Choosing a good or rather, the best meal kit delivery service is quite a task, especially when you see the market swarming with abundant options. Whether you are a vegan or wish to try the Whole30 diet; whether you are cooking for one or your huge family; whether you are a newbie in the kitchen or an experienced chef, you will find meal kit delivery services that cater to all your needs easily in the market. Some of these services provide you with all the basic ingredients along with the recipes, thus allowing you to cook partially and enjoy some time in the kitchen, while there are also some services that offer you pre-made meals or even grocery items to help you enjoy a good meal at home. Each of these meal delivery services make the entire coking process, much easier and convenient for you.

In my quest to find the best meal kit delivery services, I have spent my past few months trying the various companies available in the market. Well, there are 14 in total, and I have tried them all. Some of my experiences were good, and some were disastrous. The good news that I derived from my experiences is that each kit is very much usable. The bad thing I understood from this was that choosing a meal kit subscription offer you more menu choices than what you are initially offered. Well, I am a foodie at heart, and also love to spend all my free time cooking in my kitchen. I have no diet restrictions but I prefer to make plant based meals with some omnivorous options as well. Thus, considering the ingredients, the recipes, usability, ease of cooking, packaging waste and understanding that the needs of every home chef is different, I have come up with the best meal subscriptions for you.

Note that every meal kit company that I have mentioned here has some sort of promotion currently going on! So, before you sign up, make sure that you do a little research to get the best offers. Most of these meal kit delivery services follow a very similar pricing model according to which, the more number of meals you purchase per week, lower is the each serving price. In this content, we will go a little more in-depth to understand the dietary restrictions and subscriptions of each of these companies. Also, if you want to skip an entire week or even cancel the subscription, you can get all the details in the account section of the chosen meal kit service provider’s website.

Are these Meal Kits Good for You?

Good

Believe me, these meal kits are very very convenient! I tried a meal kit during the weekdays, and for once it was such an overwhelming experience to realize that I didn’t have to plan a dinner in advance. These kits are absolutely great for all those who are learning to cook and the young budding chefs who lack confidence in the kitchen. These kits impart knowledge and also boost your confidence. They are perfect for you especially when you are bored, busy or cannot be bothered, these meal kits can act as a refreshing activity. And trust me, cooking is the best way to relax your mind.

Also food deserts are a part of theses subscriptions. If you have a grocery store near you, you are indeed lucky to have access to it whenever you want, especially looking at the current situation in America.

Bad

Cooking the old fashioned way is the best and there is no second thought to it. You gain so much knowledge from cooking which can be used differently for different recipes. For instance, you learn everything from choosing a ripe fruit or choosing the best potatoes (Yukon gold or russet) for making mashed recipes against the fried recipes or choosing a whole chicken for just $5 against spending $12 on a clean and pre-packaged chicken pieces. You learn all this only when you go for old school cooking methods and not when you are offered everything at your doorstep in measured portions. This is just my thought and outlook, especially because I think cooking as an art. Trust me when I say that it happens to almost every chef when they use baking powder instead of baking soda while baking a cake.

Best Overall Kit – Blue Apron Meal Kit

One of the most widely known meal kit delivery service, Blue Apron is famous for its great services, no-fuss kit and great meals. It is the perfect place to start and you will be happy with the services and food you receive. The recipe cards are large and the instructions are easy to follow. Some of the produces that I receive were a little bruised but the overall quality and the flavor of each of the dishes was absolutely great. I choose it as one of the best overall service providers because Blue Apron works perfectly for all people. Their services are flexible and offer various dietary lifestyle options to their customers. It is not expensive and the weekly menu offers a good variety of choices to the customers. Also, the recipes are not very difficult to follow.

Additionally, one more fact that makes Blue Apron a better choice than others is the fact that they have partnered with How2Recycle who in return teach them how to recycle the different packaging materials that you find in your delivery. How2Recycle is a famous and excellent company for almost everyone subscribing to such meal kits. They have a great reputation of being a very environmentally friendly company.

Plan Details: Blue Apron offers a weekly menu that focuses mostly on Mediterranean meals that includes a good amount of veggies along with healthy proteins. The other dietarian option available to you are vegetarian, plant-forward, carb-conscious, sub-500 calories and diabetes friendly diets that are WW-approved.

