Meal Subscription Services

If you want to eat healthily but are short on time, consider a meal delivery service. You can have either complete meals or ingredients delivered to you.

Home-cooked meals are healthier than most meals from restaurants. Occasional restaurant food won’t hurt you, but restaurants fry much of their food in oil, and you should not eat at restaurants every day. Home-cooked meals are usually more nutritious than restaurant meals, as well.

In short, meal delivery services have the advantages of both home-cooked meals and restaurant meals. Restaurant meals save you time, home-cooked meals are healthy, and meals from delivery services are both. On top of that, you may be surprised by how much money you can save with a delivery service.

What are the best meal subscription services?

There is no single best choice if you are looking for a meal delivery company. Different companies have different advantages and disadvantages.

Some services are cheaper, tastier, healthier, or offer more variety than others. Consequently, you will have to decide the best company for yourself. Not every service is available everywhere.

All of the companies I recommend offer tasty food and reasonably good service, but there is no single winner. If you have a specific diet, you can usually find a meal plan for it. People who are anywhere from vegan to keto can find a meal plan with many options for them.

Tasty and healthy meal delivery services I recommend

1) Sun Basket

Not everyone wants to order only a single meal per day. Many people want to order two or three, and with Sun Basket, there are many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners to try.

Sun Basket allows you to choose between full meals that you only have to microwave and meal kits that require some preparation. If you enjoy cooking but still want to save time, go with the meal kits. The meal kits give you all the ingredients you need but still let you cook everything yourself.

If you don’t want to have to do any food preparation yourself, go with ready to microwave meals. There are many tasty meals to choose from, and everything sun basket offers uses high-quality ingredients.

Sun Basket also offers meals for people with different diet plans. You can get vegetarian, pescatarian, and low carb meals, all of which use certified organic ingredients.

2) EveryPlate

If you are trying to save money, EveryPlate offers some of the cheapest high-quality meals I can find anywhere. Servings cost as little as $5. It is not quite as cheap as that sounds, but EveryPlate still stands out for its low prices.

While only about a dozen meals are available at a time, EveryPlate changes its meal selection every week, so you won’t get sick of their food quickly. On another level, EveryPlate is not a good choice if you want very many different meals available at all times. Many other companies offer more meals available at the same time.

EveryPlate is also a low commitment service. You can skip weeks when you don’t want to order anything without losing money. The service is flexible, so you can order more or fewer meals from one week to another.

3) Freshly

Freshly is an all-around great delivery service with lots of healthy meals to choose from. Chefs and nutritionists design Freshly’s meals, so the overall quality is above average. Chefs also cook everything that Freshly delivers.

Everything you get from freshly is a complete meal and not a box of ingredients to cook yourself. It only takes a few minutes to heat your food up and get your meal ready to eat.

You can choose from four to twelve meals per week. None of the meals are ever frozen. You cannot order from Freshly everywhere, but it is widespread, available in 27 states.

If you have special food intolerances, such as to peanuts, soy, dairy, or gluten, the company is accomodating to your needs. You can use online tools to create a meal plan that excludes certain foods. Many meals are likely to be free of whatever common allergy you have.

4) Dinnerly

Dinnerly is another great choice if you are looking for an affordable plan. Dinnerly’s servings cost as little as $4.29 each, and each serving is bigger than what the low price would suggest. Dinnerly offers meal kits, not complete meals.

While dinnerly offers high-quality ingredients, the meals are simpler than meals from some of the more expensive plans. Dinnerly is not the best choice if you want fancier meals with lots of different ingredients. While many people think six ingredients in one box is enough, many others may find that too basic.

Dinnerly offers meal boxes in two sizes, a two-person box and a family box for four people. Dinnerly delivers boxes of either size three times a week. Dinnerly also allows you to skip weeks and even skip single orders if you cancel five or six days in advance.

The quality of the meat is noticeable for such an affordable service. The beef is grass-fed, and the chicken is antibiotic-free. The fruits and vegetables are also fresh and never frozen.

5) Omaha Steaks

If you are a meat-eater, Omaha Steaks is the first delivery service I recommend. The company delivers delicious beef stews, chicken dumplings, beef shepherd’s pies, and more. The meat, pasta, and other ingredients are delicious.

Some meals are quicker to prepare than others. You can get meals that you can microwave in a few minutes, plus meals that you are supposed to cook slowly and meal kits that you have to prepare.

One of the best things about Omaha Steaks is how widespread the service is. Unlike most meal delivery services, they are in business in every state. The company has been around in different forms since the 1800s, originally a single butcher shop and today one of the top online meal delivery services.

6) Yumble

Kids can be picky eaters, and Yumble offers kid-friendly meals. If you want to save time, Yumble offers meals that kids are likely to enjoy.

The emphasis is specifically on meals for children, and Yumble does a good job of designing meals that are both kid-friendly and healthy. The company offers things like bean burritos, cheesy broccoli with meatballs, and turkey sausage with eggs. A nutritionist approves every meal before they list it.

Since parents need to save as much time as possible, Yumble delivers meals rather than meal kits. You can heat anything you order up in a few minutes.

One unusual advantage of Yumble is that the ingredients are local. While many other meal delivery services offer organic ingredients, it is impressive for a meal delivery service to care about sustainable local agriculture. The refrigerated boxes that Yumble ships their food in are also environmentally friendly and made of recycled materials.

7) Gobble

While Gobble offers meal kits rather than ready to eat meals, all ingredients are chopped and measured in advance. While you do have to cook the meals yourself, it won’t take much time to prepare your meal or clean up afterward. Gobble is a good choice if you like cooking but don’t want to spend much time shopping, cutting up ingredients, or cleaning.

Gobble’s recipe cards’ instructions are very clear, so it is no hassle to figure out the less simple dishes. Gobble offers many meals for those who are on a lean and clean diet and many others for people who are not on diets.

The lean and clean foods are low carb, use only healthy fats, and are low calorie. Gobble offers an above-average variety of meals. Both the lean and clean menu and the general menu have many different dishes. Very different kinds of food are available.

One disadvantage is the price, which may be perfectly acceptable to many people but is higher than what many competitors charge.

8) HelloFresh

HelloFresh is the most popular and one of the best meal delivery services in the country. The ingredients are quite good, and the prices are fair, although not as low as some of the alternatives.

You can get vegetarian, pescatarian (fish but no other meat), and low-calorie meals. The company does not offer vegan or low carb meals. There are no plans for those who want gluten-free meals or meals free of common allergens.

If you want to pick exactly what meals to order, you can choose from any of the 20 or so meals currently in rotation. You can also choose one of six different meal plans if you don’t want to pick out new dishes each week. The meal plans are meat & veggies, veggie, family-friendly (meals kids like), calorie smart (less than 650 calories), quick and easy (little prep time), and pescatarian (fish, but no dairy and no other animal meat).

9) Veestro

Veestro is one of the best plant-based meal plans. All of the ingredients are both organic and non-GMO, so you can rest assured that you are eating exclusively high-quality food. Veestro is also strict about being plant-based; there is no meat, fish, or dairy in any meal.

Veestro is also an environmentally friendly service. All of the packages are recyclable, and there is no BPA in any of the plastic used. Veestro is also available in any state other than Alaska and Hawaii.

One disadvantage of Veestro is that they offer frozen food. While the food is still tasty, many people may order fresh plant-based food elsewhere. A disadvantage of Veestro being available anywhere is that they have to ship it frozen.