Best Meal Delivery for Cooking With Ease

Review & Comparison, Last Update November 3, 2024
Love cooking but hate chasing the stores to buy fresh and quality ingredients? Or simply have no time for shopping and stocking the ...Read more
PROS

The website offers not only food but also wine delivery. You can choose 1 of 3 available wine plans to your liking and 6 bottles of wine will be delivered for free. 

CONS

They offer the same meals within a plan pretty often. 

OUR VERDICT

With 3 different meal plans thoughtfully designed to meet different tastes and preferences, the HelloFresh meal delivery service will cater to the needs of the most exacting eaters and true gourmets. Besides, you can be sure that your meals will come out flavor-packed and cooking won't take much time. 

detailed parameters
VEGETARIAN RECIPES

Yes

VEGAN RECIPES

No

FREE SHIPPING

Yes

MOBILE APP

Yes

PROS

This service allows planning your menu up to 5 weeks ahead. Thus, you can easily schedule your weekly meals for the whole month saving your time on week-to-week planning and keeping an option to make changes, if needed.

CONS

Somewhat difficult site navigation. 

OUR VERDICT

Offering a whole range of various dishes and add-ons to choose from every week, the HomeChef will also save your budget since its meal kit prices are lower than those in grocery stores and the shipping is free. All of this makes the HomeChef by far the best-prepared meal delivery service for families.

detailed parameters
VEGETARIAN RECIPES

Yes

VEGAN RECIPES

Yes

FREE SHIPPING

Yes, subject to a minimum weekly order of $45

MOBILE APP

Yes

PROS

Rather than focusing on some sort of dishes, this service offers complete meal plans specifically developed for most popular diets such as keto, paleo, and plant-powered diets as well as for those who simply seek to follow a well-balanced menu.

CONS

No individual meals to order.

OUR VERDICT

With the Green Chef meal delivery service, healthy eating is easy and tasty. Taking into account diet-specific needs, all recipes are based on certified organic ingredients and built around a healthy balance of carbs, fats, and proteins. With every care for your health in mind, the company also cares for the environment by using recycled, recyclable, and reusable packaging.

detailed parameters
VEGETARIAN RECIPES

Yes

VEGAN RECIPES

Yes

FREE SHIPPING

No

MOBILE APP

No

PROS

All recipes are broken down into only 6 cooking steps. The guidance and instructions are clear and comprehensible, making each recipe easy to cook both for a pro and for a beginner.

CONS

The service is not available in some US states. 

OUR VERDICT

Supported by a famous cook Martha Stewart, Marley Spoon meal delivery offers you a unique chance to recreate her culinary dishes in your home kitchen. Not only will you have an access to incredible recipes created by a pro but also you'll be able to cook them quickly and without a hassle. Besides, the website is easy-to-navigate, the prices are affordable, and the shipment is totally free. 

detailed parameters
VEGETARIAN RECIPES

Yes

VEGAN RECIPES

No

FREE SHIPPING

Yes

MOBILE APP

Yes

PROS

You can remove a dish from order and replace it with a different one. You can ask the chef to exclude certain ingredients. You can order a gluten-free, nut-free, or soy-free version of a menu item. The company's menus are repeated only once every 8 weeks.

CONS

The delivery rate might seem a bit pricey.

OUR VERDICT

The Vegin' Out is one of the better vegan meal delivery services on the market today. With their customization options, reasonable prices, and quality ingredients, you won't have to slave over a hot stove at home or tolerate that subpar cafeteria food at work. Instead, you'll receive regular deliveries of scrumptious meals with your favorite ingredients.

detailed parameters
VEGETARIAN RECIPES

Yes

VEGAN RECIPES

Yes

FREE SHIPPING

No

MOBILE APP

No

A Fully Fledged Meal Service and ...

