11 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested by an Ex-Restaurant Critic
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Marley Spoon
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HelloFresh
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Home Chef (Regular Plan)
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CookUnity
I didn't Expect to appreciate meal kits as much as I do, because I like to cook, and I like to eat out even more. But the best meal delivery services and kits don't just make your life easier—they help you eat better and maybe even live a little better. At their heart, the best meal kits are marvels of logistics—a convergence of growers, butchers, purveyors, and sauce makers from all over the globe, kitted out into little individual portions and sent to your doorstep with one-sheet recipes.
The promise of the internet has always been the world at your door (maybe even economically, if you do it right). This, in part, is why WIRED devotes so much coverage to the best meal prep kits, as well as all manner of other food delivery services.
The WIRED Reviews team has requested and tested more than two dozen meal kit delivery services since 2017. For a lot longer, I've worked as a food critic on both coasts, and I bring a critic's gimlet eye to testing recipes and food. I've been surprised at how well the best delivery services fare. The best meals I've eaten from a meal kit have come from Marley Spoon, which offers a path to genuinely good home-cooked meals on nights when I might otherwise feel uninspired. But over the past couple of years, HelloFresh and Blue Apron have also made bold plays to expand both convenience and options. Others among my favorite meal kits, like Green Chef or Purple Carrot, offer hassle-free solutions for organic, gluten-free, and plant-based home cooking.
During my testing, I assessed each meal plan's recipes, breadth of selection, sourcing, ease of preparation, convenience, organization, packaging, high-quality ingredients, and suitability for different eating restrictions and needs. I also tested the best new and innovative meal kits for those looking for alternatives to Blue Apron or HelloFresh's longstanding meal delivery services. And not for nothing, I sorted out some often maddeningly non-transparent pricing. Here are the best delivery meal subscriptions I've tried.
Be sure to check out my investigation into whether sometimes Meal Kits Are Cheaper Than Groceries when trying out new recipes, and WIRED's related guides, including Best Plant-Based Meal Kits, Best Food Gifts You Can Buy Online, Best Coffee Subscriptions, and Best Delivery Chocolate Boxes.
Updated May 2026: I added Tempo prepared meals by Home Chef as the top GLP-1-friendly meal delivery service. I retested HelloFresh's flagship meal service, which has drastically expanded options this year and added seasonal meals; Marley Spoon's budget plan; Dinnerly; and the Tovala meal delivery service and oven. I also updated pricing, plans, and descriptions throughout.
Table of Contents
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevron- Other Meal Kits I Liked
- A Meal Kit I Don't Recommend
- Are Meal Kits Worth It?
- Can I Pause Meal Kits When I Go on Vacation?
- How to Best Use Meal Kits
- How I Test Meal Kits
Best Meal Kit Overall
- Courtesy of Marley Spoon
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Marley Spoon
Meal Kit
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Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon has been evolving of late. Over the past year or two, the German-founded meal kit has added more menu items, more cosmopolitan meals with global flavors, and a greater variety of preparation times that now include a lot of 15-minute meals. They've done this without raising the price of the meal kit.
But what best differentiates Marley Spoon has not, thankfully, changed. It's the cooking. The best individual meals I've cooked among the 20 or so kits I've tested in the past two years have come from Marley Spoon. A hearty Hungarian-influenced creamy mushroom chicken, a boldly Cajun-spiced whitefish, or a delicate eggplant parm. hat hasn't changed, and those meals are still on the menu.
What has long differentiated from other meal kits in the US is the company's devotion to classical cooking technique—the sort they teach in culinary school and on Martha Stewart's TV shows. This is no accident. When the German-founded meal kit arrived in the US, it did so with the cooking maven's endorsement and a lot of her recipes and techniques.
The cost used to be that Marley's recipes often took a little more time and care to achieve. For me, it's always been worth the trade. Recipes often call for light seasoning throughout the process—not all at once. A kale and sausage soup, deeply savory, might be balanced with acid from a surprising splash of red wine vinegar.
Those classic “Martha's Best” recipes remain, but are now augmented by meals that emphasize convenience and global flavors. A third of the menu is now prepared, ready-to-heat meals. I see more 15-minute dishes and tray oven bakes. Marley Spoon also seems to have broadened its international fare, with takes on a Moroccan-spiced apricot and beef tagine and Indian-influenced keema matar that's as easy to make as garam masala sloppy Joe.
Marley Spoon is more honest than most meal kits about the time it actually takes to cook a recipe. While your 15-minute meal might acccctually still require 20 minutes, it definitely won't take 30 or 40. There is one big point of inconvenience with Marley, one that might help them keep the company's prices from climbing: Unlike other top-line kits, Marley sends your ingredients jumbled in a box, which reduces packaging waste but also leaves you digging through a heap of packets for the right spice mix or dried ingredient. The meat sourcing also isn't as transparent as some kits.
The trade remains, to me, worth it: While maintaining value, Marley Spoon offers genuine good cooking and acts as a little school in culinary techniques. Some other meal kits on this list offer more flexibility: Marley offers a firm backbone.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $9 to $13 per serving, plus $11 shipping per box Meal plan options Two or four people; two to six meals a week Lowest-cost plan at full price $74 a week; two meals for two people Size of weekly menu 100 to 140 choices each week Gluten-free meals? More than 50 “gluten-free friendly meals” but no cross-contamination guarantees Plant-based meals? 30 or so vegetarian options; many protein substitutions available; limited vegan aside from heat-and-eat meals Other dietary plans Low-calorie, low-carb, low-sodium, high-protein and keto, GLP-1, Mediterranean, sort-by-protein-choice Typical prep time: 15 minutes to an hour - Best culinary technique on classic dishes
- Large selection of meals
- Excellent proteins and sourcing (Cento tomatoes!)
- Express and international meals take some shortcuts
- Boxes arrive disorganized
- Ready-to-heat meals aren't great
Meal Kit With the Best Selection
- Courtesy of HelloFresh
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
HelloFresh
Meal Kit
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HelloFresh
HelloFresh is pretty much synonymous with “meal kits.” It's the biggest, and among the oldest. It's become a global brand, available in 18 countries. Chances are, if you've tried a meal kit, it's among the first you tried. What's surprised me, though, is how much HelloFresh keeps improving since the first time I tried it five years ago: better sourcing, and more cosmopolitan and modern recipes.
The brand has become a powerhouse of logistics. These days, you even get seasonal or even regional ingredients, depending where you live. Proteins are sourced from multigenerational, family-run meat purveyors. Each box is also well-organized, with each recipe's ingredients portioned into labeled bags. All you need is pots, pans, a stove, and some basic oil- and salt- and butter-type kitchen staples.
