Fresh N Lean has five meal plans to help keep folks on track with their specific nutrition goals including low-carb, vegan, paleo and protein-plus options. The food was all made exceptionally well using simple, whole ingredients. Why our testers picked Pete's Real Food : While it's more expensive than other prepared meal services on our list, the quality of food doesn't get much higher than Pete's.

The cuisine is designed to fuel those following the precise paleo diet, but even those not keeping to the plan should enjoy this grub. Pete's Real Food formerly Pete's Paleo won me over in a week-long taste test of its healthy organic and paleo meals, earning a spot as one of the best healthy, organic meal delivery services.

Pete's meals are all fully prepared and ready to heat and eat. The dozen or so Pete's Real Food meals we've tested were all cooked well: meats were tender, vegetables mostly cooked to proper doneness and all the flavors worked.

If you're in training or keeping to a paleo plan and looking for lots of protein, healthy fats and nutrient-filled carbs such as sweet potatoes and beets, Pete's should hit the spot. Pete's Real Food formerly Pete's Paleo is an excellent meal service if you're adhering to a paleo or whole foods eating plan.

Read our full review of Pete's Real Food here. Why our testers picked CookUnity : This is a prepared meal service aimed at those with refined tastes and an adventurous palate. The best thing about CookUnity is the sheer volume of meal options you can choose from, all originating from chefs -- some famous and some not -- of different backgrounds and culinary styles.

I liked almost everything I tried, with recipes ranging from very healthy to more comfort-style food. There are plenty of options for vegetarians, too, but note that the menu will vary depending on where you live since they pull from local chefs to create the weekly offerings.

Read our full review of CookUnity here. Why our testers picked Mosaic Foods : This plant-based service was one of the best prepared meal services we tried, and not just among vegan options. I sampled more than 10 of Mosaic Food's plant-based prepared meal offerings and the vegetarian prepared meal delivery service had an astoundingly high hit rate.

Mosaic uses global flavors and employs creative use of meat substitutes such as tofu, jackfruit, cauliflower and vegan sausages to create tasty and satisfying vegetarian meals.

While everything I ate from Mosaic was at least good, some standouts included the bean and jackfruit chili, tomato olive and feta ragout and a tangy Thai noodle dish. Why our testers picked HelloFresh : HelloFresh combines, convenience, selection and family-friendly options for an all-around excellent meal kit experience.

HelloFresh has the most recipes per week of any meal kit service we tried making it a good pick for families and homes with picky eaters.

This meal kit service's portion sizes are generous and there are meals to fir eating plans and diets of all sorts. It's also affordable, especially if you order larger meals. Ya know, for a family. HelloFresh recipes are mostly fast and easy to follow, even for beginner cooks.

Plus, they'll allow you to make substitutions so you can always find a recipe that suits your taste. Factor is a healthy prepared meal service and had some of the best meals I tried in all my testing of prepared meal services, including a zesty pesto salmon and a divine keto cheesecake.

Among the hits, however, were the occasional misses, so you may have to learn the menu over time. Factor puts a focus on healthy meals with plenty of low-carb options, and all the nutritional information is listed on the website before you choose your meals each week.

With all the keto and paleo meal options, it's certainly a solid choice for people keeping to either of those plans. Read our full review of Factor here. Why our testers picked Purple Carrot : For authentic, organic, plant-based cooking, Purple Carrot delivered big with a bounty of interesting recipes and fresh ingredients.

Out of all the vegan meal kits I've tried, Purple Carrot's provided me with the best base for cooking vegan cuisine and its ingredient mainstays such as lentils and grains. There are about eight recipes to choose from each week. I tested a full week's worth of meals and enjoyed all of them.

Read our full Purple Carrot review here. Why our testers picked Green Chef : This meal kit service uses almost all organic meats and produce, and offers interesting and healthy recipes for the discerning home cook. While it may be one of the pricier options, we like Green Chef for its versatility in the different specific diet plans available.

The healthy meal kit service also boasts the most organic ingredients of any meal kit service including produce, meats and fish. Green Chef also offers paleo, keto, pescatarian, vegan and vegetarian meals as well as gluten-free meal kit recipes and meals.

Read our full review of Green Chef here. EveryPlate keeps overhead costs low by offering just eight easy meal kit recipes to choose from weekly, which mostly excludes vegetarians and those on special diets, but the eight available meals are full of variety and flavor otherwise.

You can expect a lot of comfort food from this meal kit service such as meatloaf, burgers and pasta dishes but everything I made was solid. Why our testers picked Home Chef : Home Chef is a meal kit service with a sprawling menu that includes tons of low-carb options.

