, holds up. Where a recipe keeps in the freezer, we say for how long, usually up to three months, so a portion from a few weeks back doesn't become a guessing game.
What a week of takeaways actually costs
It's easy to feel like ordering in is cheaper once you're tired and the fridge looks empty, though the numbers often say otherwise. The Takeaway vs Home Cooking Cost Comparison tool sets a typical week of takeaways against a week of home-cooked dinners side by side, and it can give a wrong answer depending on what you enter and where you shop. The guide to using it explains how the comparison works and where the figures come from. If you're weighing up whether a subscription makes sense over a longer stretch, the Cook vs Order Break-Even Calculator takes your usual takeaway frequency and spend and works out how many home-cooked weeks it would take to cover the cost, shown as a simple timeline. Like the weekly comparison, it can only work from the numbers you give it.
Fewer takeaway nights, more dinners that just happen
These are the kinds of evenings Cookly is built for: no drama, just one more dinner cooked instead of ordered. Try the Weekly Meal Budget Planner to see how the numbers might look for your own household.
We were ordering three or four nights a week without really deciding to. Having a plan and a shopping list that matches it means dinner is just something that happens now, instead of something we negotiate over at seven o'clock.
I had half a bag of spinach and some leftover rice with no idea what to do with them. I tried What Can I Cook Tonight? and it turned them into a proper dinner in about twenty minutes.
The shopping list matches the plan exactly, so I'm not standing in the aisle trying to remember what goes with what. One trip, four dinners sorted.
We used to guess at what dinners were costing us against ordering in. The cook vs order break-even calculator worked out how many home-cooked weeks it'd take to pay for itself, and that made the decision easy.
If tonight's the tricky one, the 30-Minute Meal Finder Quiz can show a few dinners that fit what's already in your kitchen, and if Sunday's free, the batch cooking session planner can get a few weekday dinners sorted in advance.
Get started todaySee what a week of home cooking would actually cost your household, not a stranger's estimate.
It takes a couple of minutes to put your own numbers in, and the answer usually beats a rough guess. The tool works from what you enter, so a wrong price or portion count will throw off the result, and shop prices vary by retailer and region too, so treat what it gives you as a starting point rather than a fixed figure. If you'd rather look further ahead than a single week, the Cook vs Order Break-Even Calculator takes your usual takeaway frequency and spend and works out how many home-cooked weeks it would take to cover what a Cookly subscription costs, set out as a simple payback timeline, though it can only go on the figures you feed it, same as the cost comparison. For tonight's dinner, the 30-Minute Meal Finder Quiz asks a few quick questions about who's eating, what you fancy, and what's already in the fridge, then suggests two or three Cookly recipes to match, though like any quiz it can only work with what you tell it. If you already know what's sitting in the fridge but not what to do with it, the What Can I Cook Tonight? (Fridge Ingredient Matcher) takes three to six ingredients you list and matches them against Cookly recipes, flagging which ones are under 30 minutes and which are worth batch cooking for later in the week. If you'd rather start from a weekly budget instead of a single comparison, the Weekly Meal Budget Planner takes your household size, how many dinners you want to cook this week, and your total food budget, then works out a cost-per-meal target, flags whether that's realistic against Cookly's recipes, and shows what you could save against your current takeaway habit. Once you've settled on how many dinners you're aiming to cook, the Batch Cooking Session Planner takes the free hours you've got on a Sunday, or whichever day suits, and turns them into a suggested cooking schedule, setting out which recipes to make, in what order, and how many portions each one gives you.