The best healthy meal delivery services might not be your first line of defense against an empty fridge and a grumbling stomach, but they're worth a shot if you've never indulged before. These days, a trip to the grocery store with its inflated prices is often more expensive than ordering take out. And though you could visit the local farmer's market or get yourself hooked up with a farm box, will either of those options set you up with easy recipes and tiny, pre-portioned ingredients for everything you'll need to sort out a meal in sub-40 minutes? Probably not. Can it send you a wealth of pre-made, chef-prepared meals, like a care package from your mom? Dubious!
The perks of a meal kit are many, but mostly boil down to convenience: With healthy meal subscriptions, eating better doesn’t have to involve hours of prep or trying to parse through the nutrition facts of whatever's on Uber Eats. Plus, thanks to a streamlined selection process, you can filter based on your highly specific dietary needs, whether you're a hardcore vegan, weaning off red meats with a pescatarian diet, or prioritizing organic ingredients through and through. Certain services offer exclusively plant-based vegan meals so you don't have to fall back on a takeout service doing the bare minimum with its vegetarian options. With any of the best healthy meal delivery services, there's no better way to eat well, pick up some important life skills in in the kitchen (character building!), and—if you're playing your cards right—save money that you'd normally spend on greasy takeout.
The Best Healthy Meal Delivery Services, at a GlanceYou wouldn't be browsing this story if you weren't short on time, so cut to the chase with our top picks for the kits that'll balance your meals and your checkbooks:
The Best Meal Delivery Service For Hardcore Vegans and Vegetarians: Purple CarrotThe Best Premium Healthy Meal Delivery Service: Sun BasketThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service for Global Flavors: Marley SpoonThe Best All-Inclusive Healthy Meal Delivery Service: Blue ApronThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service for Fancy Takeout-Style Meals: Territory FoodsThe Best Plant-Based Meal Delivery Service for Heat-and-Serve Meals: MosaicThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service for Salad Fanatics: SakaraThe Best Meal Delivery Service for Juice Bar Fiends and Lazy Vegans: Splendid SpoonThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service That Offers Groceries, Too: HungryrootWhat does “healthy” mean here, exactly?Healthy can obviously mean different things to different people. A green salad drenched in dressing may be high on fiber but also loaded with fats, sodium, and sugar if you're beelining for the Cobb. Grocery shopping for fresh ingredients sounds easy in theory, but unless you have a long list of healthy recipes in mind, you'll find yourself eating the same dishes and snacks over and over. If that sounds a little too familiar, then meal kits can save you from take-out temptation.
We're not registered dietitians, but for this assessment of the best healthy meal kits, we focused on services that prioritized a wealth of leafy greens and vegetables, high-quality ingredients, organic meals, plus premium meats that were sourced ethically and sustainably. We also looked for balanced meals: tasty, filling, fiber- and protein-rich dishes with a not overwhelming amount of salt, fat, sugar, and cholesterol. Moreover, we surveyed the best of the best kits that offer a variety of options for people with different dietary needs (vegans, vegetarians, the gluten-intolerant, people jonesing for Paleo- and keto-friendly options, “fit” plans for people bulking or counting calories, you name it).
How we testedOver the course of the last couple years, we've had the pleasure of testing a variety of the finest meal subscription services out there. Most meal kits at this point are in an arms race to offer basically everything they can plop in one flimsy box, from pre-made meals to groceries and even wine bottles, so distinguishing between them really depends on how much time and money you want to spend, plus what your dietary needs are. We dabbled in a little bit of everything, from chop-and-stir, DIY services that let you do follow along with recipe cards to lazy heat-and-serve meals that don't need much except a microwave or an oven. Then, we zeroed in on what each service does best and whether their marketing claims held up up—noting whether food tasted more like an over-seasoned rag or a five-star takeout substitute, whether the meal options were filling and varied, and if dishes were as speedy to prep as promised. Without further ado, the best healthy meal delivery services that'll get your new year goals off on the right foot.
