The Best Free Apps to Simplify Your Life

BigOven

Named “Best App for New Moms” by Time Magazine, BigOven wants to take the effort out of cooking, and offers a database of 200,000 delicious recipes to help you do so. Need to meal plan? Drag-and-drop recipes onto a calendar for a day, a week, or a month. (Upgrade to BigOven Pro—for $15 a year—and the app automatically generates your grocery list.) You can also share recipes via email, Facebook or Twitter and scan in written recipes that the app converts to digital text. Bye-bye, cookbooks! (We like this app over Epicurious because of the emphasis on basic, easy-to-cook meals, instead of exotic or brand-name ingredients.)

The Catch: None. Hundreds of reviewers couldn’t find a single thing to complain about, either.

Devices: Apple, Android, and Windows phone