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Our Methodology for Choosing the Best Meal Kit Delivery Services
To rate these meal delivery services and help you to decide which companies are worth your time and money, we dug deep so you don’t have to.
Our experienced dietitians and nutritionists ordered, selected meals, prepared, and tried out each of these meal kits to assess the following:
- User experience online and customer service
- Flexibility of subscriptions
- Diversity and variety of meal plans
- Quality of the ingredients
- Recipe accuracy
- Preparation difficulty level
- Overall taste of the meals
What Is a Meal Kit Delivery Service?
A meal kit delivery service is a subscription style service that delivers packaged meals to your home. Typically, meal kits contain perfectly portioned ingredients, recipes, and step-by-step instructions so you can easily make them yourself.
Some meal delivery services offer premade meals that only require heating up before digging in. While some services have a variety of meal options you can choose from, and others have a set menu changing on a regular basis.
Meal kits are also highly customizable, which means you can pick meals according to your liking and any dietary restrictions you may have, with some services catering to various food allergies, as well.
What Are the Advantages of Meal Kit Delivery Services?
Using a meal kit delivery service has quite a few advantages, including:
Convenience: If you hate grocery shopping and meal planning, meal delivery services can save you that hassle. All of the ingredients you need for the meal are delivered straight to your door, along with easy-to-follow instructions on how to prepare them.
Variety: Are you a picky eater? Tired of eating the same meals over and over again? Meal delivery services usually offer a variety of meals to choose from, so you can pick your favorite meals and try different cuisines.
Health: Many people have dietary restrictions they choose or need to follow. Whether you’re vegan, diabetic, or just prefer organic produce, a meal delivery service will usually have something for you. These kinds of food can be much harder to find at the grocery store, while on meal delivery services you can easily pick a plan that fits your dietary preferences or filter by certain foods.
Portion control: It can be hard to control portion sizes when you make something from scratch. Meal delivery services make it easier by delivering you with the exact ingredients you need for each meal.
Waste reduction: It’s very common for people to buy more groceries than they need and end up throwing some of them away. Since meal kit delivery services deliver you the exact amount of ingredients for the meals you order, no food will go to waste. They also usually come in reusable or recyclable packages, so they're less harmful to the environment.
Time-saving: Meal delivery services save you precious time, both in the grocery store and in the kitchen. Ingredients are already pre-measured and recipes usually take up to 30 minutes to make. If you opt for ordering prepared meals, all you have to do is heat up your meal and it’s ready to eat.
What Do You Get in a Meal Kit Delivery?
Depending on the service you choose and the meals you select, the content of a meal delivery kit may vary. However, it would usually include the following:
- Packaging - With most meal delivery services, a reusable or recyclable box will arrive at your door, containing ice packs or insulation so ingredients stay fresh until you can safely store them in the fridge or freezer.
- Ingredients (and specialty ingredients) - In the package, you’ll find all the ingredients you need to make the meal you chose. This might include fresh produce, proteins, and even spices and sauces that are needed for the recipe and aren’t usually found in pantries. Ingredients are usually pre-measured, and sometimes even pre-chopped and all ready to cook.
- Recipe card - A meal delivery kit will usually contain a recipe card with easy-to-follow instructions on how to make it. You’ll also get all the nutritional information you need about the meal, as well as information on how you can modify the recipe for different dietary restrictions.
What Is the Difference Between Meal Kits and Prepared Meal Delivery?
Both meal kits and prepared meal delivery will bring food to your table, reducing the effort it takes to make meal time happen. But, it’s worthwhile to provide a comparison between the two services.
You can order meal kits if you like to experiment and don’t mind preparing meals. You choose from a weekly menu and get all the ingredients through weekly deliveries. Meal kit recipes are more affordable and take less time to put together.
Meal delivery is perfect if you want to eat with zero effort. You get fully-prepared meals shipped, either fresh or frozen, to your home. These services are not only affordable, but some of them even offer free shipping on their meal plans.
Meal delivery and meal kits are both tailorable according to dietary restrictions. This includes diabetes friendly options and plant-based meals.