Cost: At Blue Apron, the lowest price per serving is $7.49. The lowest subscription cost is $48 for 2 meals per week (2 servings per meal) and this includes the shipping charges.

Cheapest Meal Kit – Dinnerly Meal Kit

Costing you just $4.50 per person, Dinnerly Meal Kit is the cheapest available meal kit. I tried a couple of their meals and they were all tasty and easy to make. So, if you are looking for a good and cheap meal kit subscription that delivers you your dinner quickly and without much fuss, then this meal kit company is perfect for you. I also loved the fact that they didn’t wrap the potatoes in a plastic wrap.

With minimum packaging and paperless recipes, Dinnerly Meal Kit is simple and straight. The recipes are great, but there is a chance that you may just miss out some of the highly detailed points. Also, every meal that I ordered, included an extra credit step which guided me on how to make the meal making process easier or a little more classic. For example, they included cooking everything in the oven, if you don’t want to pan-fry them or how you can make your side dish using the staples you already may have in your pantry.

Plan Details: Choose a simple 2 person meal box or a 4 person box. They have no option to filter the ingredients, apart from making your box completely vegetarian. However, there are keywords used for every weekly menu from where you can choose your recipes. For example, you may include a sub-30 minute plan, kid-friendly plan, low-calorie plan or a dairy-free plan. The choices can vary depending largely on the weekly menu.

Cost: At Dinnerly Meal Kit, the lowest price per serving is $4.50. The subscription cost for 3 meals per week is $29 and it includes a portion of 2 servings per meal. The delivery charge costs you another $9.

Meal Kit For Beginners – Home chef Meal Kit

Don’t know which meal kit delivery service to choose? Well, Home Chef is surely the one for you to start with. The detailed instructions provided with the kit make their services perfect for all beginners. In fact, the instructions are so perfect that they have absolutely no nuance left unstated. The 3 meals that I tried were absolutely delicious and the recipes included small reminders such as not removing a pan which may later be used again to make some sauce or saving some ingredient for a later use. Every single recipe offered by Home Chef has a different difficulty level. Some of the recipes even come with a classic television style sinner roasting pan which you can simply pop into your oven. They also offer you fantastic flavors. Well, thanks to Home Chef, I can’t stop myself from cooking asiago-stuffed Roma Tomatoes. Absolutely delicious!

Plan Details: They offer you weekly customizable menu that allows you to filter the options by calorie-conscious, carb-conscious, under 3-minute recipes and vegetarian recipes.

Cost: The lowest price at Home Chef is $7 per serving. Their lowest subscription cost for 2 meals per week (2 portion servings per meal) is $29. They charge you an extra $10 for the delivery, i.e only if your bill total is less than $40.

Meal Kit For Expert Chefs – Martha & Marley Spoon Meal Kit

One of the best meal kit delivery services in the market, Martha & Marley Spoon Meal Kit is absolutely delicious, intensive and designed for expert chefs. I tried 3 dishes from their kitchen and everything about them was perfect. Checking their recipe cards right now, they have pan sauce splattered on them, the corners of the recipe instructions page are bent and scribbled over the margins. Yes, but these are the only things where I had to make a little adjustments. They are undoubtedly one of my favorite services for their food and their perfection. Each step in their recipe has multiple steps within it and this only makes you want to be a little extra careful during the preparation of the dishes. So, read carefully when you prepare your meal, especially if you want to have the perfect outcome.

The steps and procedures in the recipes require a lot of multi-tasking and the recipes are comparatively longer than their estimated time of 30 minutes. In the end, you will have several dirty dishes but a perfect meal. In fact, after I finished all the steps at a fast pace, I was proud of myself to put a meal on the dinner table for both me and my partner. Although they were difficult, these will be the only recipes that I will personally save in my diary for future use. Also, if you are trying to expand your culinary boundaries or wish to cook something fancier than a simple 10 minute veg soup, then this meal kit service is perfect for you.

Plan Details: They offer you 2 person plan and a 4 person plan. Martha & Marley Spoon Meal Kit also offers you 20 recipes, belonging to 5 different categories each week. These categories are: Vegetarian & Vegan, Health & Diet, Under 30 Minutes, Meat & Fish and lastly, Family-Friendly.

Cost: At Martha & Marley Spoon Meal Kit, the lowest price per serving is $7. Their lowest subscription cost for 2 meals per week (2 servings per meal) is $50. They charge you an additional $9 for the delivery.

