An offline recipe app: the whole week, no signal
Two places reliably have no bars: the frozen aisle of a grocery store and a kitchen at the back of a building. Those are also the only two places a meal planner is being used for real. Repast downloads the whole active week up front so neither of them is a problem.
Your saved week, ready for offline use
Build your grocery list from the plan before shopping. Your saved plan, list and downloaded recipes stay available when the signal disappears.
The plan
Every night, the dish, its yield, its prep time and its allergen labels. The week renders from local data, so it opens instantly whether or not there is signal.
The whole grocery list
Once you have built the list: every row, every quantity and the record of which dinners each row came from. Checking an item off writes locally. Nothing about the trip round-trips to a server.
Every step of every recipe
A median of 6 steps per recipe, with their photos, and the 8,631 timers the catalog carries inside its step text.
A pinned version
Each recipe is fixed to the exact version you were shown when the plan was made. An upstream edit cannot change the quantities under you halfway through a shop.
Why pinning the version matters more than it sounds
A recipe catalog is a living thing: entries get corrected, ingredients get re-mapped, some get withdrawn. If an app fetches the latest version each time you open a recipe, then the grocery list you shopped from on Sunday and the steps you cook from on Wednesday can quietly disagree. Repast avoids that by fixing the week to the versions it planned from, and by handling a withdrawn recipe as a visible “needs replacing” card rather than a silent substitution.
Cook mode assumes your hands are wet
Full screen, one step at a time, the display kept awake, and a tap anywhere on the right two thirds to move on. No sign-in prompt, no ad, no interstitial and no request to rate the app between step four and step five. The last step is the camera shutter, which is where the photo journal comes from, and skipping it costs nothing.
Nothing to sign into, in the aisle or anywhere
There is no account, so there is no session to expire and no token to refresh in a dead spot. Data syncs through your own iCloud rather than a Repast server, which is why the app opens straight into your week on every device you own.
New plans and chat requests need a connection to the planning service. Your saved plan, built grocery list and downloaded recipes are available offline. The full detail is in the privacy policy.
Offline questions
Is there a recipe app with a cooking mode for messy hands?
Cook mode runs full screen, keeps the display awake, and moves on with a tap anywhere on the right side, so a knuckle advances a step. Timers come out of the step text rather than being retyped into a clock app.
Does the recipe app keep the screen on while I cook?
Yes. Cook mode holds the display awake for as long as you are in it, and releases it when you leave the recipe so it is not draining the battery afterwards.
Does the recipe app work without internet?
Your saved plan and downloaded recipes are available offline. Tap Build grocery to create the shopping list from your plan, or Update grocery after changing a dinner. The saved list is available offline too, so opening a downloaded recipe, checking off groceries and running a timer need no connection at all.
What still needs a connection?
Asking for something new. Generating a plan, refining it in chat and swapping in a dish you have not downloaded all talk to the planning service. Your saved plan, grocery list and downloaded recipes are local, so the split is clean: new plans and chat need signal, shopping and cooking do not.
Will the grocery list work with no signal in the store?
That is the case it was built for. Checking an item off is written to local storage and the list re-renders from the device, so a dead spot in aisle six changes nothing. Items checked off offline are not lost or replayed oddly later; they are simply the truth on your phone, and iCloud reconciles them when signal returns.
Do the timers keep running if I leave the app?
Yes. Timers are set through the system, so they still fire when the app is backgrounded or the phone is locked, within what iOS permits. Timers come out of the step text itself, so you are not retyping durations while cooking.
Does it work on a plane?
Airplane mode is one of the two scenarios the offline design targets, the other being a store with no signal. Your saved week opens, the grocery list you built is fully usable, and downloaded recipes open in cook mode. New plans and chat requests need a connection.
The week is already on your phone
Your saved plan, built grocery list and downloaded recipes, ready for shopping and cooking without a signal.
No account to create. iOS 17 or later.