Especially over the past year, HelloFresh has undergone a near-astonishing expansion of its menu. Where I live, more than 400 menu items are available each week, spanning a truly global range of cuisines. One day, I can find myself deep in a Gambian-inspired peanut stew. The next it's an aspirational Hainanese chicken feast, a simplified Thai-style green curry shrimp, Tex-Mex enchiladas slathered in cheese and ranchera sauce, or Guamanian-inflected chicken kelaguen. Or I can just make myself a salad, wrap, or sandwich.
Where possible, HelloFresh has even begun dabbling in seasonal ingredients, like conehead cabbage I charred on my grill last summer. In some areas, HelloFresh has even added regional dishes and ingredients. Honestly, it's an exercise in logistics that makes the nerd in me a little giddy. After criticism, the company added more rice to the rice meals last year.
The global offerings don't make much claim to authenticity, mind you. Also, HelloFresh's 20-minute meals sometimes take as long as 40 minutes to make, and the new website has occasional glitches. But the offerings from HelloFresh look a lot like how people eat these days. They are bright, light, and lightly internationalized: with pan-Latin steak and rice bowls, beef stir-fried with ponzu and plum, Dutch-inspired orange Dijon chicken, Thai-style curries, and maybe some mango salsa atop a vaguely Southwest-y pork roast. It's an Alison Roman world. we're just living in it.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal Most plans $12 a serving, plus $11 shipping per box Meal plan options Two, three, four, or six people; two to six meals a week Lowest-cost plan at full price $65 a week; two meals for two people Size of weekly menu More than 400 choices each week (not all featured in the viewable menu) Gluten-free meals? Not attested to as such; prepared in shared facilities (HelloFresh's service for the gluten-less is Green Chef) Plant-based meals? Around 80 vegetarian options, and 15 to 20 vegan options per week Other dietary plans Kid-friendly, low-calorie, high protein, carb-conscious, high-fiber, lo-sodium, organic protein, dietitian-approved, and limited GLP-1 plans Typical prep time: 20 to 45 minutes - Broad, cosmopolitan menu with more than 400 meal options per week
- Well-organized boxes, clear recipe instructions
- Transparent, often seasonal ingredient sourcing
- Recipes can take longer than expected
- Don't shoot for authenticity in global meals
Best Family-Friendly Meal Kit
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Home Chef
Meal Kit
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Home Chef (Regular Plan)
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Home Chef (Larger Family Plan)
Home Chef lets you do pretty much whatever you want. Do you want two servings of two recipes, but eight servings of a third? No problem. Did you want to add an oven-ready steak meal for six to this week's order, and only this week's order? Also not a problem. Have a large family? Home Chef offers a cheaper family plan for batched meals. Want fewer meals this week than your typical order? Each meal will cost a little more, but you can still cut back your order without canceling completely.
More than any other meal kit I've tested, Home Chef is optimized for convenience, down to the transparent plastic bags that house each meal's ingredients. The recipes are finely detailed, with easy-to-follow instructions. Nutrition and allergens are listed in even finer detail online. Each recipe is classed according to difficulty, and even the “expert” ones aren't that hard to make.
It's not for nothing that WIRED previously listed Home Chef as the best meal kit for beginner chefs: The recipe instructions are full of little hand-holds and added advice. That said, the meals I tried more recently weren't quite as sophisticated and tasty as those you'll get from my top pick, Marley Spoon, nor as varied and interesting as HelloFresh. But newly, Home Chef has introduced more difficult “culinary” recipes, like truffle-scallop risotto, that are often endorsed by celebuchef Gordon Ramsay. I look forward to testing these more ambitious options in the future.
Still, convenience, flexibility, and good administration count for a lot in this world. If you've got a family life with meal demands that change from week to week, Home Chef may be precisely the meal kit you need.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $10 to $12 per serving, plus $11 shipping per box. Family plans as low as $7 a serving. Meal plan options Two to eight people; two to six meals a week, adjustable each week Lowest-cost plan at full price $59; two meals for two people Size of weekly menu 50-ish meals among dinners, lunches, ready-to-eats, and quick-prepared meals. Market and breakfast add-ons available. Gluten-free melas? About a dozen meals are “gluten-smart”; i.e., no gluten is added but they may have been prepared in a facility shared with gluten Plant-based meals? Relatively few vegetarian options Other dietary plans or restrictions Meals can be filtered for low carbs, low calories, fiber-rich, protein-packed, keto, pescatarian, spice levels, or even to exclude individual ingredients like red meat or tree nuts. Many meals offer protein substitutions. Prep time 10 to 45 minutes - Flexible meal planning for each week or meal
- Clear, well-written, helpful recipe cards
- Equal clarity about nutrition and allergens
- Some meals feel a bit under-seasoned
- Smaller selection than some
Best Prepared Meal Delivery Service
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Courtesy of CookUnity
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
CookUnity
Prepared Meals
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CookUnity
Ready-to-eat meals promise a hunger-squelching holy grail: fresh meals, delivered to your door in a box that's ready to heat and eat, minus all the effort of actually cooking it. My results from many other prepared meal delivery services have been mixed, but CookUnity has been a big standout. From a home-delivered box that looks like a TV dinner, I've had Indian curries better than I could get at the restaurant down the street, well-composed salads, Filipino-inflected adobo tacos, and surprisingly complex udon noodle soup.
Think of prepared-food plans as a cross between a meal service and DoorDash. CookUnity enlists restaurant chefs, often big names like Jose Garces or Rick Bayless or Iron Chef contestants, to design recipes and hire cooks who make your meals out of regional commissary kitchens. The fact that some of the delivery meals achieve restaurant quality—or at least take-out quality—is notable.
Menus, chefs, and (possibly) results may vary depending on your region and your distance from the cooking hub. Hubs now include New York, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and Toronto. (See the delivery map to check whether CookUnity services your area.) I've had good results from the small Seattle hub, and WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe said the adobo flank steak and rigatoni alla vodka she scored from the Chicago hub straight up blew her mind.
