Meal delivery services

[#1hoosierfan]

Does anybody use one? If so, which one and thoughts?

We are getting 3 meals from Green Chef next week.

 

[soccerdad72]

We've done Blue Apron off and on since last March. We've gotten somewhat tired of the menu choices, so I decided to try Hello Fresh this week - the first box comes Saturday.

 

[aggiedog]

We've done several.

Sun Basket - good food, good variety. Has some completely pre-made meals you just heat up. I've had bad luck with those - bad cuts of meat, weird rice texture. I avoid those types now. If a recipe requires garlic, you get a whole head. We had a plethora of garlic accumulate. Cooler weather was never an issue.

Hello Fresh - Good meals, good variety. More pre-made sauces and spice mixes, so hard to replicate the recipe on my own if I really liked it. Fabulous insulated shipping. No issues with the heat. Beware of upcharges - different cuts of meat, "chef's special" dishes, some upwards of an additional $12 per serving.

Purple Carrot - LOVE, LOVE this one. It's vegan, which pains my DS to no end, so I don't do it every week, and limited choices - only 4 per week. But the recipes are super tasty, the food is fresh. Oddly, this one has the least environmentally friendly packaging - it's recyclable but not compostable. It's also a bit cheaper per serving than others. You can add extras like snacks, lunches, and breakfasts but we've never done it.

Marley Spoon - a bit more shi-shi recipes, good food. God-awful packaging for warmer climates. I had to cancel after several shipments came, on time, but the veggies were slimy. Perfectly fine service if your local temps don't exceed 80.

Plated - good meals, really liked it, got sold to Kroger and they discontinued home delivery. boo.

All the services I've tried have, in general, large portions. So a 4 serving meal has enough for the 3 of us (15yo DS included) and significant left overs. The exception to this is when the meal is primarily a hunk of meat - steak, pork chop, etc.

We did it not to save money on groceries but to save money on pizza and take out. Or spend the same amount but on healthier food. It's worked out well. And I've found I grocery shop less because I know food is coming eventually so it's not so critical I go in the next day or two.

ETA - I'd completely blocked out our Marley Spoon experience, which was the one with bad summer packaging. My bad.

 

[AuntieMe3]

DD22 has been getting us Hello Fresh for a couple weeks now. She buys and I cook. All the food has been really good, there hasn't been anything any of us haven't cared for. I love the convenience of not having to plan and shop for meals. They are a little more work than I usually put into cooking, I'm a lazy cook...lol but it's not over the top. We alternate from 3 to 4 meals a week and depending on the week(hubby travels for work), 2 or 4 servings. 2 is enough for the 3 of us but sometimes we like to have the leftovers with the 4 servings.

 

[TLSnell1981]

I used a Zone delivery service out of NY for a couple of years. I have lost their information and can no longer find them online. I would love to pick up their service again.

 

[AuntieMe3]

We did it not to save money on groceries but to save money on pizza and take out. Or spend the same amount but on healthier food.

This is why I like it....we eat a lot of convenience food when I was cooking or we would end up getting take out if no one had a suggestion on what I should make or I was missing something for a meal and had to run to the store...this way, we pick the meals we want for the week and it's so nice to have everything we need and I just have to thaw the meat and everything is ready. It's a balanced meal...sometimes when I would make things like tacos or spaghetti, that's all we had...lol no side dishes.

 

[Aladora]

We have been alternating between Hello Fresh and Good Food Box for about a year and a half now. There are 3 of us including a 15 year old and I find that a 2 serving meal is almost enough for the 3 of us, I usually add extra veggies to make up the difference. I tried a 4 serving size and it was WAY too much food, especially whatever rice/pasta/grain/etc came with the meal so I find it easier to just add a little extra,

 

[TippyThomas]

I have used Everyplate off and on for a while now. They are the only ones I've used so I can't compare them to any of the others but I've been pretty happy with them for the most part.

 

[belle032]

We switch between Hello Fresh & Home Chef, depending on what looks good for the week. It works out great for DH & I, especially in the winter. We usually skip weeks & pause the service a lot more in the summer when we grill constantly.

 

[tlcdoula]

We have 3 different ones in our area (Hello fresh, Good foods, and Chefs Plate) and have been alternating between them depending what menu we like better. We are in Canada and you can get Hello Fresh gift cards for $80 for a $100 card and it has free delivery attached to it. So we have been using those for a few orders now and it makes it a little more reasonable.

Not having to run out to the store last min for a few things I have forgot on our grocery order is worth it to me. Also saves on ordering takeout because no one wants to cook. Hubby has been cooking more with them so that is a bonus for me

 

[Figment of Speech]

I've been subscribed to Purple Carrot for the past four years. As @aggiedog mentioned, this one is vegan. Obviously I love it or I wouldn't have stuck with it this long. The important thing to keep in mind with any meal delivery kit is that with few exceptions, they're not money-saving services, they're hassle-saving services. And I love so many things about the model:

• the fact that a chunk of my food each week comes straight to me;
• that it often includes ingredients that I might otherwise make multiple stops to find;
• that the meals generally consist of two or three smaller components (main, salad, side) that coordinate with each other perfectly — and I didn't have to do the planning myself;
• that I've been introduced to a huge range of international dishes and creative preparation ideas and techniques I might not otherwise have discovered;
• that I've very seldom received the same recipe twice (and when I did, I could've avoided it if I'd logged in and checked my upcoming meals ahead of time).