Even if you're not going full keto, but just want to curb your carb intake, Home Chef offers 15 recipes per week with less than 15 grams of net carbs in each. On balance, Home Chef meal kits weren't the best we tried, but the bulk of meals we made took less than 25 minutes and the portions were more than satisfying.

That, coupled with its slew of easy, healthy low-carb options, makes Home Chef the best meal kit service for keto eaters. The first big decision you'll make is whether you want meal kits, which require some prep and cooking, or a prepared meal service that sends fully cooked meals that are ready to heat and eat.

After you've picked between meal kits or meal delivery, you'll want to find a service within your budget. Here we've outlined all the best cheap meal delivery services for Our list of the healthiest meal delivery services for is a good place to find all the most nutritious options.

Lastly, you'll want to hone in on exactly how much food you'll want sent to you per week. Most services allow you to change the number of meals or servings in your plan even after you've started. With nearly every service, the more meals your order per delivery, the cheaper it is per meal.

All the meal delivery services may look delicious in their website glamour shots, but that's certainly not enough to convince me.

To settle on this list of the best meal delivery service I tried as many as we could get our hands on, noting everything about them from freshness and flavor to ordering, packaging and delivery. Testing meal kits for CNET means rolling up our sleeves and cooking at least one week's worth of meals from each service, often more.

How each meal kit tastes, how easy it was to prepare and the portion sizes are all considered. We also evaluate the website and how easy it is to navigate along with determining how easy it is to pause, cancel or change your order at any given time. To learn more, we have an in-depth look at how we test meal kits here at CNET.

To test each meal delivery service, we tried at least five and sometimes as many as 10 meals from any given service. I choose a range of meals from the various menu and meal plan offerings and took note of the ordering process, recipe variety and information available.

I reheated meals according to the instructions. If there were none, I heated them the way I would if left to my own devices. Often that meant warming gently in a nonstick skillet or reheating in my air fryer.

Many of the meal delivery services offer a microwave heating option, but I almost always found that produced worse results than my trusted methods, even if they typically take a few seconds longer. Not all meal kits are created equally. Some services are much better depending on your dietary preferences, budget and culinary skill level.

If you're looking to cut some of the legwork out of dinner, meal kits and prepared meal services are definitely worth it. The most budget-friendly services cost about the same as buying all the groceries you'd need to make the same meal, with the convenience of having all the ingredients or a box of fully prepared meals sent to your home each week.

That's definitely cheaper than eating out or getting restaurant food delivered, and about the same cost as buying the groceries needed to make the same meals.

In a previous story, we crunched the numbers to find out how much meal kits cost versus buying the same groceries. In reviews and best lists, Blue Apron and HelloFresh are two of the most popular meal kit services for Fresh N Lean and Factor are some of the most popular options for prepared meal subscriptions.

Wellness Nutrition. Best Meal Delivery Services of We've tested and reviewed more than two dozen meal delivery services. Written by David Watsky. Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks.

If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement. David lives in Brooklyn where he's spent more than a decade covering all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools and cooking tips. Since earning a BA in English from Northeastern in Boston, he's toiled in nearly every aspect of the food business, including as a line cook in Rhode Island where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom.

Of all the different meals, miso pesto ramen with shrimp was my mainstay—the shrimp were large and tender, and the brown rice-and-millet ramen was delicious both hot and straight from the fridge. I also found myself returning to the Springbone chicken and rice , which came close to the halal cart I used to frequent near my office.

The best part about all of them? Meals arrive in an insulated cardboard box. Except for the included ice packs, all the packaging is recyclable; the Paleolithic people would be proud. All the dishes are vegetarian, and I often use them as a base for my dinners or add a quick-cooking veggie—like frozen peas and carrots to their upma —to call it a day.

You could also add meat. My favorite meal was the dal makhani. It's made from a short list of simple ingredients, has all the creamy richness you'd expect from the dish, and it takes seven minutes to prepare as opposed to overnight in the slow cooker.

I ate this with a dollop of yogurt, chopped cilantro, and premade rotis. I also appreciate that Cumin Club offers dishes from distinct places of origin, like Kolkata and Chennai—both regions that represent my cultural identity but that often get overlooked when it comes to Indian food in the US.

The Cumin Club. All of the dishes I tried were flavorful and well-seasoned, and I enjoyed the unmatched diversity of ingredients. Not to mention, all of the meals are quick and easy.

I appreciated that the sauces and dressings were premade and actually tasted good and that the protein choices for the meals were customizable. For example, when ordering the BBQ meatloaf with garlicky greens and potatoes , you can select either ground beef, ground chicken, or ground turkey.

For other meals, you can even choose your preferred cut of steak or chicken. They also offer weekly fully prepared, microwave-ready meals I can vouch for the turkey chili mac with cheddar.

