Why Mela is top chef of recipe apps [Awesome Apps]

Forget your whisk, chef’s knife or food mixer. Apple’s iPhone should be your go-to device when it comes to preparing delicious meals in the kitchen. While it’s incredibly useful to have Siri around to set multiple cooking timers, our iPhones, iPads, and Macs can also double as digital recipe books. And when it comes to recipe apps, trust me, the best out there Mela†

Meet Mela

Created by developer Silvio RizziMela is a simple and elegant recipe app for iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Rizzi is also the developer behind the always popular RSS client† Reeder† So it shouldn’t surprise you that there’s a lot of Reeder’s mind in Mela, from the design and user interface to the functionality of the app. Let me explain.

Mela is not so much a recipe discovery app, but rather a recipe manager. It stores all your saved recipes for offline viewing and syncs saved recipes across all your devices (via iCloud). It supports Apple’s Share Sheet, so you can save recipes to the app directly from Safari. You can also scan, import (from documents stored on your device), manually enter or add recipes using Mela’s built-in browser.

feed me!

This is Silvio Rizzi’s app, of course, so it’s no surprise that Mela has support too feeds† And make no mistake, feeds are my favorite way to import – and discover – new recipes into the app.

Go to the Feeds tab and you’ll see all your subscribed foodie feeds in one place. Here you can browse a collection of delicious recipes while adding recipes you love to your Mela library. I subscribe to a ton of feeds in Mela and usually spend every Friday night through them before choosing meals for the next week and adding ingredients to my shopping list.

shopping list

Speaking of shopping lists, Mela also offers grocery shopping support. When you see a recipe you like, you can simply add its ingredients to the Grocery tab of the app. As you import items, Mela checks whether you want to add the batch or disable certain ingredients. I find this very useful, as I usually already have some of the necessary groceries. The Groceries tab then functions as a simple to-do list, allowing you to check off items as you walk through the store.

Meal Planner

Finally, I love Mela’s meal planner. This is built into the app. After I’ve determined a culinary roadmap for the coming week (and added my ingredients to Mela’s built-in shopping list), I fill the meal planner of the app. It’s a great bonus feature: just tap the meal to be taken over to your recipe page in Mela. You will also see that Mela curated dishes are visible in your preferred calendar app.

Created by longtime solo developer Silvio Rizzi and available for the one-time price of $5 (iOS/iPadOS) or $10 (macOS), Mela is the perfect app for foodies who own Apple devices. It’s my kitchen helper and well worth downloading.

Price: $5 (iOS/iPadOS), $10 (macOS)
Available from: iOS and iPadOS App Store† macOS App Store

Awesome Apps is a Cult of Mac series of the best apps out there. We’ll showcase our favorite apps, as well as new and standout ones. Apps are transformative, and these are the best.