The whole philosophy behind the meal delivery is to help people follow a healthier diet and really enjoy what they eat, meanwhile saving their precious time on shopping for fresh food ingredients for their meals. There are several major reasons people are reluctant to cook. The first and major one, they are too busy and simply lack time. The next one is that they do not have good enough culinary skills. And one more reason is that many would stick at the stage of choosing a recipe they want to cook for a romantic dinner or family meal since there is a whole myriad of different recipes available in the Internet and cookbooks greatly complicating and confusing the choice. That is to say nothing about the unwillingness to hunt for fresh healthy ingredients. A good meal delivery service will help manage all those issues and bring back your desire to cook at home. And HelloFresh meal prep delivery is exactly that kind of service.

As the name suggests, they deliver only fresh ingredients for your meals. All foods are natural and free from toxins, hormones, GMO, and any other harmful elements. To be delivered fresh and stay fresh until you are ready to cook, foods come neatly and securely packed in a safe and environmentally friendly packaging, with frozen and non-frozen ingredients packed separately.

To save the time you would spend on shopping and cut the cooking time, all ingredients come accurately measured and accompanied by an easy-to-follow illustrated recipe and a complete meal kit is delivered straight to your door at the time convenient for you. To help you out with the recipes, the website offers a weekly menu consisting of 9 dishes you can choose from by going for a Classic, Veggie or Family meal plan. It’s worth that all HelloFresh recipes are perfectly balanced and checked for nutritional value. They have low-fat content and include a lot of veggies, with a total calorie count in average ranging from 500 to 800 calories.

Along with a free delivery, quick and easy to cook recipes, and a well-thought menu, the service offers an easy-to-navigate website, a mobile app to access your meal plans from anywhere, and a flexible subscription allowing you to cancel your plans or make alterations.

Tired of living on pizzas, hamburgers, French Fries, and corn chips? Change the way you eat at home with HellowFresh and enjoy flavor-packed meals you’ll be able to cook without a hassle.

Wine Delivery to Your Door

A distinctive benefit of HelloFresh most other meal delivery services don’t offer is a special wine delivery. Similar to 3 meal plans, you’ll have a choice of 3 wine plans, including a mixed wine plan, red wine plan, and white wine plan. Within each plan, they offer 6 bottles of wine securely packed and delivered for free where and when you need it. All wines are carefully selected by experienced sommeliers and sourced directly from vineyards. Besides, on the website, you can find detailed flavor profiles and pairing tips. HelloFresh will help you find not only a meal for your dinner but also a bottle of wine perfectly matching that meal.

All Tastes and Preferences Taken Into Account

Though a HelloFresh weekly menu is not very extensive and consists of only 9 options, it offers dishes to different tastes and preferences. Whether you are a vegetarian, have some kind of food allergy, stick to a low-calorie diet or simply look for a tasty meal, you will surely select something to your liking. Along with comprehensive instructions, all recipes contain detailed information about all food ingredients as well as the meal nutritious value and fat, sugar, fiber, protein, sodium, and cholesterol content.


A Perfect Alternative to Grocery Sopping

How do you shop for foods? Make a kind of list of ingredients you need to buy or chaotically take everything that caught your eye? And how often did you find out that you forgot some essential ingredient when you had already started cooking or purchased something you did not actually need? Most people don’t like grocery shopping and would happily delegate this confusing and exhausting task. This is where meal delivery services that have already become a trend will come in handy. However, one of the biggest customer claims would be that meal delivery is more expensive than buying the same foods from the store. Yet, not all services. There are few that will even save you money and Home Chef is one of those.

A comparison study of meal kits cost and the cost of the same ingredients purchased in the grocery proved that Home Chef meal services offer 15% saving in contrast to grocery shopping. And the benefits are obvious. There is no need for you to go to the store, everything will be delivered right to your home at the specified time. With all foods perfectly measured, you’ll get just the right number of ingredients without overpaying for excessive foods you might never use. Sometimes, we have no idea what we want to eat and the Home Chef weekly menu will narrow down the choice to 15 options, all based on principles of healthy eating and meeting different tastes.

