How to save food in MyFitnessPal for quicker logging

December 17, 2025 •

4 min read

According to a recent MyFitnessPal blog post, users who consistently log their meals are more likely to achieve their health goals. Saving frequently consumed foods as custom meals or recipes is a powerful strategy to accelerate your tracking process and improve your consistency on the platform.

Quick Summary

This guide provides step-by-step instructions on saving food items, creating custom meals, and building recipes within MyFitnessPal across mobile and web platforms. Learn to use these features for more efficient and accurate food logging.

Key Points

Create a Saved Meal: Log your food in your diary, enter edit mode, select the items, and tap 'Save Meal' to group them for future use.
Create a Custom Recipe: For complex dishes, navigate to 'My Meals, Recipes & Foods' to create a recipe from scratch, specifying total servings for accurate portion tracking.
Use the Web Interface: Save meals on the MyFitnessPal website by clicking 'Quick Tools' under a meal and selecting 'Remember Meal'.
Utilize Copy Functions: Save time by using the 'Copy from Date' or 'Copy from Yesterday' feature to duplicate a past meal or entire day's log.
Use the Barcode Scanner: Expedite logging for packaged foods by using the app's barcode scanner for instant entry.
Find Your Saved Items: Access all your custom meals and recipes via the 'My Meals' or 'Recipes' tabs within the food logging screen.

Why you should save food in MyFitnessPal

For many, the biggest obstacle to long-term success with a food tracking app is the time it takes to log every meal. Manually entering every ingredient for a complex meal like a homemade chili or a favorite stir-fry can be tedious. By learning how to save food in MyFitnessPal, you can transform a multi-step logging process into a single tap. This feature is not just for elaborate dishes; you can also save simple combinations you eat often, like your morning bowl of cereal with milk, or even a single item you find difficult to search for. The app offers two primary methods for saving food: creating a custom meal or creating a recipe.

Method 1: How to save a meal on the MyFitnessPal app

This is the fastest way to save a collection of food items you've already logged to your diary, such as leftovers or a recurring breakfast. The process is similar for both iOS and Android users.

Log your food: In your daily diary, add all the individual food items that make up the meal you want to save. Be sure to log the correct serving sizes.
Enter the editing mode: Tap the 'Edit' (pencil icon) button, which is usually located at the top of your food diary page.
Select the items: Tap the checkbox next to each food item you want to include in your saved meal. You can select items from different meal slots if needed.
Initiate saving: Tap the 'Save Meal' button, which looks like a fork and knife icon with a plus sign.
Name and save: Give your meal a memorable name (e.g., 'Weekday Breakfast Smoothie' or 'Chicken and Veggies'). Tap 'Save New' or the checkmark to finish.

Method 2: Creating a recipe on the MyFitnessPal app

Use this method for complex dishes where you want to track the nutrition per serving, especially for larger batches of food. This is accessible from the main navigation menu.

Access the recipe feature: Tap the 'More' button (•••) in the bottom right corner of the app, then select 'My Meals, Recipes & Foods' and navigate to the 'Recipes' tab.
Start a new recipe: Tap 'Create a Recipe' and choose 'Enter ingredients manually'.
Add details: Give your recipe a name and specify the number of servings it yields. This is crucial for accurate portion tracking later on.
Add ingredients: Search for and add each ingredient, along with the total amount used in the entire recipe.
Save the recipe: Once all ingredients are entered, review the nutritional summary and tap 'Save' to add it to your library.

How to save food on the MyFitnessPal website

For those who prefer a desktop experience, the web version offers similar functionality, though the interface is slightly different.

Log your meal: On the website's Food Diary page, add all the items to the appropriate meal slot.
Use Quick Tools: Click 'Quick Tools' located under the meal you wish to save.
Remember the meal: Click 'Remember Meal' from the menu that appears. A pop-up window will appear.
Save and name: Enter a name for your meal and click the green 'Save Meal' button.

Comparison: Save Meal vs. Create Recipe


Feature	Saved Meal	Created Recipe
Best For	Quickly logging frequent, simple combinations or leftovers.	Calculating nutrition for complex, multi-ingredient dishes.
Source	Saved directly from your food diary after logging.	Built from scratch by manually adding ingredients.
Servings	Logs the exact items and portions selected at the time of saving.	Calculates nutrition per serving based on the total ingredients.
Flexibility	Less flexible. Cannot easily modify ingredients for each use.	Highly flexible. Can log any number of servings and view updated nutrition.
Use Case	A recurring lunch you eat multiple times a week.	A large pot of soup or chili you made to last several days.

Additional features for faster logging

Beyond saving custom meals and recipes, MyFitnessPal offers other shortcuts to make tracking more efficient.

Copy from Yesterday: For days when your meals are similar to the previous day, you can quickly copy the entire diary to the current day. Simply tap the three dots (...) and select 'Copy from Date' or use the 'swipe' feature on mobile.
Copy Meal: If you eat the same breakfast every day, you can copy just that one meal from a previous day. Tap the 'three dots' button next to the specific meal and select 'Copy from Date'.
Barcode Scanner: For store-bought items with a scannable barcode, use the built-in scanner to instantly find and log the food.

Conclusion

Saving food in MyFitnessPal is a simple yet powerful technique for making food tracking a faster, more sustainable habit. Whether you create a simple saved meal for a repetitive breakfast or a detailed recipe for a complex dinner, these features save you valuable time and reduce the friction often associated with consistent logging. By utilizing the 'Saved Meal' and 'Create Recipe' options, you can streamline your nutrition tracking and focus more on achieving your health and wellness objectives.

Visit the official MyFitnessPal support page for additional tips and feature explanations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Saving a meal is best for quickly grouping and re-logging simple, repeating food combinations that you've already added to your diary. Creating a recipe is more suitable for complex, multi-ingredient dishes, allowing you to specify servings and track nutrition more accurately for different portion sizes.

Yes. On the mobile app, go to the 'My Meals, Recipes & Foods' section. Find your saved meal or recipe, tap to open it, and select the edit option. You can then add, remove, or change ingredients before saving the updated version.

To log a saved meal, go to your food diary and tap 'Add Food' for the desired meal slot. Tap the 'My Meals' tab at the top of the search screen, select your saved meal, and tap the checkmark to add it instantly.

Yes, this is the most common method for creating a saved meal. Simply go to your diary, tap 'Edit', select the food items you want to save, and tap 'Save Meal'.

On the mobile app, you must be in the diary's edit mode to see the 'Save Meal' button. On the website, the option appears under 'Quick Tools' for each meal slot.

You can save a single item as a meal using the same process. Log the item to your diary, enter edit mode, select it, and tap 'Save Meal'. This makes finding it under your 'My Meals' tab quicker than searching the database.

Yes. When logging food, tap the three dots (...) next to a meal slot and select 'Copy from Date'. Choose the date and meal you want to copy from, and it will be added to your current day.