Allrecipes.com Unveils Interactive Menu Planner; New Flexible Meal Planning Tool Allows Home Cooks to Plan Menus for Any Occasion

SEATTLE, Feb. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Home cooks asked. Allrecipes.com answered.  Allrecipes.com, a Reader's Digest Association (RDA) brand and the world's #1 food site, is making meal planning even easier with the introduction of its interactive Menu Planner. The new web-based tool helps cooks save time, save money and eat healthier by allowing them to easily create, edit and save meal plans from an unlimited number of choices—including Allrecipes' massive recipe collection, pre-created menus, personal recipes and favorites saved in a personal Allrecipes Recipe Box.

"A meal planning tool is the most requested feature by our community of 25 million home cooks," said Lisa Sharples, president of Allrecipes.com. "We love getting feedback from our community, so it's exciting when we can deliver features on our site that home cooks have been asking for—features  that will change their lives for the better. This sophisticated yet easy to use tool will help our community stay organized, save money and eat better."

With drag-and-drop functionality, the flexible tool allows cooks to create up to 10 days of meals at a time, making it ideal for everyday meal planning. Plus, Allrecipes' menu planner comes with more than 1,300 customizable menu ideas featuring the site's most popular recipes, as well as creative combinations perfect for Valentine's Day, Super Bowl parties and other special occasions. Home cooks can easily save pre-made menus into their collection including: "Three Courses in Thirty Minutes," "One Week - Six Dinners - Just $100," "Low Cal, and Loving It," and "Happily Ever After Couples Shower."

Unique features designed to help home cooks create meals while saving time, money and calories include:

• Browse, create, edit, save and share meal plans with an unlimited number of recipe choices.
• Shopping lists that automatically populate from menus. Cooks can add or delete items from the list based on their pantries, and search for additional recipes based on ingredients already in the shopping list—great for making use of fresh veggies and herbs.
• On-the-fly nutrition—nutritional information tallies calories (and other stats like cholesterol, fat, carbs, sodium and more) for the entire menu, even as you add and remove recipes.
• Every menu includes prep times, photos, and servings for each item within the menu, plus, you can change the serving sizes for the entire menu and all ingredients will update in your shopping list automatically.
• Drag-and-drop functionality—the Menu Planner tool is intuitive to use and functions like an app.
• Planning gets easier over time—saved meals can be mixed and matched within the tool to create an unlimited number of menu plans.
• Over 1,300 pre-made menus created by Allrecipes editors provide inspiration.
• Menu ideas combine recipes that go well together, utilize surplus ingredients by incorporating the same items into multiple dishes, include tips on timing, freezing, making ahead, using leftovers and more.
• Get new, healthy, delicious and time saving meal ideas delivered to your inbox every week with the weekly Menu email.

The Menu Planner tool is an addition to Allrecipes' Supporting Membership suite of features that include Nutrition Search, Custom Recipes, Advanced Print, Personal Blogs and more. Menu Planner is available to try for free in the "Menus" tab on the Allrecipes.com homepage. For more information on Menu Planner or Allrecipes' Supporting Membership, visit www.allrecipes.com, or watch the video at http://allrecipes.tv/videos/menu-planner.aspx.

About Allrecipes

Allrecipes, the world's largest food site, receives 535 million annual visits from home cooks who discover and share food experiences through recipes, reviews, photos, profiles, and blog posts. For 14 years, the Seattle-based site has served as a dynamic, indispensable resource for cooks of all skill levels seeking trusted recipes, entertaining ideas, everyday and holiday meal solutions and practical cooking tips. Allrecipes has 16 international sites around the world providing insights into the kitchens and cooking passions of home cooks everywhere. Allrecipes is part of Lifestyle Communities @ RDA, a division of The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. For additional information regarding Allrecipes, please visit www.allrecipes.com.

About Reader's Digest Association

RDA is a global media and direct marketing company that connects more than 130 million consumers around the world with products and services from trusted brands. With offices in 43 countries, the company reaches customers in 78 countries, publishes 91 magazines, including 50 editions of Reader's Digest, the world's largest-circulation magazine, operates 78 branded websites and sells 40 million books, music and video products across the world each year. Further information about the company can be found at www.rda.com.

SOURCE Allrecipes.com