Go directly to our top picks to order your weekly meals: Sign up for Purple Carrot , or skip ahead to read our review. Sign up for Marley Spoon , or skip ahead to read our review. Sign up for Home Chef , or skip ahead to read our review. Sign up for Gobble , or skip ahead to read our review.

Sign up for Dinnerly , or skip ahead to read our review. Sign up for Green Chef , or skip ahead to read our review. Shop at Purple Carrot.

Shop at Home Chef. Shop at Marley Spoon. Shop at Gobble. Shop at Dinnerly. Shop at Green Chef. Shop at CookUnity.

Shop at Hello Fresh. Shop at Hungryroot. Shop at Factor. Shop at EveryPlate. Shop at Territory. We talked to experts about their favorite prepared meal delivery services, including options for certain dietary restrictions like gluten-free and vegetarian, and highlighted their recommendations below across budgets and diets.

All the meal delivery services below offer single-serve ready-to-eat meals, with some offering additional meal kit options, too. Price is based on 10 meals per week. Factor has a weekly rotating menu of over 27 prepared meals designed by dieticians, according to the brand.

Lisa Young , an adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University, recommends this service because it caters to a number of diets and dietary needs, including keto, paleo, low-carb, vegetarian, plant-based and high-protein. You can choose from five plans, ranging from four meals per week up to 18 meals per week.

I recently tried out Factor after the brand sent me a few boxes, and I found the meals to be both delicious and extremely convenient — after a long day at work, I simply popped them into the oven and they were ready to eat in no more than 15 minutes.

Price is based on six meals per week. CookUnity offers multiple plans depending on how many meals you want to receive, with subscriptions ranging from four to 16 meals per week. You can make your selections from a rotating menu of ready-to-eat options each week or have them picked for you based on your preferences, including your choices of protein and any dietary restrictions like vegetarian, vegan, low-carb and gluten-free.

The meals come fresh and have a refrigerated shelf life of about four to seven days, according to CookUnity. Within its rotating weekly menu of more than 30 meals to choose from, Home Chef will offer about 10 options that are pre-made. When looking at individual menu options, each meal shows the estimated time it takes to heat up.

Home Chef also lets you customize the type and amount of protein you want in each meal including low-calorie and vegetarian options , which makes it a great option for people who want variety or those with certain dietary restrictions, according to Ben Leonard , chef and culinary manager for GreenPan.

With that said, it may not be the best option for people who are indecisive or picky eaters, says Leonard. Price is based on 20 meals per week. It lets you choose from over chef-prepared meals based on your dietary needs. Lisa Moskovitz, a registered dietitian and CEO of NY Nutrition Group , recommends this service because it offers various health-conscious plans — you can pick from five different programs: Signature, Gluten-free, Heart Healthy, Diabetic and Menopause.

Sunbasket offers both meal kits and pre-made meals, which consist of high-quality ingredients and organic produce, according to the brand. Each meal indicates whether it accommodates certain dietary restrictions, including gluten-free, soy-free and vegetarian. Price is based on 14 meals per week.

Splendid Spoon offers over 50 healthy ready-made and gluten-free meals and snacks, including smoothies, soups, noodle bowls and dishes.

$7-$10 Fresh N Lean Home Chef Oven Ready

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Affordable pre-made meal packages - Daily Harvest $7-$10 Fresh N Lean Home Chef Oven Ready

Read on to see the other services that made the cut. Meal delivery services can be a quick and convenient way to enjoy more healthy, home-cooked meals. But these services can range quite a bit in price, with some costing even two or three times as much as others.

This can make it particularly challenging for anyone on a tight budget to find an option that works for them. We included an assortment of both prepared meals — which can typically be heated in the microwave or oven with no meal prep required — and meal kits, which include preportioned ingredients and recipe cards so you can make your own meals at home.

Keep reading for 5 of the best affordable delivery services in , along with our feedback on each service and a closer look at how they compare. As part of our testing, we consider several factors, including the ease of the signup and meal selection process, the variety and nutritional composition of the meals offered, ingredient quality and freshness, ease of cooking, and, of course, the taste.

We score them accordingly. Learn more about how we test meal kits. Each service in this article:. There are a few factors you may want to consider when selecting a meal delivery service to ensure that the company fits your lifestyle and budget:.

Meal delivery prices can range quite a bit. If you regularly dine out or order takeout, a meal delivery service could save you money, depending on the service you choose. But compared with buying groceries and cooking meals at home, meal delivery services tend to be more expensive.

Meal delivery services can range quite a bit in price, making it challenging for people on a budget to find suitable options. But several cost-effective services are available, many of which offer options to fit some dietary restrictions and food preferences.

