15 Best Meal Delivery Services In 2021

If you're all about cooking less — and we mean a lot less — this is the service for you. Your weekly shipments start with 4 to 12 individually sized meals that come straight to your door ready to be microwaved. The heat and serve element is almost as appealing as the gourmet-level quality. Depending on the shipping cost and amount of meals purchased, these waver around the $9-12 mark for each serving.

With each nutrient-packed meal full of quality proteins, fats, and veggies, each week you can choose from around 30 certified gluten-free options. Freshly keeps things, well, fresh by continually adding new meals as well as offering long-running favorites, like their steak peppercorn, and seasonally inspired picks. It's the perfect option for those looking to cut carbs and pack on the protein, as all their nutritional information is easy to find as well. Subscribers also have the ability to view the week's meals based on their dietary needs, including low carbs. They recently introduced new plant-based options, a celebrity line, and the ability to add individual proteins, like grilled chicken pieces and meatballs, to your order. Freshly is all about convenience and quality, and is an obvious frontrunner in the meal delivery service industry.

One of the most widely recognized and pioneers in the meal delivery service arena is HelloFresh. Now a decade old, it's also the largest in the United States. Unlike later companies that would use the ready-to-serve models, HelloFresh provides the customers with all the ingredients pre-measured and instructions. Subscribers then cook, from scratch, a homemade meal in around 30 minutes. This is ideal for the at-home cook who may be lacking the time or inspiration to develop their own dinner concepts.

Each week provides a variety of around 25 recipes with three two-person meals a week averaging to around $65. The recipe cards are easy to follow and designed by nutritionists and professional chefs. For the diet-conscious, they offer a variety of six different meal plans, including low-carb and low-calories. It garners bonus points from us because all of their packaging is fully recyclable and sustainable. They seem to be doing something right as they are riddled with countless five-star reviews, touting the most among all meal kits, as well as being named the #1 meal kit by USA Today in both 2019 and 2020.

Dinnerly is the answer to the budget question nagging at so many when the topic of meal delivery services arises. With meals starting at $4.69 per person, who could resist? The no-frills programs offers an accessible array of familiar entrees each week, from a glazed meatloaf to cheesy chicken quesadillas. A box of pre-proportioned ingredients and recipes arrive weekly at a fraction of the cost of other recipe kits. How do they do this? It's simple. They use a digital recipe card instead of paper as well as dishes that require fewer ingredients per meal.

Ingredients are high quality, like many other companies, but their cost-saving measures wind up saving you in the end. These also have the added bonus of promising that each meal can be prepared in six steps or less. If you're a non-adventurous cook who hates navigating the aisles of the grocery store and complex recipes, then Dinnerly is the perfect affordable option for you. According to The Frugal Girl, portion sizes are large allowing many to stretch their meals even further.

Purple Carrot's goal is to provide its subscribers with fulfilling and tasty meals that are completely plant-based. Versatile as it is exciting enough to even entice the enthusiastic meat-eater, their plans come in both meal kit style as well as fully prepared and ready to heat and serve. They have particularly marketed themselves to those looking to shed a few pounds as well as lower their LDL cholesterol. You're also doing something good for Mother Earth as a plant-based diet significantly lowers your carbon footprint.

The prepared meal arm offers an array of lunch or dinner options, like gnocchi al pesto or jackfruit carnitas, for $12.99 per serving. The meal kits offer more options, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with servings ranging in price from $4.49 each to $9.99. It's ideal for those looking to introduce a plant-based diet in their lives as well as vegans looking to add new options, or those who may struggle with meal planning. Far from mundane and flavorless, it will also have you rethinking your preconceived notions about a plant-based diet.

Splendid Spoon is another plant-based meal delivery service that offers a wide range of meals and plans for those looking to add a nutrient boost to their diet. The central focus is on noodles dishes, grain bowls, soup, and ready-made smoothies that, as opposed to being priced per serving, come in a variety of box combinations. With free shipping, subscribers can customize a plan that works just from them, including breakfast only, as well as breakfast paired with lunch, dinner, and more. Each week, customers can expect around 50 dishes, handcrafted by nutrition experts, to choose from that are completely vegan and gluten-free. Everything arrives flash-frozen except for the smoothies which arrive refrigerated.

Looking to add more plant-based options to your diet? This is the way to go. It's a no-brainer method that provides ready-to-serve dishes. Weight Watchers points are provided as well as compatibility to Whole30, but the meals aren't necessarily low carb or fat, nor are they designed to be. Splendid Spoon is meant to round out a balanced diet and lifestyle.

In the meal delivery world, Green Chef is the first to be classified a certified organic company. They take that commitment one step further by sourcing ingredients from family farms and local farmland. Subscribers choose from three different meal types — Keto + Paleo, Balanced Living, or Plant-powered. Much like other systems, you can choose between for two, four, or even six people that include three or four meals per week. They average around 10 choices per week with each starting at $7.16 per serving. While you are limited to four meals per week, you could adjust the serving size to account for leftovers.

With the promise that all recipes can be done in 30 minutes or under, each meal comes with pre-measured ingredients and pre-made sauces and spices. Every ingredient is organic and completely free from antibiotics, pesticides, and GMOs. Recipe cards spell out step by step their easy-to-follow instructions and also include photos and tips from trained chefs. This plan is ideal for the health-forward individual looking for a diet rich in high-fiber foods and healthy fats.

Gobble's meal delivery kits are all about speediness so that you can gobble down a meal in just 15 minutes. Subscribers can choose three or four recipes each week from a selection of around 12 options that are available in two or four servings each. Priced at $11.99, it is on the higher end of cost but comes with zero prep and very little cleanup. They also offer a limited number of premium selections, but this will bring the price tag up to nearly $20 per serving. Add-ons are an option with Gobble as well and include desserts, soups, breakfasts, and add-on proteins and sides. They do offer the option to swap out proteins with many of the meals which can be appealing for many.

The large-format recipe card is chock full of information but that's just where the potential wasting begins. According to The Spruce Eats, Gobble's packing method results in a lot of unneeded plastic which can't always be recycled. They also explain that for the price tag, the quality could be hit or miss, with some cuts of meat completely unappealing. While there's certainly a convenience to be found, if you're on a budget and looking to reduce your footprint, this may not be the plan for you.

Blue Apron is one of the OGs that's still kicking it in the meal delivery kit game. The pre-portioned ingredient and recipe delivery service operates exclusively in the United States. Beginning out of a small commercial kitchen in New York just under 10 years ago, the company has expanded to now serving millions of meals a year. Available in their signature for two or signature for four, subscribers receive two, three, or four recipes per week, with servings costing around $7.50 to $10 each. In partnership with Beyond Meat and Weight Watchers, they also offer a vegetarian plan as well as a carb-conscious plan designed by a nutritionist for those following Weight Watchers. It's important to note that meals can run between a 25 minutes prep time upwards of 45 minutes.

Meals are well-balanced between a selection of seafood, fish, poultry, meat, and plant-based meat, and include healthier options as well as some comfort meals. Servings can be adjusted and there's the option to skip a week at any time. Premium meals are also available, including higher cuts of meat, for an added fee. Blue Apron also works with How2Recycle to implement a system that results in over 85% of packaging being recyclable. As a result of their exclusive access to renowned wineries, they also offer a wine pairing program. The program offers six bottles per box and is complete with pairing suggestions. Interestingly, they also dabble in some other venues, like an online marketplace with kitchen tools as well as meal kits for parties.