Prep tends to happen one of two ways: Either you nuke it, or you can follow the chef's ideal heating instructions for a stovetop or oven meal to create optimal texture and flavor. After reheating, you might also stretch burrata cheese over your pasta, or ladle cumin-forward sauce on your salmon. The meals are filling, the textures are spot-on, and the packaging is compostable and recyclable. Each meal lasts in the fridge between four and seven days from the date of delivery, through the miracle of modified atmosphere packaging.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $12 to $16 per meal, variable shipping depending on distance from hub Meal plan options Choose anywhere from four to 16 meals a week Lowest-cost plan at full price $74; four meals plus shipping Size of weekly menu Varies by hub, anywhere from 40 meals to maybe 100, depending on the kitchen size Gluten-free meals? On some weeks, half of meals might be listed as gluten-free Plant-based meals? About a fifth of meals are vegetarian or vegan Other dietary plans or restrictions Meal filters include high protein, low carb, keto, and GLP-1 balance Prep time A few minutes in the microwave, or maybe 15 minutes in an oven or on the stovetop - The best prepared meal delivery I've tasted
- Global recipes from diverse chefs
- No microwave required!
- Results can vary depending on chef or region
- In some small hubs, recipes might repeat
Best Meal Kit for Quick Cooking
- Courtesy of Hungryroot
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
Hungryroot
Meal Kit
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Hungryroot
Hungryroot has among the lowest prep times of any meal kit I've tested that isn't actually pre-prepped—perfect for your friend who “doesn't have time to cook" and instead finds their DoorDash budget ballooning. Hungryroot meals tend to take about the same amount of time to cook as to eat, 10 to 20 minutes for most meals I've tried.
Each meal tends to be assembled from a small number of components, with a lot of the prep already done. An organic sauce or salsa or dressing, some version of pre-mixed salad, a sprig of broccoli, a pack of sous-vide chicken or smoked pulled pork. It's a bit like running a personal fast-casual restaurant out of your home kitchen.
It's also nice that you can customize Hungryroot to suit your needs and dietary preferences. The big idea behind Hungryroot is to be a full-service, AI-assisted food concierge. First, Hungryroot logs all your dietary, lifestyle, and budget preferences. (Hate a mushroom? Follow a low-salt diet? Don't like masala spices, specifically? Don't worry). Then, it suggests a whole world of ingredients and recipes, which you can sub out from a seemingly endless list each week, depending on local ingredient availability. Usually, there's room leftover in the plan to add some fresh fruit or a sweet treat. One detriment of this ultra-customized system is you've got to get pretty far through the ordering process (and enter your credit card) before seeing your personal menu. Here's the online “cookbook” of potential menus, for those who'd like an early glimpse.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $7 to $13 per serving. Shipping is free for orders above $70, otherwise it's $7. Meal plan options Anything from four dinner servings to full-meal planning for all weekly meals. Each dinner is for two or four servings. (Dinner for two all week, plus 10 individual breakfasts and lunches, is $246.) Lowest-cost plan at full price $59 for four dinner servings, plus shipping Size of weekly menu Varies by region and preferences, but expect options in the triple digits Gluten-free meals? Yes, many Plant-based meals? Both vegan and vegetarian filters Other dietary plans/restrictions Other filters include dairy-free, soy-free, tree-nut free, peanut-free, egg-free, shellfish-free, sesame-free, grain-free, garlic-free, onion-free, and caffeine-free. Accommodations also made for low-sodium, anti-inflammatory, most versions of high-or-low macro diets, low-FODMAP, and more, as well as ecological, organic, wild-caught, and pasture-raised. Typical prep time 20 minutes or less - AI-powered menu curation
- Many choices of familiar flavors and foods
- Good for people on specialized diets
- Also offers grocery options
- Difficult to view meal options before committing
- Flavors could be one-note
Best No-Subscription Meal Delivery Service
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Blue Apron
Meal Kit
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Blue Apron (Subscription)
In the summer of 2025, America's OG meal kit brand, Blue Apron, underwent a transformation into a new model: No subscriptions required. So let’s say it’s Friday, and you'd like a kit so you can make some nice orecchiette and pork ragu next Tuesday, when your boss comes over for dinner (because life is, of course, a sitcom from the 1970s). You can just order it. Four days later, a bag will show up with recipe instructions and all the ingredients: ground pork, currants, fresh zucchini, all that. Rather have beef? You can sub that in. And you don't need to sign up for any minimum number of meals, nor subscribe and then need to cancel again.
This is a bit of a game-changer for meal kits, frankly, though the scenario I just described would end up a bit expensive ($10 a serving, plus $10 shipping). And so Blue Apron also has a DoorDash-style loyalty model: Blue Apron Plus. You pay $10 a month, the price of shipping on a single order, and then shipping is free for the month—meaning if you order more than once a month, you save money by signing up. Price per meal has fanned out since the reboot, ranging from $8 a serving for lunchtime salads and wraps to $13 for hearty bakes and seafood plates. This allows you choose meals based on budget.
This is an ambitious turnaround for a meal kit that WIRED reviewers had loved in the past before going through some bumps in the road under new ownership beginning in 2023. So far I've had pretty good results. My test last year included fun and internationalized recipes, like a crisp and lightly spicy bang bang chicken, bao bun burgers with shishito peppers, and za'atar-spiced salmon, plus an excellent and hearty shrimp and feta bake. Prep for most recipes hovered around 30 minutes. And on each, it was possible to sub out a main protein. WIRED reviewer Kat Merck tried Blue Apron's low-effort, assemble-and-bake meals and came away mostly impressed by the sourcing and quality of the ingredients—but also wondered whether the focus on simplicity led to compromises in some recipes. She couldn't bring herself to bake meat from raw on a harissa beef dish, per instructions, without first draining the grease. And so she still cooked it in a skillet first.
Further testing has shown that Blue Apron's new recipes often suffer from hiccups and vague instructions. A Chilean salmon sent by Blue Apron in August didn't measure up to the Norwegian version favored by HelloFresh's brands. Allergens and eating restrictions are also difficult to navigate, and nutrition info is a little too buried on the new website. But it's an intriguing new model, and the low-stakes, no-obligation $10 loyalty model seems like a bargain for small households and those who order most weeks.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $8 to $13 per serving, plus $10 shipping. A $10/month loyalty plan removes repeat shipping costs. Meal plan options No subscription needed. Order as many or as few two- or four-serving meals as you like. A loyalty plan, Blue Apron Plus, costs $10 and comes with free shipping. Lowest-cost plan at full price Priced per meal. But plausibly, $30 is the least you'd pay on an order if you ordered a single two-person meal and paid shipping. Size of weekly menu More than 50 meal options, plus salads, pizzas, protein add-ons, ready-made meals, and occasional holiday feast items Gluten-free meals? More than a dozen options are tagged “wheat-free,” but no promises for celiac sufferers Plant-based meals? Around a dozen vegetarian meal options, when checked in late December 2025 Other dietary plans/restrictions Menu can be filtered for prep time, calories, grams of protein and for individual proteins, with substitutions offered in most cases Typical prep time 20 to 40 minutes - No subscription needed
- Easy prep, low cook times
- Fun, international meal options
- Allergens and nutritional info difficult to navigate
- Some items sell out by the end of the week
Best Affordable Meal Kit
- Courtesy of EveryPlate
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
EveryPlate
Meal Kit
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EveryPlate
Now at $7 a serving plus shipping, HelloFresh budget option EveryPlate remains the lowest-cost meal kit I've tested—lower even than other budget kits or even a meal kit for toddlers. Is EveryPlate like HelloFresh, but cheaper? In many ways, yes. What's different is not compromise, but simplicity. Recent successes included a lovely spring risotto, layered with shaved Parmesan and dappled with still-crisp peas and lightly browned zucchini. I got fresh sprigs of rosemary to accompany a thin-sliced and richly pan-sauced pork loin from a legacy meat purveyor in North Carolina. Each was also fairly hearty, though with a bit lower of a calorie count than its more sophisticated and expensive cousin, HelloFresh.