Meal Kit for Vegans (Single Servings) – Daily Harvest Meals

Daily Harvest is unique and a little different from all the other meal service kits. So, instead of delivering you ingredients to make a recipe, Daily Harvest will send you a frozen, single-serving soup, bowl, smoothies, lattes or even small bites. They offer you everything vegan and you can enjoy their meals as it is delivered or you can add them as a supplement in your own recipe. Their smoothies and lattes need your favorite liquid base; so all you need to do is just chose your liquid base, then pop their frozen mix into a blender and mix it all together. Their soups are also delivered in a similar fashion, while their quick bites are right from the freezer.

Personally, I enjoyed the meals offered by Daily Harvest mostly because they were very easy to devour. Their ingredients are clearly listed per cup and they are absolutely healthy. Their food is filling, tasty and nutritious. I usually do not prefer frozen food, but Daily Harvest’s frozen food is a welcome change because their meals are not only healthy but also full of nutrition. So, if you are looking for a change from hot pot meals, make sure you try Daily Harvest at least once.

Plan Details: Meals at Daily Harvest are all purely vegan. You will find a number of filtering options, ranging right from keto plans, gluten-free plans, and many other based on your taste.

Cost: Most meals or plans are delivered in cups and each of these cups is usually a single product, no matter whether it is a soup, latte or a smoothie or any other meal. The lowest price of a cup at Daily Harvest is $7, while the lowest subscription cost for 9 cups per week is $70.

Meal Kit for Experienced Vegans – Purple Carrot Meal Kit

For all those of you who are looking for a plant-based meal kits that also have a good vegan option, Purple Carrot Meal Kit is the best. The instructions provided by them for each of their dishes are perfect. So, whether you are a vegan who doesn’t have much idea about cooking, then Purple Carrot Meal kit is ideal for you. They also provide you with helpful notes, and disclaimers especially when the recipe is spicy, thus allowing you to add your ingredients carefully.

Purple Carrot’s meals are full of flavors, thus when you are looking for a plant based diet make sure you have exactly what you want in your mind. The dishes that I ordered at Purple Carrot included ingredients such as harissa, cacao nibs, spirulina, bok choy, tomatillos and ancho chiles. And these were just some of the ingredients that were in my recipes. The food turned out to be not only tasty, but also helped increase the tastes and flavors of all your vegan dishes.

Plan Details: Purple Carrot offers you meal plans for 2 person or for 4 people. All meals are pure vegan. You have different meal plan options that you can customize as per your weekly menu. So, you can choose from anything that you want, from gluten-free meals, soy-free meals, high-protein meals, etc. You can also choose to add breakfast into your meal plan or also add a lunch into your plan.

Cost: The lowest price of a meal at Purple Carrot is $10. Their lowest subscription cost for 3 meals per week (2 servings per meal) is $72.

Meal Kit for Fresh Produce Lovers – Sun Basket Meal Kit

If you are a lover of food and wish to enjoy a plethora of classy meals with organic ingredients, then Sun Basket Meal Kit is what you really need. They offer you a ton of variety in your weekly menu options. In short, at sun Basket you will find something for everyone. Some of the other meal subscriptions that I came across included subpar flavors, but Sun Basket had none.

The recipes that I ordered at Sun Basket was Pork Chops with fig agrodolce, accompanied by walnut mushroom flatbreads. The recipe was full of ingredients that were similar to what I’d personally pick from a store, even the vegetables and the seasonal fruits. Apart from the nutritious dinners offered by them, you can also add add-ons such as seed butter, coconut yogurt, soups, sous vide egg bites and snacks like chocolate nuts or cricket. And yes, the crickets were absolutely awesome and a treat to devour.

Plan Details: Sun Basket offers you plans for 2 people or for 4 people. They also offer you some diet filters such as the pescatarian and Mediterranean filters, as well as lifestyle and allergen filters. So, based on your needs, you can always mix and match all your recipes from the different plans that they offer, regardless of your plans.

Cost: The lowest price at Sun Basket per serving is $11. Also, the lowest subscription cost offered by them for 2 meals per week (2 servings per meal) is $52.