All food ingredients are of premium quality. They are accurately portioned and carefully packed to remain fresh until you cook your meal. All perishable foods are sealed in plastic bags while poultry, meat, and fish rest on ice packs to stay cool. In the box, you will also find bright illustrated recipes containing detailed information about the dish and step-by-step cooking instructions.

With Home Chef meal delivery, you will save budget on grocery shopping, cook quicker and easier, and enjoy freshly cooked restaurant-quality dishes at home.

Customize Your Meal Plan the Way You Like

Only a few people can diversify their daily menus by dining in restaurants while the majority would eat last dinner leftovers or go for some fast food, frozen or pre-cooked meals. Home Chef also provides a solution for a quick meal. Yet, it will be definitely not only a delicious but also a healthy and nutritious meal cooked with fresh all-natural ingredients. Besides, without paying a fortune, you can diversify your menu to the maximum and eat a different freshly cooked dinner every day. You will have a choice of meat, fish, poultry, vegetarian, soy-free, nut-free, low-carb, and gluten-free dishes that will match any taste profile and almost any dietary restrictions. On top of that, unlike other meal delivery services, Home Chef provides some add-ons to the menu. You can add to your plan either two servings of smoothie or a basket of seasonal fruit that will make a nice complement to main dishes.

Enjoy a Monthly Planning Option

Home Chef sets menus 5 weeks in advance. It means you can schedule your meal deliveries for the whole upcoming month if you want. Thus, you will save your time on week-to-week planning and still keep an option to make changes in your menu or delivery dates, if needed.


Healthy Eating Made Easy

If you drastically want to follow a healthy diet, yet, badly lack time on cooking, the Green Chef meal delivery will help you mend your way. And if you are already into healthy eating, this service will let you meet your nutritious goals with ease.

First and foremost, what makes this very meal delivery service stand out is their approach towards recipes. While other services of this kind most often prioritize individual user tastes and food preferences, with their menus featuring sandwiches, cheesy pasta, casseroles, succulent burgers, and heavy sauces, the Green Chef puts a premium on nutrition. Therefore, they closely focus on a healthy balance of carbs, proteins, and fats striving to create nutrient-rich and calorie-wise dishes that taste great. To achieve that, they use whole grains, lean meats, a lot of vegetables, fresh herbs, nuts, seeds, and all-natural spices. They create combinations that burst with flavors, using no buttery or oily dressings and no fatty ingredients.

To proceed, for their meals, in Green Chef, they use only top-quality ingredients. As the name suggests, the company strongly supports the idea of eating and living green. In view of this, all their ingredients are organic (USDA-certified) and free from GMOs, antibiotics, and hormones. You can rest assured knowing that all plants were grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or any other potentially harmful components. Besides, with care for the environment, in Green Chef, they use only recycled, recyclable, or reusable packaging.

For Diet-specific Needs

With healthy nutrition in mind, the Geen Chef meal delivery offers a number of thought-out complete meal plans specifically developed to cater to a variety of dietary needs. Whether you are an avid meat-eater, a pescatarian, or vegan, they’ll get you covered. They have custom-tailored menus for most popular modern diets including a low-carb and protein-packed keto diet and a paleo diet rich in whole foods and free from gluten, soy, dairy, and grains. Those who refrain from meat will definitely like a plant-powered plan with a whole range of delicious and flavorsome veg-based dishes. Meanwhile, a balanced living plan provides a diverse mix of different recipes for omnivores, and a family plan with four-serving recipes (instead of two servings for other plans) is a great choice for bigger families.

The only gripe you might have is that there is no possibility to individually choose meals from different plans. However, each plan contains a selection of nine dishes, so, you’ll find something to your taste for sure. More than that, you are free to vary plans from one week to another.