So what's the catch? In some ways, there isn't one. EveryPlate's meals cost less because they're uncomplicated, usually relying on a single accent, like rosemary or lemon. The laundry list of staples you're expected to have in your fridge is a little longer and includes flour and eggs. The box of ingredients is not as organized as HelloFresh's. The menu is significantly shorter than HelloFresh's at about 35 options, but still competitive with many meal delivery services. All in all, while the meals skew more basic than adventurous, I came away impressed by the simple good taste and economy on offer from EveryPlate, at a price that would not stretch a lot of household budgets.
My colleague Molly Higgins, who eats no meat, had a good experience with EveryPlate's shorter menu of vegetarian options this spring, and was able to secure a week's worth of food for less than she ends up spending on groceries in New York. Sure, you may want to fill out a meal by adding your own rice to supplement Korean-inflected beef or pork with squash and carrots. (A great rice cooker makes this easy.) This adds up to an economical meal, one you might appreciate on a Tuesday when you're out of other ideas.
For Large Families: Marley Spoon's lower-cost meal kit, Dinnerly, was WIRED's former budget pick. It's still a good affordable pick for small families, if not quite as low-cost as EveryPlate. But for large families (six portions) it's almost certainly the best budget option at a mere $6 a meal, with a much larger selection of recipes. Compared to my testing last year, Dinnerly's recipes have grown lighter, more sophisticated, and maybe a little smarter: a za'atar chicken recipe here, a Mediterranean-inflected pork tenderloin or lemon-butter shrimp there. Often it feels like you're getting my top-pick kit, Marley Spoon, at a slight discount. The difference shows up mostly in the simplicity of Dinnerly's ingredient list, usually comprising a simple herb or spice accent rather than a complicated medley of flavors. $6 a serving for 6-serving meals. $8-$9 a serving for 4-serving meals. $10 -$11 a serving for two-serving meals.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $6–$7 per serving, plus $11 shipping per week Meal plan options Three to five meals a week; sized for two, four, or six people Lowest-cost plan at full price $53 a week; three meals for two people Size of weekly menu 35 to 40 options, plus add-ons that include snacks, salads, soups, and veggies Gluten-free meals? Yes, aplenty Plant-based meals? About a dozen meals are vegetarian Other dietary plans/restrictions Other filters include low-carb, low-sodium, low-calorie, and kid-friendly Prep time 15 to 45 minutes - Simple, hearty, low-cost meals
- Sourcing not compromised, despite lower budgets
- Less adventurous in spicing and ingredients
- Smaller meal selection than some plans
Best Healthy Meal Service for Work Lunch
- Courtesy of Gardencup
- Photograph: Louryn Strampe
Gardencup
Meal Subscription
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Gardencup
Gardencup is a little like having the whole menu of Sweetgreen sent to your house or office, except in cylindrical form. Basically, you pick out premade salads, soups, and snacks, and they come in little cups—fresh, lovely, crisp, and ready to eat. WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe says that even in the winter, the produce somehow tastes wonderfully fresh. This is a great way to keep yourself eating healthy when you've got no time to cook at the office (or the home office), which is typically when DoorDash or freezer-meal temptations run wild.
This is all without sacrificing taste. The tomatoes in the caprese salad tasted more tomatoey than other tomatoes, somehow. In an Italian pasta salad, the peppers crunched satisfyingly and the greens were great. The snozzberries, presumably, would also taste like snozzberries. Some dishes needed a little added seasoning, Strampe notes, but in general, Gardencup is among the most low-effort, high-reward meal delivery services out there: a fast graze at the nice soup and salad bar, which also happens to be your fridge. Not for nothing, the cups are reusable and recyclable.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $11 to $15 per serving, or $8 snacks, plus $11 shipping per week Meal plan options Six-pack or nine-pack, weekly or every two weeks Lowest-cost plan at full price Prices vary, but in general a six-pack plus shipping will start above $70 Size of weekly menu More than 40 options on snacks, salads, soups, and veggies Gluten-free meals? Yes, aplenty Plant-based meals? Both vegan and vegetarian filters Other dietary plans/restrictions Other filters include dairy-free, high protein, no onions, and nut-free Typical prep time How long does it take to open a lid and shake up a cup ? - Almost no prep time
- Healthful salads with preternatural freshness
- Cups are reusable or recyclable
- Some extra seasoning may be wanted
- Limited variety of foods
Best Meal Kit for Gluten-Free and Organic
- Courtesy of Green Chef
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Green Chef
Meal Kit
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Green Chef
Green Chef is first and foremost the organic arm of HelloFresh. But it also caters very well to eating restrictions, with a strong vegetarian and dairy-free focus. Keto meals are also on offer. More than half of Green Chef's meals are gluten-free, offering a heartening diversity of options. These are prepared in dedicated gluten-free facilities, using gluten-free ingredients that have been traced back to their source, as attested by in-person inspections and validation by Washington state's Gluten Intolerance Group. (Yes, I called up GIG and verified the stringency of its validation program. Spokespeople there said they've also never received a report of gluten contamination in a Green Chef meal.)
Green Chef's recipes are also simple and well-managed. In 2025, they were more unimpeachable in terms of technique than any other kit I'd tested from parent company HelloFresh. But as HelloFresh's flagship plan stepped up its game over the past year, this hypothesis will need to be retested. Green Chef's recipes are well-organized, and pre-portioned into individual bags. The prep times are maybe almost honest, even: I think I may have actually prepared a half-hour meal in a half hour. Green Chef's $14-per-meal price puts it among the more expensive kits: Organic goods, and separate gluten-free packing lines, do add expense.