Choosing the Right Meal Delivery Service for Your Needs
With the growth of the meal delivery market has come an increase in specialty purveyors focusing on anything from vegan to kid-friendly or gluten-free.
No matter what your food preferences or allergies may be, there is a service that will meet your needs.
Prepared Meal Services
Prepared meal kits delivered straight to your home for quick and easy meals. If you have little time to prepare food and want to get tasty dishes without thinking twice, you can try prepared meal brands like Eat Clean To Go and Factor_.
Vegetarian Meal Services
Vegetarian Meal Services, like Veestro are the perfect choice for vegetarians or those looking to add more fresh veggies to their diet.
Vegan Meal Services
Vegan Meal Services through services like Green Chef and Purple Carrot carry meal kits for vegans, consisting entirely of plant-based ingredients.
Gluten-Free Meal Services
Gluten-Free meal services like HelloFresh and Sunbasket offer meals for people looking to cut gluten from their diet or for people with celiac.
Organic Meal Services
Organic Meal services offer meal kits made with organic components and cleaner produce. Brands like Freshology provide customers with foods made from fresh and sustainably-sourced ingredients.
Weight Loss Meal Services
For those looking to lose weight, meal delivery services like Nutrisystem and Diet-to-Go offer different diet plans.
Keto Meal Services
Keto meal plans like EveryPlate and Fresh and Easy make it super easy to follow a keto diet by providing low-carbohydrate foods for every meal.
Paleo Meal Services
Paleo Meal services provide portion-perfect meals for people following a paleo diet, with nothing but fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds. You can order paleo meal delivery services through companies like Home Chef.
Diabetic Meal Services
There are a few meal kit delivery services out there with special programs for diabetics, like BistroMD and Magic Kitchen, to manage their sugar level. Whether you are pre-diabetic or diabetic, consistently eating well-balanced and low or free of sugar foods is critical to your health.
What Do Meal Delivery Services Cost?
Meal delivery service prices vary from one company to the next, and is often based on how many meals you order per week.
Since companies offer different pricing structures that can appear complex, the best way to compare prices is to look at how much each serving (meal) costs.
Cheapest Meal Delivery Services
EveryPlate is one of the more affordable meal delivery service companies, charging $4.99 per serving across the board. From there, the prices can go up depending on the type of cuisine, the quality of ingredients, and other factors.
HelloFresh, one of the best-rated meal delivery services out there, charges $7.99-$8.99 per serving and offers a wide variety of recipes and high quality ingredients.
Expensive and High-end Meal Delivery Services
At the higher end of the spectrum is Green Chef, whose meals range between $11.99 and $12.99 but feature USDA-certified organic produce ingredients and plenty of healthy, tasty recipes.
Most meal kit companies today offer special family meal plans. There are often fewer family recipe options include per week, and they are a little less adventurous than the recipes for couples and singles.
The focus is usually on hearty, kid-friendly meals that can be cooked in a single pot—and leave some leftovers for later.
Meal Delivery Shipping Cost
One factor that can really make a difference when choosing a meal kit company is the shipping cost. The shipping costs range from around $6.99 to $9.99 or more per order, basically the same price as a meal serving.
With many companies, the shipping cost is waived if your overall order is above a certain total. For instance, with Plated, shipping costs $7.95 per order, but is free if you order more than $60. With Home Chef the shipping is free if your order exceeds $45.
With HelloFresh on the other hand, you get free shipping - no matter how many meals you order. While with Sunbasket, the shipping isn’t waived with a minimum order amount.
If you’re ordering for yourself, it may be difficult to hit that order minimum, but by doing so, the savings on shipping could offset your delivery costs. If you’re ordering for a family of four, you should be able to exceed the minimum order no problem.
How to Choose and Compare Meal Delivery Services
When choosing a meal delivery service, you should first see if you want a meal kit or a ready-to-eat food service.
There are many meal delivery services out there, and each one caters for a different purpose. For example, some meal delivery services only have vegan dinners, while others specialize in smoothies or comfort foods.
Before ordering a meal delivery kit, there are several things you need to consider:
- Your budget - Choose a meal delivery service that fits the desired price range you want to spend on weekly meals