THREE DIFFERENT QUANTITIES
Your household serving preference, the portions planned for one recipe and the servings you personally eat are separate choices. Mealime documents individual serving changes before building the plan; check the resulting ingredients and grocery list afterwards.
Mealime closes on 21 October 2026. Pro is currently free and subscriptions will not renew, according to version 4.21.35’s release notes. Its full recipe catalogue continues in free Meals Hub. The older help articles below describe controls and should not be read as a reason to buy Pro now. Official transition notice.
What Mealime documents about servings.
The support article titled “Can I scale servings greater than 4?” says meals can be adjusted to six servings through eating preferences. It was last updated in May 2020. The article’s title therefore does not mean that four is the documented maximum; its body describes six.
That older page says larger households need manual quantity adjustments. Treat its reference to possible future expansion as a historical statement, not evidence of a feature that shipped. Check the choices shown in your own app before planning a larger batch around them.
Set the household preference, then review each recipe
- Open Settings → Eating Preferences and review the household serving choice. The serving-support article documents up to six; it does not establish every possible intermediate value.
- When selecting a plan, review the amount for each dish. Mealime’s self-serve builder guide says individual serving sizes can be changed before the plan is built.
- Complete the plan and open Grocery List. Its quantities combine the requirements of the chosen recipes. Check any dish intended to provide extra portions.
The per-recipe and grocery steps are documented in Mealime’s getting-started guide, updated 3 December 2020. For two people wanting dinner and next-day lunch, four portions means one larger cook. Mealime’s 5 July 2019 lunch guidance uses that example; it does not require cooking the recipe twice.
Changing a plan after it is built
The documented route is More → Edit this plan, then confirmation and rebuilding. Mealime warns that generated grocery items are replaced, custom items transfer and completed items may need checking off again. If you have already shopped, compare the rebuilt quantities with what you bought before relying on the new list. Editing guide, updated 29 July 2019. A household setting change alone is not a substitute for checking the portions displayed on an existing recipe.
Changing units is different from changing portions.
Mealime’s unit-setting guide describes Settings → Eating Preferences → Metric / US. It says the change takes effect when you create a new meal plan. The 2019 article also explains that its metric presentation is adapted for Canada and can still use cups or tablespoons.
If a recipe still displays a cup measurement after choosing metric, that alone does not prove the setting failed. Check the documented behaviour and the actual ingredient. A unit preference does not guarantee that every volume becomes a gram weight.
Keep the unit attached when copying a quantity. A cup of one ingredient does not weigh the same as a cup of another. Use a reliable ingredient-specific conversion if one is needed, or keep the original measurement rather than supplying a guessed weight.
Follow the portion change into the grocery list.
Suppose one pasta dinner originally serves two and you change it to four so two portions can be saved for lunch. The ingredient multiplier is 4 ÷ 2 = 2. A second dish stays at its original size. Use this example to check the combined quantities before shopping.
| Ingredient | Pasta dinner: 2 → 4 servings | Other dish, unchanged | Combined requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry pasta | 150 g → 300 g | 100 g | 400 g |
| Chopped tomatoes | 200 g → 400 g | 200 g | 600 g |
| Peas | 100 g → 200 g | None | 200 g |
The key check is that only the changed recipe doubles. Doubling the entire grocery list would also double the other dish’s ingredients. If you buy a 500 g pasta packet for the 400 g requirement, the spare 100 g belongs in your kitchen stock; it is not a reason to increase the recipe quantities.
Do the same check for a dressing or sauce listed separately. Keep “to taste” as a judgement instruction and investigate any missing amount in the source. An imported blank is not an invitation to generate a precise-looking number.
Cooking time, temperature and pan capacity need their own review. They do not use a simple serving multiplier. A larger batch may crowd the pan or need separate batches. For baking and other methods sensitive to ratios and vessel size, choose a tested version suited to the intended yield. Our full scaling guide explains the practical checks.
Keep recipe yield separate from nutrition consumed
Mealime’s nutrition guide describes recipe → More → Nutrition facts on mobile, and a Nutrition Facts button below the recipe image on the web. Check the serving basis shown with the figures before interpreting them. Nutrition controls, updated 29 July 2019.
If you cook four portions but eat one, the cooked yield is four and your consumed amount is one serving. Mealime’s 2020 guide describes selecting the number of servings consumed before choosing Add to Health App. That is a separate action from choosing how much to cook. Documented Apple Health flow. Changing a recipe to feed more people should not lead you to log the entire batch as one person’s meal.
Inspect what your backup actually contains.
Open the original recipe beside the saved copy. Compare the title, serving count, measured ingredients and every cooking step. Look for instructions that mention an amount inside the prose; that figure may need attention even when the ingredient list looks correct.
Keep original yield information when the desired yield is different. A note such as “source serves four; cooking three portions” gives you a way to check the calculation later. Avoid a copy that says “three servings” above ingredients still intended for four.
Then build the grocery requirement from the adjusted recipes. If two dishes together need 450 g of pasta, a 500 g purchase may cover them, but that does not change either dish’s ingredient amount. Read the pack-size guide before treating a shopping quantity as a cooking quantity.
Keep the original serving context when switching.
The free browser backup tool preserves servings when found in the source, alongside ingredient lines and steps. A public recipe page may describe a different yield from the version selected in your private plan. Compare the preview against the source, and keep a separate note of how much you intended to cook. Do not relabel the backup’s yield without adjusting its quantities.
MealPot is our product. Its individual URL import requires Pro and is available on iPhone and iPad with iOS/iPadOS 17 or later. Review the imported recipe before saving; the website’s TXT/JSON download is a separate backup format. MealPot’s App Store listing.
If keeping Mealime’s catalogue is the priority, free Meals Hub is the official continuation. Mealime says preferences must be established in that account, so verify household portions there as part of setup rather than assuming the previous plan’s choices transferred. Official account transition FAQ.
Common questions
Does Mealime support more than four servings?
Its serving support article, updated in May 2020, documents up to six through eating preferences. Check the current choices in your account rather than relying on the older article title alone.
Why does Mealime still show cups in metric mode?
Mealime’s unit guide says its Canadian-oriented metric system may retain cups and tablespoons. It also says unit preference changes apply to newly created plans.
Can different recipes use different serving sizes?
The December 2020 getting-started guide documents modifying individual recipe servings before completing the plan. Review each recipe’s amount and the combined groceries after building.
If I cook four servings, should I log four servings?
Only if that is the amount you personally consumed. Mealime’s documented Apple Health flow asks for servings consumed, which is separate from the amount cooked for the household.
Can I double the timer when I double the portions?
No. Cooking time and pan capacity need a separate check. Ingredient arithmetic does not determine the timer.