And Green Chef especially shines on gluten-free options. Many gluten-free meal kit items from other services are a sad parade of gummy tapioca pancakes, sawdusty meatloaf, or limp zoodles; poor substitutes for wheat, on products most often made with wheat. Not Green Chef. After a week of testing its gluten-free meals, I actually didn't find myself missing gluten at all. Between trim bavette steaks in creamy red pepper sauce, a sweet-spicy honey-ginger shrimp rice bowl, and a kale-quinoa salad, the gluten-free meals and recipes from Green Chef were consistently among the most delicious I've tried from a meal kit claiming to offer gluten-free food. The secret to its success is no secret at all: None of the recipes ever needed gluten in the first place. Each was a fully realized meal, with nothing missing and nothing replaced.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $14 per serving on most plans, plus $11 shipping per week Meal plan options Two to eight meals per week; sized for two, four, or six people Lowest-cost plan at full price $95, for three meals for two people Size of weekly menu More than 40 options, plus salad-kit and smoothie add-ons Gluten-free meals? More than half the menu is certified gluten-free Plant-based meals? About a third of dishes are vegetarian. The vegan selection is more limited. Other dietary plans/restrictions A third of meals are dairy-free; a third are also listed as low-calorie or low added sugar; five to 10 keto offerings a week. Produce and eggs are organic unless otherwise specified. Prep time 20 to 45 minutes - Basic meals that would work for most people and families
- Servings up to six people
- A wealth of excellent, certified gluten-free meals
- Vegan options tend to be mostly stir-fries
- Sometimes long prep times
Best Plant-Based Meal Kit
- Courtesy of Purple Carrot
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
- Photograph: Molly Higgins
Purple Carrot
Meal Kit
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Purple Carrot
Of all the plant-based meal kits WIRED vegan meal-kit tester Molly Higgins has tried, Purple Carrot took the, uh, carrot. Purple Carrot offers boxes filled with premade, frozen, oven-ready meals—with adventurous dishes like mole enchiladas, or an artichoke-stuffed ravioli that needed a little extra seasoning. But where Purple Carrot truly shines is with its fresh-made recipes. And unlike some meal kits that make you go hunting through a box, the ingredients for each of Purple's recipes arrive well-organized in individual plastic bags, accompanied by beautifully designed recipe cards. It's also a flexible plan: Order what you'd like each week, with a minimum $50 order.
Purple's recipes are devoted to the joy of cooking—sometimes to a fault, in the case of some hour-long recipe preps. (Advertised shorter prep times, as is often the way with meal kit recipes, were bald-faced lies.) Higgins, a natural cook, loved the time spent sautéeing, searing, mixing, and spicing. She especially enjoyed the results. A lovely Mediterranean rice salad with stuffed grape leaves took just a half hour to make, with some simple oven-roasted radishes, grape tomatoes, and zucchini.
The results of the cooking are a parade of textures as tasty as one would expect at a restaurant, but with relatively little effort required, Higgins says. Another meal of squash dumplings required both boiling the squash and individually stuffing the dumplings, which took north of an hour. It ended up being Higgins's favorite meal of the week, a case where effort meets reward. But the effort was nonetheless real. Purple Carrot bursts with texture, flavor, fun international ingredients, and the spirit of invention. If you're the sort who likes to take time in the kitchen, there's vegan gold at the end of that rainbow. Lately, Purple Carrot has also branched out into special meals, like a box designed in collaboration with fitness influencer Robin Arzon.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $10 to $14 per serving, plus $12 shipping per box Meal plan options Two or four people; three or four meals a week for the classic meal kit. One to 10 meals a week, for the ready-to-eat meal plan. Lowest-cost plan at full price $50 minimum order, plus $12 shipping Size of weekly menu 30+ meal kit options, and 30 more ready-to-eat options, plus snacks and market items Gluten-free meals? More than a third of meals are gluten-free Plant-based meals? Vegan, vegan, all-vegan Other dietary plans or restrictions Individual meals marked as high protein, low-calorie, low-sodium, no-nuts, and no-soy Prep time 15 minutes to more than an hour for recipes; quick-prep meals as low as 5 minutes - Adventurous, tasty recipes
- Has both meal kits and ready-to-eat premade meals
- Varied choices and frequently changing seasonal menus
- Grocery options
- Recipes can be involved and time-consuming
- Not great for beginners
Best Meal Delivery for GLP-1 Support
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
- Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Tempo
Prepared Meal Delivery Subscription
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Tempo
According to everyone I know taking a GLP-1 medication for weight loss or diabetes management, the drive to seek out delicious food just isn't what it used to be. What has not changed is the utilitarian need to get enough protein, in a reasonable form, balanced against other health considerations. Does this not sound romantic? It mostly isn't. But if hunger doesn't move you like it used to, it's extra important for your food to taste good enough that you actually want to eat it.
Enter Tempo by Home Chef, a never-frozen, prepared meal service that offers a selection of around 30 meals each week. As many as two-thirds of these meals are marked “protein-packed,” with more than 30 grams of protein. And at least 10 of these are GLP-1-balanced, per a dietitian. What you'll get: sufficient proteins, not too many carbs, no other funny stuff.
Tempo's proteins are well-managed, if unexciting. But the meals were easy, nutritious, balanced, and comforting, without relying on a pile of unhealthy sodium and carbs to be palatable. At $12 a meal, Tempo is about par for the course for prepared meals.
WIRED reviewer Kat Merck, who tested the GLP-1-balanced meals, found the portions appropriate for those on the medication, and appreciated that the meals offered her the proteins she needs to maintain muscle mass even while chemically un-hungry. Just note: You may end up with a lot of chicken and a lot of fish. Both Merck and I were happy to see the occasional chicken thigh, and not just breast. Thighs are better, for the record.