Smartly Designed Recipes

When it comes to cooking under Green Chef’s recipes, it’s one of the easiest tasks ever, no matter your culinary skills. Not only do all ingredients come already pre-measured and ready to be cooked, thus, saving you the trouble of fiddling with measuring cups and cutting down unused remainders but also you’ll get supportive recipe cards with informative step-by-step photos. In addition, those cards are color-coded to find the necessary ingredients for each recipe without a hassle. Finally, all recipes are pretty quick with prep and cook times not exceeding 40 minutes. So, it won’t take you long to get your healthy and appetizing meal ready.

To cut a long story short, if you are a healthy eater not indifferent to the environment and seeking to make your cooking a breeze without compromising the quality of your meals, the Green Chef meal delivery is for you.


Created by a Pro for Inspired Home Cooks

It’s not a secret that the best cookbooks and the most delicious recipes are those created by professional cooks. Backed by extensive experience, those recipes are usually thought out up to a single detail, sometimes match incompatible ingredients, yet, always offer unique combinations of flavors and tastes. Constantly improving their culinary techniques and accumulating culinary knowledge, professionals are often eager to share it with others. Martha Stewart is not an exception. Having a huge expertise in cooking and being a truly renowned cook in a culinary world, Martha shares her best practices with millions of home cooks through TV shows and books, and now through a meal delivery service. Those who have ever watched Martha Stewart cooking inevitably become her fans and strive to recreate her culinary masterpieces in their home kitchens. There is hardly anyone who would refuse to cook like a pro and regularly enjoy restaurant-quality dishes at home. With the Marley Spoon delivery service, you’ll have such opportunity.

This fresh meal delivery service offers one-of-the-kind recipes created specifically for Marley Spoon by Martha. On top of that, operating in the format of meal delivery, the service will ensure quick and free delivery of all products right to your door. No need for you to go out, just unpack the ingredients carefully measured and packed by recipes and start cooking. In Marley Spoon, they provide only two meal plans, for couples and families, yet, these are the optimal options allowing you to make up and order a balanced menu for 2, 3, or 4 persons. Each week you’ll be able to choose from a selection of new dishes designed by a real chef.

The whole subscription process is extremely simple and won’t take more than a few minutes. Besides, in case you change your mind after placing an order and want to replace the dishes in the menu or skip a delivery, you can make all alterations through your personal account on the website.

As for the food ingredients, they are all of the highest quality, being sourced from reliable and trusted suppliers. Meanwhile, all packaging materials securely keeping your food fresh during transportation are fully recyclable and environmentally safe.

With the Martha and Marley Spoon meal delivery service, you’ll have an access to professional recipes you can cook at home without even shopping for ingredients.

Only 6 Steps Away From an Ideal Dinner

The biggest fear of all novice cooks is the number of preparation processes they have to accomplish and the complexity of techniques they have to apply to create a real work of art following a professional recipe. However, with Martha Stewart recipes, there is no need to worry about that. All recipes you’ll get with meal kits are broken down into only 6 cooking steps and are fully illustrated to visualize the result you should achieve. The guidance and instructions are clear and comprehensible making each recipe easy to cook both for a pro and for a beginner.

Meal kits from Martha and Marley Spoon will make haute cuisine a breeze allowing you to enjoy professional-grade results time after time.

Tailor Yoru Culinary Skills to Perfection

One more benefit you’ll get with the Martha and Marley Spoon meal delivery service is a chance to greatly improve your culinary skills and enjoy a culinary experience guided by a professional cook. Comprehensible and easy-to-follow recipes will help you quickly get the hang of different cooking techniques while a well-thought selection of ingredients will let you learn how to match foods, spices, and condiments. All of this will enable you to go beyond the borders of already known recipes and start experimenting to create your own dishes. Cooking like a chef has never been easier.


