ZipList, a leader in online and mobile shopping lists, today announced the launch of the ZipList Meal Planner. The new service, which works with the free Ziplist app for the iPhone/iPod touch, makes planning weekly or monthly meals easier than ever.

Available at http://ziplist.com, the free service strives to make our lives less hectic at least when it comes to food shopping and meal preparation. Using the site,  you can now plan a week’s or month’s worth of meals in a few easy steps. Or, if need be, create a meal queue, where you put things you want to make sometime soon.

ZipList - Meal Planner

ZipList - Meal Planner

To begin, you choose recipes saved in your ZipList e-recipe boxes and add them directly to meal queues where you’ll see your recipes for the week at-a-glance. From there, it is simple to assign dates to different meals based on how much prep time they have. For example, a more demanding meal might be left for Sunday dinner, while something quicker could be planned for tonight following soccer practice.

Best of all, your lists and/or recipes are fully synced between the ZipList website and app.

According to Geoff Allen, CEO and founder of ZipList:

“Most of our users are busy moms, working professionals, and casual cooks who turn to us each day for recipe inspiration and to aide in the meal planning process. It made perfect sense to create a feature that does all the work, from recipe discovery to plotting out meals by day of the week to adding the ingredients to your shopping list in an unbelievable simply (sic) process.

Other capabilities of the ZipList Meal Planner include the ability to make full calendar meal plans by using the meal queue as a staging area before assigning recipes to certain dates. In addition, all of ZipList’s 6,500 partners (whose recipe boxes and shopping lists are powered by ZipList technology) will also have access to this new important tool.

Note: ZipList’s meal planner service is not yet fully integrated into the company’s iOS app. While you can add ingredients for the meals (and see the meals themselves) you cannot actually schedule your meals using the app. Hopefully, this integration will arrive in a future app update.

What you can do using the ZipList app, as of Version 2.3.4.0 is:

Powerful List Capabilities

  • Lists auto-sync with ZipList.com
  • Create both personal and shared family lists
  • Mark items as important
  • Filter your list to show items for certain stores

Easily Add Items To Your List

  • Just type and we auto-complete your item
  • Our database includes all common items
  • Add items by scanning barcodes
  • Add recipe ingredients directly to your list

Recipe Box & Recipe Search

  • Search through thousands of recipes
  • Save recipes to your universal recipe box
  • Add recipes to your list with just one click
  • Share recipes via Facebook, Twitter or Email

Assign items to Stores

  • Select from thousands of stores
  • Save your own stores to your ZipList profile
  • Put your categories into store aisle order
  • Find a store’s address, phone and map

First launched in 2010, ZipList became part of Condé Nast earlier this year.

Download the ZipList app today in the App Store.