WIRED/TIREDAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronWIREDSpecs Cost per meal $11 and $13 a serving, plus $11 a week for shipping Meal plan options Six to 20 single-serving meals a week Lowest-cost plan at full price $81 for six meals + shipping Size of weekly menu About 30 meals, plus breakfast and snacks Gluten-free meals? Meals not designated as such Plant-based meals? Not really Other dietary plans or restrictions Individual meals marked as high-protein, high-fiber, calorie-conscious, and GLP-1-balanced Prep time 3 minutes in the nuker or 8 in an air fryer - Mostly nutritious, balanced meals
- Caters to GLP-1 and high-protein diets
- Proteins are supsrisingly moist and tender
- Anyone with eating restrictions is in for lots of chicken
- Veggies can be soggy
- Meals are relatively low-calorie, which could lead to quicker hunger
More Meal Kits I Liked
Sunbasket
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageSunbasket (~$14 per serving): Sunbasket focuses heavily on fresh, organic ingredients, and offers a whole lot of variety in its menus. Its recipes are attentive to saucing, and to basic good cooking techniques such as deglazing. Like Hungryroot, it also offers breakfasts and snacks to supplement meal options with little extras such as coconut yogurt and sous-vide egg bites. The meal kit also lets you filter out allergen-containing items. WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe loved the flexibility and add-ons. During my most recent test, I enjoyed an excellent Greek chicken and orzo salad dish—and wonder of wonders, the advertised prep time was actually the actual prep time (about 30 minutes). The focus on organic ingredients does make Sunbasket one of the more expensive meal kit options, and the annual Thanksgiving meal kit was a lovely and welcome extravagance at $200.
Factor (~$14 a serving): Factor is a prepared meal delivery plan run by HelloFresh, with ready-to-eat meals that look a lot like TV dinners. But there's a twist: The trays have never been frozen. They were made fresh in a commissary kitchen and were shipped out with cold packs, yielding a result that's kind of like restaurant leftovers. Proteins in particular often maintain their texture quite well, including a chimichurri filet mignon I couldn't believe I microwaved. Some meals, especially carb-avoidant or keto meals, are oddly mushy. (For what it's worth, my gluten-free colleague, Scott Gilbertson, wrote that he had the best luck with Factor's Mexican fare.) But meals centered on proteins and whole starches, like potatoes or rice, alongside veggies like green beans or brussels sprouts, tended to fare quite well. So did stir-fry-style meals. In fact, a recent test of Factor's high-protein plan was my favorite experience with the meal kit and included wild rice and excellent pork loin. I do wish Factor would shed its reliance on the microwave, however: When I went off-script and used a Ninja Crispi air fryer or convection oven, I had much better results than with the nuker. But non-air-fryer ovens do not seem to offer the same improvement. Like many ready-to-eat meals, it's a bit more expensive than the kits you cook yourself.
Fuel Meals
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageFuel Meals ($13 to $14 a serving): Fuel Meals are not the cheapest option among meal delivery that arrives frozen; it's about the same price as never-frozen meals from Factor and CookUnity. But I found that Fuel fulfills a specific niche as well as any of the other prepared meal plans. It excels at no-nonsense, no-fluff, no-added-ingredients, pure-protein-packed nutritive meals. Some of Fuel's meals had as few as five ingredients, consisting of essentially the macro nutrients themselves plus a modicum of oil and salt. A large percentage of meals are marked gluten-free or dairy-free. Does all this mean less flavor? It can. The meals are also often not beautiful, dominated by a large and no-nonsense serving of protein. But Fuel's meal service offers an admirable focus, especially for those bulking up or watching carbs. Meals are substantive, usually topping 600 calories and 40 grams of protein without added sugar or fatty dairy or carb-heavy filler. I feel like if I wore tank tops more often, this is what I'd eat.
Wildgrain
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageWildgrain ($13 to $17 per loaf or box of pastries): This is less a meal delivery service than a way to step up a home meal. Wildgrain is a monthly delivery bread box: You receive par-baked bread and pastries from small bakeries all over the country. This is pretty much the same process that likely happens at local restaurants, when your warm bread basket comes out: It's not quite as high-quality as you'd get direct from an artisan bakery, if you live in places with artisan bakeries. But it's also as fresh as it gets, and I had a very good experience testing the box in October 2025, in particular, with sourdough breads perfect for large meals with houseguests. You finish the baking at home, so what you have at the end is ultra-fresh baked bread, biscuits, doughnuts, or scones that are still warm and crisp from the oven. A Wildgrain subscription arrives as a monthly box, filled with four, six, or 12 items that might range from a full sourdough loaf or fresh-made pasta to a pack of six doughnuts or four large croissants. Basically, you build your own box each month, choosing from among healthy sourdough or pasta and decadent pastries.
Thistle ($13 to $16 per serving): A prior top pick for solo diners with individually prepared dishes that require little to no prep, Thistle is mostly a plant-based meal kit—but there's a $3 option to add sustainable meats to any otherwise vegan meal. It's also so local and seasonal that the West and East Coasts have different menus, and the whole middle of the country, except Chicago, gets none. (You can check your zip code here to see if you can get delivery.) WIRED reviewer Adrienne So has used Thistle as a means to get herself to eat more vegetables, and thus avoid a life of rickets and/or scurvy. Portions are generous enough to split among meals, and in a nice turn for those who hate having to dispose of boxes, Thistle's drivers will pick up the cooler bag that housed last week's meal and replace it with a new one full of food. Vegan tester Molly Higgins's favorite meals from Thistle were a whirlwind of textures, including a Mexican-inspired corn and poblano chile salad with adobo pinto beans and a chilled lemongrass-accented rice noodle bowl that mixed spice, tang, crisply fresh veggies, and deep umami from mushrooms and seaweed. She still dreams about it sometimes.
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageTovala (~$13 a serving): It's not every day you get to try something that feels super new. Tovala offers perhaps the most ambitious solution to ready-to-heat and prepared meal delivery I've seen: The meal kits come with an oven! In contrast to the sogginess of many prepared meals, Tovala's recipes come in little foil pans with recipes custom-designed for a little steam oven. The results are often delicious—as was the case during my testing with a sweet chili–glazed salmon with pickled veg and noodles—and the QR code scanning function makes each recipe seamless to cook. Stick with the meal plan for six weeks, and in the bargain you get a quite affordable and powerful little convection oven, toaster, and steamer. A previous flaw was that Tovala only offered single-serve meals. But as of early 2026, at least four or five meals a week offer two to four servings, making the meal delivery service much more useful to families and couples.
Gobble Steak Vierge
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageGobble ($12 to $17 a serving): Formerly the top pick for fast-cooked meals, Gobble previously wowed with speed-demon dishes that also offered interesting and worldly flavors. Indeed, the most recent test included Caribbean rondon, an Indonesian peanut curry stir-fry, and steak vierge. But while the flavors have stayed interesting, the focus on fast cooking appears to have waned since my colleague Louryn Strampe tested Gobble. Cook time estimates aren't printed on the recipe cards, but meals took as long as 30 minutes. For now, Hungryroot has taken the fast-cooking crown. For small households, Gobble is also among the most expensive kits. Ordering fewer than eight meals a week costs $15 a serving plus shipping.