Be the One in Charge

Vegin' Out is one of the most popular vegan delivery services in Los Angeles. That said, their services aren't limited to the City of Angels or the Golden State. In fact, the company delivers nationwide, with the usual exceptions of Alaska and Hawaii. The reason for their popularity and success in a market as crowded and oversaturated as Los Angeles is that they offer ready-made, affordable vegetarian and vegan frozen meals, freshly prepared and delivered right to your door. The only thing you'll have to do is decide the number of meals that you'd like to receive (meaning a single or a double order).

If there is a dish on the menu that you're not particularly fond of, you can always remove that dish from your order and replace it with a different meal. As it is often the case, you can always state your wishes in the usual request box. Like the dish but don't like all of the ingredients? Simply ask the chef to exclude those ingredients. The company always heeds your dietary restrictions, so don't shy away from ordering a gluten-free, nut-free, or soy-free version of a menu item.

Huge Variety

A vegan meal delivery service is only as good as its ingredients. Of course, the folk at Vegin’ Out aren't new to this thing, so you always get the freshest ingredients available, about 85% organic on average. They don't use calcium caseinate, meat, honey, dairy, or eggs. All of their meals are always prepared by a professional chef, so you'll be able to enjoy that restaurant-grade meal without ever leaving your house.

Of course, no matter how delicious a meal, you'll get tired of it sooner rather than later. Vegin’ Out solve (or, at the very least, try to solve) this issue by providing their customers with a maximum possible variety of meals, so it will definitely take you some time before you'll even consider getting tired of their offers. The company's menus are repeated only once every 8 weeks. That means that, even if you order from them every single week, you'll be eating the same meals just 6 times per year.

Go Vegan

As far as the actual services are concerned, Vegin' Out gets a solid B+ or a shaky A-, depending on how you look at it. For the most part, they're great to deal with. The subscription is 100% free. The only thing you're paying is weekly deliveries of the most delicious vegan meals. In order to cancel the order and receive a full refund, you will have to do that before 8 a.m. on Sunday, right before your Monday delivery. If you cancel after that time, you'll only receive a 50% refund. If you aren't satisfied with the meal, you can always contact the company 2 days after you've received that meal and they'll give you a full refund or replace the dish.

Now, as for what you actually get, a single weekly delivery from this vegan meal delivery service includes three 24-ounce vegetarian vegan entrées, four 16-ounce vegetarian vegan side dishes, one 32-ounce vegetarian vegan soup, as well as 5 complimentary vegan cookies. Like we've said earlier, you can always go with the double order or ask for extra entrées, sides, salad dressings, or even cookies. With that double order, you'll be able to save around 10% on every delivery, which isn't a bad deal as far as we're concerned.

All things considered, Vegin' Out is easily one of the better vegan meal delivery services on the market right now. With their customization options, reasonable prices, and quality ingredients, you won't have to slave over a hot stove at home or tolerate that subpar cafeteria food at work. Instead, you'll be able to enjoy quality meals with your favorite ingredients.


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What Is a Meal Delivery Service?

Cooking by yourself is the only way to know exactly what you eat and control your diet. There are millions of people who adore cooking yet lack time for shopping to buy fresh ingredients and even more of those who are eager to follow a healthy diet and cook at home yet lack culinary skills and cooking experience. This is what prompted the development of a meal delivery business model. Launched over 10 years ago, meal delivery services were meant to let people eat healthier food and enjoy their meals, meanwhile saving their time on purchasing ingredients and helping them to improve their cooking skills.

Meal delivery is a kind of online service where you can plan your meals, choose the dishes, and order the delivery of all food ingredients under the recipes you’ve selected together with detailed cooking instructions right to your door. All meal kits come accurately portioned and ready to be cooked right out of the box. The only things you will need are cookware, oil, salt, and any other spices and seasonings that you like. 

With a great variety of meal prep delivery services available on the market today, it is easy to get confused. Our detailed meal delivery service reviews will guide your choice and help you find the best meal delivery that will meet all your needs and match your individual diet. And in case you need a delivery of fully cooked and ready-to-serve meals for some special occasion, a food delivery service will come to help.

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