When deciding which meal delivery service is right for you, consider factors such as variety, quality, cost, availability, and ingredients. Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

VIEW ALL HISTORY. These Black-owned companies check all the marks for freshness, flavor, and elevating Blackness in the food industry. Dinnerly is an affordable meal kit service that provides quick recipes and the ingredients you need to prepare them.

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Availability: Nationwide check to see if your zip code is included. Meet the something-for-everyone meal delivery service.

Each recipe is ranked by difficulty , so you can pick something that sharpens or matches your skill level with easy options that avoid cooking entirely. Meal examples: Coconut curry with chickpeas; apricot ponzu chicken; one-pan turkey stir-fry tacos. Shipping costs depend on where you live.

Availability: Nationwide, including select zip codes in Honolulu, Hawaii and Anchorage, Alaska. Splendid Spoon. Their pre-made options include soups, stews, and rice and noodles—or you can choose from a variety of fruity juices and high-protein smoothies.

Meal examples: Red lentil dal soup with cumin and rosemary; creamy butternut squash noodles with broccoli and turmeric; hearty vegetable bolognese with wild rice and garlicky green beans. Orders of 10 meals or more ship for free. On the most practical level, the meal kit you choose should suit your budget and schedule.

Luckily, if you need a flexible subscription, the majority of services make it easy to skip and pause deliveries. Some even allow you to change the number of meals you receive every week.

Other factors to consider are your dietary preferences and any potential dietary restrictions. You can find brands that spotlight vegetarian and vegan meals, filter weekly menus based on your allergies, use certain ingredients, and offer on-the-go menu items like soups , smoothies , and frozen meals.

You may need to try out a couple brands before you find the one that works for you. You can also shop with your idea of healthy eating in mind: Though what this means is super individualized, it could look like prioritizing nutritious ingredients, satisfying servings, or even delicious, joyful dishes.

SELF does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.

Fitness Food Health Love Beauty Life Conditionally Shopping. Video Challenges Workouts Newsletter Signup. Save this story Save this story. How SELF tests meal kits We spoke with registered dietitians to help guide the criteria for choosing the right meal delivery service.

The best meal delivery services of As mentioned, all of these meal delivery services have been tested and reviewed by SELF staffers, who followed our meal kit shopping guide. Best Meal Kit Overall: Home Chef.

Shop at Home Chef. Availability: Nationwide. Try It. Best for the Busy Person: Gobble. Shop at Gobble. Most Eco-Friendly: Green Chef.

Shop at Green Chef. Most Popular. Availability: Contiguous United States Try It. Most Established: Blue Apron. Shop at Blue Apron.

Most Customizable: Territory. Shop at Territory Foods. Best Value: EveryPlate. Shop at EveryPlate. Best for the Picky Eater: Hungryroot. Shop at Hungryroot. Best for Plant-Based Meals: Sunbasket. Shop at Sunbasket. Availability: Contiguous United States.

Best for Add-Ons: Dinnerly. Shop at Dinnerly. Best for Organic Produce: Misfits Market. Each service in this article:. You can read more about our vetting process. Prepared meal delivery services provide ready-made fresh or frozen meals, which require little to no cooking or preparation.

These meal delivery services are designed to help you spend less time in the kitchen and can be a convenient alternative to meal kits or buying ingredients and preparing meals at home. Prepared meals can also be a simple way to enjoy nutritious foods and include a wider variety of ingredients in your weekly menu.

Factor and Trifecta Nutrition are two of our favorite healthy prepared options because many of their meals are crafted to be nutritionally balanced, featuring lean proteins, complex carbs, and plenty of vegetables.

They also feature menus to suit certain diet patterns. Splendid Spoon is one of our favorite prepared meal delivery services for singles, thanks to its wide selection of vegan meals and snacks, creative flavor combinations, and nutritional quality of the dishes.

With that said, there are many great prepared food delivery services catered to individuals. The best option will depend on your dietary needs, budget, and food preferences. Factor is our favorite prepared meal delivery service, thanks to its diverse menu and innovative flavor combinations.

Home Chef is another popular service, which offers an assortment of oven-ready meals and meal kit options, depending on your preferences.

For frozen meals that are full of flavor, consider other services like Mosaic. Many meal delivery services are available and can help you enjoy healthy meals at home. There are options for many specific diets and food preferences, including services tailored to older adults, vegetarians, athletes, and more.

When picking a prepared meal delivery service, be sure to consider factors such as cost, availability, variety, and quality. Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

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CookUnity is a chef-collective prepared meal delivery service offering restaurant-quality meals. However, it isn't cheap.

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