Nurture Life ($6 to $8 per serving): Nurture Life is like a restaurant kids' menu, in ready-to-eat meal kit form. We loved the idea behind this fresh-made, never-frozen delivery meal plan when we tested it a few years back: a bunch of toddler- and slightly bigger kid-friendly meals, from mac and cheese to spaghetti and meatballs to myriad variations on the chicken nugget. The meal prices have dipped to reasonable levels of late, meaning it's likely due for a re-test—and each plate contains vegetables alongside the greatest hits.
Veestro ($7 to $14 per serving): WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe enjoyed Veestro as a ready-to-eat vegan option, with premade meals delivered fresh, but with freezable options so you can have extra meals on hand in a pinch. The service offers a number of filters for other dietary requirements, and satisfying taste and texture—which is not always a guarantee on ready-to-eat meals. Veestro has updated its menu and offerings since the last time WIRED tested, including a number of snacky soup offerings. The online menu interface allowing you to sort by ingredients, and filter out unwanted ones, is among the best I've seen.
Splendid Spoon ($9 to $13 per serving): Splendid Spoon is a nutrition delivery kit that offers a plethora of plant-based smoothies, soups, bowls, noodles, and shots. Everything here is natural, plant-based, and free of gluten or GMOs, including spaghetti and plant-based “meatballs.” WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe has a big yen for the smoothies in particular ($10 apiece), but wasn't quite prepared for the intensity of a lemon juice shot that comes as part of a five-pack of dense 3-ounce superfoods.
ModifyHealth's Braised Beef (top) and Paprika Salmon (bottom)
Photograph: Matthew KorfhageModifyHealth ($10 to $13 per serving): The idea behind ModifyHealth is that food can be medicine. Sometimes, I'll admit, it tasted like it was designed purely for nutrition rather than flavor. ModifyHealth is a prepared meal delivery service tailored to people who need a heart-healthy, low-carb, or low-FODMAP diet to avoid dire digestive or health consequences. GLP-1 weight-loss plans are also available, for people with diabetes or others. Gluten-free meals are attested to be made in an entirely gluten-free facility. The meals were simple, benign, and low-sodium but also sometimes a little soggy—a common problem with prepared meals. The plastic top of the packaging was also difficult to disengage from the base of each meal tray—a problem when the plastic is hot after a turn in the microwave. But here's what I do like: The meals are carefully tailored with consultation from dietitians, to help people for whom food can be a source of fear or pain. An additional service, offering one-on-one dietitian consultation, can be covered by many insurance plans. ModifyHealth also offers a free consultation for those just trying to figure out which diet plan is right for them. For those with IBS in particular, this remains the most focused food plan I've seen.
Daily Harvest (prices vary): Daily Harvest is another ready-to-eat meal delivery service specializing in dietary restrictions: plant-based, plus gluten- and dairy-free. Smoothies feature, as do harvest bowls, pastas, and grains. Calories are low. Ingredients are often inventive. The meal's a lifesaver for the solo vegan eater without time to prep a meal, and WIRED vegan reviewer Molly Higgins appreciated that the meals mostly relied on the natural flavors of the vegetables themselves, accented with flavors like curry and lemongrass. As with a lot of frozen meals, however, texture wasn't a strong suit on the ready-to-heat meals. The ready-to-blend smoothies are great, though.
A Meal Kit I Don’t Recommend
Sakara Life ($30+ per serving): Sakara Life offers plant-based weekly menus in fresh, prepared portions, with greens, flavorful sauces, all-organic ingredients, and textural add-ons like seeds or berries. But it's among the most expensive meal plans we've tested, and neither WIRED reviewer who tried it has really cottoned to the thing. Tester Louryn Strampe questioned the science on health claims for detoxes and cleanses, while calling Sakara “egregiously expensive” and full of “bitter veggies and tart fruits.” Vegan tester Molly Higgins, meanwhile, said Sakara Life's tinctures and metabolism supplements didn't agree with her system, and that the mostly raw-food plan made her long for “human food.”
Previously tested: Diet-to-Go was one of the original ready-to-eat delivery meal plans, founded more than 30 years ago in Virginia. The website went offline in November and it appears to be out of business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Meal Delivery Services Worth It?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronIf you're talking raw materials by the pound—meat, zucchini, rice, noodles—meal kits will of course cost more than buying food at grocery stores. It's a service, after all, with added value above simple ingredient cost. Unless you've got quite expensive taste, you'll easily be able to make delicious meals at home for less than the $7 to $14 a serving that a meal kit will cost. But this said, this doesn't necessarily mean that meal kits are expensive for what they offer. I conducted an experiment, trying to re-create four different meal-kit meals by going to my local grocery store—buying every ingredient provided by the meal kit. Turns out, if you don't have the right sauces and spices at home already, it's very difficult to recreate these tasty meals at grocery stores for less than they cost from a meal kit, in part because you'll most likely have to buy full containers of sauces and spice instead of pre-portioned ingredients,
So, is HelloFresh worth it compared to a grocery store? Caveats are in order: For staple ingredients and spices you'll use on multiple recipes, the grocery store is, of course, cheaper. Once you buy a container of paprika for an individual recipe, it'll also be there for future recipes, whereas meal-kit spices are portioned for the meal. So the real answer is that meal kits can be a quite economical way of trying out a new recipe, or a new style of cooking, without larding up your fridge with condiments you won't use again. For ingredients you'd use less commonly, a meal kit can reduce waste and spoilage, and maybe even compete on price for an individual meal.
If your comparison point is takeout, well, the best meal delivery services on this list will almost certainly be cheaper and more nutritious. I've found that a meal kit in the fridge tends to be a good motivator to cook a nutritive meal—and thus can save me both the money and the cholesterol.
To really save on cost, some people like to keep testing out the trial offers and discounts. Much like mattress-in-a-box companies, meal kit companies usually have a running promotion. Usually this takes the form of a trial discount price that'll drop your cost by half or more on the first box, in hopes you'll like the service enough to keep it on at full price.
For me, a meal kit a few times a week ends up balancing out well: It's a motivating factor to eat better, and it means that when I do go to the grocery store, I can do so less mindlessly and more purposefully, given that I've got a few meals' worth of ingredients in the fridge. It's also had the side effect of broadening my culinary toolkit, keeping me from getting stuck in the same ruts.
That said, it's a set grocery expense and not necessarily a small one. I do get tired of tossing or recycling cold packs and boxes. And depending on time of year, I often prefer shopping in person for what's seasonal and local, when produce is at its peak—an experience you don't get from a meal kit, or from grocery delivery for that matter. If you're cooking for a bigger household, meal kits can also lose their utility quite quickly. A convenient option for two can become a much larger expense for a family of four or six.