Meal Kit for Simple Meals (minimal preparations) – Gobble Meal Kit

For all food lovers who not only love to eat delicious meals, but also see themselves as home chef’s Gobble Meal Kit is the perfect meal delivery choice for you! They allow you to add ingredients as per your measurement and your taste. The whole concept of Gobble Meal Kit is their speed. The meal delivery service provides you with almost every ingredient completely prepared and ready to be used in the recipe. This means, you will receive peeled carrots and shredded cheese for your use in the recipes. Gobble offers you recipes that require minimal preparations and allows you to easily toss everything together to prepare your dinner in just 20 minutes time. Their basic instructions as well as meals are ideal for beginners. What I really appreciated was that they had delivered pre-measured liquids as well that were used in the recipe. For once, I didn’t have to worry about the amount of oil I was adding into the pan. All I needed to do was dump the little bottle of sesame oil right into the pan and it was all perfect.

Moreover, because their recipes were simple and quick that left absolutely no mess, I had just a few dishes to rinse at the end of my dinner as compared to the dirty dishes left by other mal kit delivery services. Each Gobble recipe that I chose and cooked required very few cookwares, instead of the other subscriptions that required mixing, searing, baking, breading, saucing, etc.

Plan Details: Gobble Meal Kit offers you a Classic dinner plan or a lean and clean dinner plan that is low on carbs and high in protein. They do not offer any other separate lunch plans. In order to enjoy their meals, you just need to choose from the given plans and their quantity. You can choose a meal for 2 people or for 4 people. Gobble also offers you a vegetarian option and has allergens listed in their recipe.

Cost: The lowest price of a dinner plan at Gobble costs you $12 per piece or you may also order their minimum 4 meals per week subscription that costs you $14 per piece. Additional $7 delivery charges.

Other Meal Kits That We Suggest

Hello Fresh (Meals start from $7.49)

Hello Fresh is very much similar to Blue Apron! I have tried their recipes and there is no doubt, the flavors are great. However, their instructions in the recipe are a little bit unorganized which makes it a little difficult for home chefs with less experience. The sirloin that I had in my meal, was definitely something that I was not comfortable putting it on the table. No doubt it was delicious, but I wasn’t able to finish it. May be with my high expectations, it was wrong to expect a meal kit delivery company could perfect a steak like that of a gourmet chef’s kitchen steak. They shouldn’t have delivered the steak if it wasn’t cut perfectly. Apart from this, I think the services of Hello Fresh and Blue Apron are absolutely identical.

Green Chef (Meals start from $10)

Green Chef is one of the best meal kit delivery services for beginners. They offer you a huge list of food plans that are all centered around the various diet plans. Also, every ingredient that is used in preparing meals at Green chef are organic, which definitely attracts a lot of good attention of the customers. Their recipe instructions are simple and easy to follow, especially due to the pictures accompanying the steps. Unlike the other meal kit services, recipes at Green Chef do not jump from one component to another. They are smooth and flawless. For instance, all the produces used in the recipe are prepared at the same time. This makes the cooking less time consuming than other recipes that I tried.

EveryPlate’s (Meals start at $5 per serving)

The recipe cards offered by Every Plate are concise and this really helps save some precious space on your kitchen counter. They also include helpful notes or instructions when you are doubling up the quantity in the recipe. Although, there are definitely some steps that test you kitchen and cooking excellence such as when you steak is fully cooked or slicing things in a diagonal. So, if you have some basic cooking knowledge and just need little guidance to become a better cook, then Every Plate is the perfect meal kit delivery service for you. Also, you will need to use some of your own additional home ingredients such as butter, milk or flour. So, when you used these home ingredients, the costs of meals offered by Every Plate comes much lower than that of other subscriptions.

Their delivery box also includes surprises for your little ones such as stickers or cute conversations cards that you can use to start a lovely discussions during your dinner. The prepared meals not only help save our time but also ensure that we gain adequate nutrition from them. So, if your child is old enough and is alone in the house, he or she can simply microwave a healthy dinner for them within minutes.

Plan Details: Choose any number of meals you want per week. Most of these meal options include, snacks, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You also have a filter option to choose a no milk plan, gluten-free plan, no soy plan, no-egg plan or a simple veggie based plan. You may also filter the meals based on your age group. They also offer you the chance to pick your meals each week. So, your kid doesn’t like broccoli, you always have the chance to easily avoid it.

Cost: The lowest cost per serving is $3. Their subscription cost for 6 meals per week is $24.