Former kitchen editor Cassidy Olsen was our original tester.
Our price breakdown for each service reflects the price you’ll be regularly paying per meal, disregarding initial discounts. Even if you’ve already decided which service is right for you, chances are you’re still confused about what your first box actually entails. While each service has different approaches to ordering, packaging, and delivery, we’ve found that most services have some baseline similarities. We also considered cost, how eco-friendly and user-friendly the kit’s packaging was, and how easy it was to cancel the service after we were done testing. We scored and compared each meal and kept detailed notes like true food nerds. Former kitchen editor Cassidy Olsen was our original tester. She found that despite loving to cook, making a proper dinner for herself each night could be daunting.
Speaking of delivery, Public Goods works to keep its packaging and products as ethically sourced and waste-minimizing as possible. Imperfect Produce currently delivers to the West Coast, Southwest, Midwest and Northeast . You won’t pay any membership or service fees, just a delivery fee.
Best Meal Kit Delivery Service For Healthy Eaters: Sunbasket
When you’re cooking for a lot of people, a meal kit can take a lot of stress out of dinnertime. However, EveryPlate is focused on affordability and not specific diet plans, which means its recipes may not suit everyone. Its weekly menu has 17 rotating options to choose from, with two or three “premium” options included, at least five vegetarian options, and limited vegan options. Every Gobble recipe we tested came together in 15 minutes or less, as promised by the brand’s website. The recipe cards for each dish include fun facts about the dish, supplies to gather, what’s included in your dinner kit, calorie information, and easy-to-follow cooking instructions. We appreciated how the ingredients are bolded within the instructions, so it’s easier to spot these at a glance if you’re reading whilst cooking.
- As long as you’re located near a participating store, you can get Walmart groceries shipped to you with no delivery cost with Walmart+ .
- Our representatives are available by phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Every Gobble recipe we tested came together in 15 minutes or less, as promised by the brand’s website.
- Ingredients are divided per meal into labeled bags that easily slide into the fridge, recipe instructions are consistently clear, and time estimates are largely accurate.
- EveryPlate gave us allergen information for all their recipes, both on their website and recipe cards.
For this reason, we gave more points to companies that use locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients rather than industrial produce. Arguably the most popular meal kit service in the US, Blue Apron has become the quality standard in a very crowded meal delivery marketplace.
Service
While browsing the company’s website, we initially saw fried chicken and laughed. How could a food so many people find impossible to cook at home be executed well in a meal kit? —to find that Home Chef’s recipe yielded wonderfully even, juicy chicken with nary an oil burn in sight. We also tested the best pre-made meal kits, our favorite of which, Freshly, is included in this roundup. If you’re interested in prepared meals, Daily Harvest is the least expensive for single-serving items, and Mosaic Foods is the cheapest for family-style entrees.
Daniel Shumski, a recipe developer and cookbook author, advised taking advantage of trial offers. “So many meal kits and delivery services offer great introductory prices — it’s worth trying around to find one that fits your taste and budget,” he said. Blue Apron offers a number of weekly menu items based on your selected meal plan. Meal plan options include a Signature plan, a Vegetarian plan and a Wellness plan that features nutritionist-approved, carb-conscious recipes. Home Chef features a rotating weekly menu with more than 30 meals to choose from. You can also select from a variety of menu options catered to your preferences, including 15-minute meal kits, grill- and oven-ready kits and special occasion meals. Ready-to-eat meal delivery services are arguably the easiest, since there’s no cooking involved.