Can I Pause a Meal Kit When I Go on Vacation?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronPretty much every meal kit I've tested has an option to pause subscriptions—and there's no particular limit to how often you can do this. The main thing is to be sure that you've canceled with enough lead time. Some services let you cancel or pause delivery as late as the Friday before a Monday delivery. HelloFresh requires five days' notice. Marley Spoon, at least where I live, required six days. Some, like Hungryroot, may lock in next week's order as early as the previous Monday, depending on where you live. Read your terms of service, and act accordingly.
For those with more variable schedules, the service I'd probably recommend is Blue Apron, which changed its model last year and no longer locks in delivery each week. You'll have to remember to order a box each week, which can be done where I am with four days' notice.
How to Optimize Meal Kits
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronDon't order too many meals per week: You know the old John Lennon line: Life is what happens when you're busy, out eating a random burrito, then thinking guiltily about the meal kit at home in your fridge. Aspirations are great, but don't order more meals than you're likely to make, or you'll be sad. Err on the side of caution. Order just enough meals per week that making yourself a recipe from your HelloFresh or Home Chef box is still a delight and a convenience and an overall boon to your life—not an obligation. For me, a somewhat improvisational and impulsive person, three meals a week is the sweet spot. The prospect of a few easy meals usually saves me from an impulse weeknight DoorDash.
Make room in your fridge: Meal kits take the place of a lot of grocery shopping. But they're also a lot of food, and a lot to keep organized. What I like to do is clear a tall enough space in my fridge to put the whole meal kit box in the fridge, after pulling out the cold packs: This way, I'm not left worrying about which groceries belong to the meal kit, and I won't lose any ingredients. I can just pull the whole box out when I want to make a meal. That said, some plans like Home Chef, HelloFresh, and Green Chef are very good at organizing each meal into its own separate bag. An added bonus from these more organized plans is that you'll be able to use less space in your fridge. Over time, this will matter.
Check the recipe cards to make sure you have everything you need to make a recipe: Most meal kits expect that you'll have certain staple ingredients in your home, usually including oil and butter. Recipes also have requirements for cookware. Check this before you start a recipe. Nothing worse than realizing you need an absentee stick of butter on step 5, with carrots already browning in the toaster oven.
Remember, you owe nothing to the recipe: Meal kit services hire recipe developers, and on the best meal kits, these chefs have spent a lot of time optimizing each recipe. But you owe them nothing—nothing! Add spices, change steps, season food when you want to season it. Meal kits can teach you a lot about how to make a good meal and shake you out of tired culinary routines. But it's your meal. Make it how you like. Have fun.
How Do I Test Meal Kits?
AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronChances are, wherever you are, whatever week it is, I'm testing a meal kit. I constantly cycle through various meal kits, testing and retesting each of my top picks at least once a year—and often multiple times per year.
I order at least four meals from each when possible, prepare meals according to instructions, and see how well it goes. I check my own prep times against the advertised prep times (rarely an exercise in honesty!), and take note of any inconsistencies, vagueness, or frustration in the recipe card instructions. If you needlessly recommend a nonstick pan, I like you less, especially if you tell me I should heat said pan before adding food—or you later make mention of browned fond in the recipe. Nonstick isn't cast iron or carbon; there's no fond.
I check for the quality and freshness of the produce, and do the same for the meat. Where possible, I also look into where the meat was sourced, and check on the reputation, safety, and standards of the meat suppliers. If a meal kit swears it's gluten-free, I check on this—calling certifying organizations where relevant.
I usually try to order as varied a menu a possible, checking in on gluten-free meals, a seafood item, a vegetarian item, and white and dark meat item—as well as meals that draw (or attempt to draw) from global inspirations. Sometimes I test the same meal kit multiple times for different dietary needs, and WIRED's vegan tester, Molly Higgins, often tests the same meal kit I do but with a different focus.
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Matthew Korfhage is a staff writer and reviewer on WIRED's Gear team, where he focuses on home and kitchen devices that range from air fryers and coffee machines to space heaters, water filters, and beard trimmers. Before joining WIRED in 2024, he covered food, drink, business, culture, and technology for ... Read MoreProduct Writer & ReviewerTopicsShoppingbuying guideskitchenFood and DrinkhomeMeal KitsBreathe Easy Thanks to the Best Air Purifier for Every HomeProtect your home against dust, pets, allergies, and more with the best air purifiers, tested firsthand.Molly HigginsThe 13 Best Coolers for Day and Night DrinkingWe tested coolers on camping trips, road trips, beach days, and at parties to bring you our favorite models for every situation. The Yeti Tundra Haul is our top pick.Louryn StrampeYour Shower Water Might Be Messing With Your Hair and Skin—These Filters HelpI tested leading filtered showerheads to see how well they remove total chlorine from your water.Matthew KorfhageWhat Should Be in Your Emergency Kit Before Disaster Strikes?We consulted preparedness experts and WIRED’s team of testers for the essential gear to keep on hand in case of wildfires, earthquakes, and lord knows what else.Matthew KorfhageThe Best Portable Power StationsWhether you’re going off-grid or safeguarding against blackouts, these beefy, WIRED-tested batteries can keep the lights on.Simon HillGifts for Plant Lovers and Gardeners That'll Grow on YouFrom smart apps and planters to unique tools, these gifts will turn even a black thumb into a next-level plant parent.Kat MerckThe Best Mattresses for Side Sleepers to Ease Back, Shoulder, and Neck PressureWe’ve tested hundreds of the top hybrid, memory foam, and cooling mattresses to find the best combination of support and pressure relief.Julia ForbesThe Best Cat Water Fountains for Pampered PetsEnsuring your cat stays hydrated is one of the best ways to keep your pet healthy. The right pet water fountain can help.Molly HigginsThe Mother's Day Gifts You'll Love Giving Your MomFrom smart rings and everlasting flowers to weighted vests and LED masks, there's a gift for every kind of mom. Nena Farrell The Best Star Wars Gifts for Everyone in the Galaxy This May 4These are the best Star Wars gifts in the galaxy for everyone, from Padawan fans to Jedi masters.Simon HillThe Best Automatic Pet Feeders for When You’re AwayWe tested some of the most popular automatic dry- and wet-food pet feeders to see which ones are worth the money.Molly HigginsThe Best Printers for Every Home-Office NeedNeed to print labels, stickers, stacks of pages, color photos, or even a textured mug? I tested the best home printers, including ink-tank, cartridge, and laser options.Brad Bourque
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