It was also really handy at the beginning of the pandemic last year, when certain things were hard to find in stores for a month or so. My Purple Carrot deliveries continued as if nothing had happened, though they did send a note that we'd be seeing more ingredient substitutions than usual.

Here's a sample of the range of options they offer. The first three are the ones I'm getting next week, and the rest are the alternates I could switch to (or add) if I wanted something different (or more). I'm on a three-meal-per-week plan with two servings per meal.

 

[low-key]

I tried to be a driver for one of these places, but I ate all the meals

 

[aggiedog]

FWIW, all those options are only available for the 2 person plan. For some reason, if you get the 4 serving plan, you'd only have 4 options. It's my one sticking point with Purple Carrot. To drive it home, they send all the recipes for that week in a booklet, so I can see all the things I can't have. Other services usually just sent the recipes you ordered with the corresponding ingredients.

 

[ronandannette]

We have been alternating between Hello Fresh and Good Food Box for about a year and a half now. There are 3 of us including a 15 year old and I find that a 2 serving meal is almost enough for the 3 of us, I usually add extra veggies to make up the difference. I tried a 4 serving size and it was WAY too much food, especially whatever rice/pasta/grain/etc came with the meal so I find it easier to just add a little extra,

We are a family of 3 as well and tried GoodFood just before Christmas. Due to my own ineptitude the order got screwed up. I wanted 3 menus of two servings each and ended up with 5 menus of 4 servings each. We found the quantities to be awkward and it would have been easier to stretch 2 than end up wasting some of 4. We also chose mostly menus that had “no prep” options, meaning the produce and proteins came already cut and I think that detracted a bit from the quality of it.

Our initial goal had been to have nights where DH and/or DS did the cooking. We found the recipes to be quite straight-forward but the menus we chose did require some techniques that were a little challenging for their (very basic) skill levels. They did get through it and had a bit of fun but overall, it wasn’t a completely successful experience. Cost wise, our box was $240 for 5 meals which was expensive even with the introductory offer discounts but again, my own fault for ordering in error. I doubt we’ll try again.

 

[mmbrad02]

We have done Hello Fresh and enjoyed expanding our palette a bit and found the quality very good. But we grew tired of it after a while honestly and eventually cancelled. And for us it never failed if we found a week where we liked two or more of the meals and ordered, then we had all sorts of real life events that would come up and it became stressful to get the meals fixed. But thats us, and not the company's fault I would give one or two a try and see what you think - we also did Plated back in the day, and my experience is that they are all easy to skip weeks or cancel the service.

 

[fancymouse]

I’ve done Plated, HomeChef, and now we do Marley Spoon. Marley Spoon is definitely the most “gourmet”. It’s funny because they assume your pantry is pretty well stocked as occasionally it will ask for something I don’t have (like a kind of vinegar), but it’s easy enough to substitute. There are also LOTS of choices each week and you can add desserts. For the most part we’ve been happy with it. HomeChef was the most simplistic and everything was included. After a few weeks I realized the meals were very repetitive, but they were also very easy to make.

 

[firefly_ris]

We just finished a 2 month run of HelloFresh. I did a promo for the first week free. We also did all vegetarian meals because husband was on a temporary restrictive diet for blood work purposes. We enjoyed 95% of the meals. I received some bad ingredients one time and they were very responsive in refunding some money to my account balance for it.

We bounced between meals for 2 and meals for 4 -- the 4 to me was a lot of food but then we both had easy lunch leftovers for the following day. Even the 2 serving meals I felt were large and could often split enough for my 3 young children as well.

If you are calorie counting just be careful on your serving size as some of them are very high (one meal I made was 980 cal per serving!!!) But you can cut some of that down by not adding the extra butter and such they often instruct you to add.

Lastly it can also be worth looking into with health insurance -- ours gave us $300 towards meal kit plans which paid for the large majority of the run we just did. And now I have all the recipe cards to make them on my own.

 

[Breezy_Carol]

I have done Blue Apron about once every three months for several years. I order it when I get in a rut or want to try something new More expensive than groceries but cheaper than eating out. The quality has always been good and never had a meal that we didn't like.

I have 5 free trial boxes Not sure the exact deal but am willing to send them to anyone who wants to try. You may have to give credit card but I think you can cancel at any time, I know I can and I started with the free meal. You just need to PM me your name and email address for me to submit.

 

[lovesmurfs]

A few years ago, my husband and I went through the gamut -- we tried 14-15 different companies (for the new customer discounts). We finally chose SunBasket, which we've been using for the last 2 1/2 years. Most everything's organic, and the flavors are good -- a departure from my meal rotations.

We're empty-nesters, so it works well for us to have the 3 meals/week.

ETA: PM me your email address, and I can forward a $40 off coupon if you'd like.

 

[Figment of Speech]

FWIW, all those options are only available for the 2 person plan. For some reason, if you get the 4 serving plan, you'd only have 4 options. It's my one sticking point with Purple Carrot. To drive it home, they send all the recipes for that week in a booklet, so I can see all the things I can't have. Other services usually just sent the recipes you ordered with the corresponding ingredients.

Interesting! I didn't know that, since I've only ever had the two-serving plan, but that actually makes sense, since the other options don't come as four-serving versions. Seems like they should, but I'm sure they have some kind of supply/demand/fiscal reasons for limiting the larger-family plans.

I've been a subscriber since before there were options at all, though. Three (or two!) meals a week, and you got what they sent you. So I've seen them grow and evolve in four years, including meal plans, packaging companies, delivery companies, and lots and lots of changes in packing materials. So they could certainly change availability for the four-serving plan if it works out for them in the future.