The problem
Meal-planning apps limit you to their catalog
Someone else's recipes, someone else's taste, someone else's cloud. Meanwhile the AI you already talk to can plan a genuinely good week — but the plan dies in the chat scroll.
Locked to a catalog
Recipe apps make you pick from their database. Your household's constraints and cravings don't fit a catalog.
Plans trapped in chat
AI plans a great week, then it's a wall of text you scroll through at the store. No structure, no checkboxes, no cook view.
Your meals, their cloud
Most meal apps want an account, a subscription, and your data. Mealforge runs on your server, in one SQLite file.
How it works
Plan. Push. Shop. Cook.
Plan in chat
"Lots of crock pot this week, salmon once, use what's in the freezer." Iterate with your AI until the week sounds right.
The model pushes the plan
One MCP call publishes structured recipes — ingredients with quantities, units, store sections, and markdown steps.
Shop from the derived list
Ingredients aggregate across recipes and group by store section. Check them off as you go.
Cook with cook mode
Step-by-step view for every recipe. Favorite the winners — the model remembers them next week.
Features
The kitchen half of your AI
No catalog, just conversation
Every recipe is generated in chat, tailored to your household. "Lots of crock pot this week, salmon once, use the pork shoulder in the freezer."
MCP-native
Works with any MCP-capable AI chat — LibreChat, Claude, and friends. The model pushes the finished plan straight into the app.
Grocery list, derived
Ingredients aggregated across recipes, grouped by store section, checkable in the store. Never write a shopping list again.
Cook mode
Step-by-step cooking view for every recipe. Big text, one step at a time, built for a propped-up phone and messy hands.
Favorites and history
Favorite what you loved. The model recalls favorites and avoids repeating recent meals when planning next week.
One container
One Docker container, one SQLite file. Runs on your home server, NAS, or VPS. Back up one folder and you are done.
Agent skill included
Ships with a ready-made skill that teaches your AI the whole workflow — gather history, draft the week, publish on command.
Open source
MIT licensed. Read every line, modify anything, host it yourself. Free forever.
Self-hosting
Two commands. Dinner's sorted.
One Docker container serves the web app and the MCP endpoint. Data lives in a single SQLite file under ./data/.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/loosewiredev/mealforge/main/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d Web UI and MCP endpoint on port 8090. Works anywhere Docker runs — home server, NAS, VPS, Unraid.
Mealforge is built for a household on a private network. Keep it on your Tailscale or VPN, or behind a reverse proxy that handles auth.
FAQ
Common questions
Do I need an AI subscription to use Mealforge?
You need access to any MCP-capable AI chat — LibreChat with your own API keys, Claude, or similar. Mealforge itself is free and runs on your own server. The AI does the planning; Mealforge is where the plan lives.
Why is there no recipe catalog?
Catalogs limit you to what someone else wrote down. Every Mealforge recipe is generated in conversation — tailored to your household, your constraints, and whatever sounds good this week. Favorites and history mean the good ones stick around.
How does the grocery list work?
It is derived automatically from the week's recipes. Ingredients are aggregated across meals — "2 cups" plus "1 cup" becomes "3 cups" — grouped by store section, and checkable while you shop. Re-pushing a revised week keeps unchanged items checked.
Is my data private?
Everything lives in a single SQLite file on your server. Back up one folder and you have backed up everything. The only thing an AI provider ever sees is your planning conversation in the chat client you already use.
Does Mealforge have user accounts or authentication?
No — it is designed for a household on a private network. Put it on your Tailscale or VPN, or behind a reverse proxy that handles auth. Do not expose it to the public internet as-is.
What is MCP?
The Model Context Protocol — an open standard that lets AI chat apps call external tools. Mealforge exposes tools like push_meal_plan and list_favorites over MCP, so any compatible client can plan your week and publish it to the app.
Is Mealforge open source?
Yes. MIT licensed, full source on GitHub. It also ships a ready-made agent skill that teaches your AI the whole planning workflow.
Get cooking
Free, open source, yours
Spin it up tonight, connect your AI chat, and plan next week's meals in one conversation.