The Best Meal Delivery Service For Hardcore Vegans and Vegetarians: Purple Carrot
The hook: Purple Carrot emphasizes that there are over 20,000 edible plants on the planet, which you'll see exemplified by its anything-but-basic, plant-based menu that's perfect for any hardline vegans or vegetarians (no “mixitarians”) who are looking to venture out from basic grain bowls. Choose from pasta dishes like sesame ginger noodles and hearty stews for dinner to tropical pancakes for breakfast and protein power bowls for lunch, then throw in some à la carte treats from the “plantry" portion of the site, whether you're jonesing for pistachio milk, lentil “chorizo,” or a green juice.
Meals do require some basic know-how in the kitchen—we'd file it under an intermediate-level meal kit—but the service does save you time and cut back on waste by sending you pre-packed baggies of everything you'll need for the job. Just one head of broccoli, say, and just a small baggie of sauce to complete that noodle dish. The company recently also added prepared meals to their offerings, which we haven't had the pleasure of testing yet, but make good on the promise of their original meal kits: all plant-based ingredients, interesting flavor profiles, and filling meals. We think that there are longer menus and more adventurous recipes at places like Sunbasket, but for an exclusively plant-based meal kit, you can't do much better than Purple Carrot.
Menu highlights: Blood orange poke bowl, creamy mac n' cheese with buffalo roasted chickpeas, cashew broccoli stir-fry, mushroom bulgur soup with baby kale and lemon cream
Price: Dinners start at $11 per serving, lunches cost $9 per serving, and breakfasts cost just under $5 per serving. Prepared meals cost $13 per serving.
Subscribe NowThe Best Premium Healthy Meal Delivery Service: Sun Basket
There are your garden variety “just the basics” meal kits. And then there are your doing-the-most, premium service meal kits that offer everything under the sun for your precious snacking and eating needs. Sunbasket is the latter. It's one of our favorite meal kits for the sheer range of menu options. Want a primo Michelin-worthy meal in the comfort of your home without needing to pull up Resy? There's a “Chef's Choice” Sunbasket meal for you. Just need to prep for an upcoming dinner party? Throw a meat and cheese board or a rack of lamb à la carte in with your next box, courtesy of Sunbasket's premium grocery offerings.
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Across the board, Sunbasket is stacked with restaurant-worthy entree ideas, with plenty of international flavors and interesting seasonings to get you out of your dinner rut. Even if you're in deep autopilot mode this week, you can still follow along with one of its easy-to-manage recipes, which use mostly gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free ingredients. Even better, switch up your regular meal kits with some fresh-and-ready pre-prepped dishes if you're on a deadline and don't have time to chop and prep. Another major perk: If you're sweating about the carbon footprint of your meal kit habit, Sunbasket also prioritizes sustainability in all of its practices, from its organic food sourcing to its packaging, which involves mostly recyclable, compostable, and reusable containers.
Menu highlights: Spicy Balinese chicken with cucumber-cabbage salad, citrus-roasted sole and cabbage, Japanese curry chicken katsu with roasted vegetables
Price: Meals start at $10 per serving, with market add-ons priced per item.
Subscribe NowThe Best All-Inclusive Meal Delivery Service: Blue Apron
The hook: Blue Apron's been in the meal kit game longer than pretty much everyone else, since they were the first to land on the scene with at-home “teach a man to cook” kits. They've had several years to polish off their offerings and have since expanded into vegetarian and “wellness” options selected by nutritionists, pre-made meals you can nuke in the microwave after a long day, and small add-on dishes like soups and dips when you're planning to have company over. Another reason Blue Apron is so wildly popular: It's even thought of the dinner pairings and offers a wine service that matches up miniature, single-serve wines with your meals so you can feel like you're eating at a Michelin-starred joint rather than heating and serving meals out of a cardboard box. It's all about the mindset, baby!
In our testing, we found that the prep-a-meal kits were easy to follow and dishes felt accessible, if a little basic (but not in a bad way!). The menu offerings are best suited for someone who can barely chop an onion and wants to study up on the basics (like pastas, steaks, and salads) before venturing into the one-hour risottos and tagine curries. There are also better vegetarian meal options out there, but if you're an omnivore that just wants a balanced diet with some greens and some tasty proteins, you should be all set with Blue Apron's weekly rotation.
Most PopularAs a bonus, you don't even have to be a subscriber to enjoy the spoils of a “paint by numbers” Blue Apron meal. Too pressed to fight the crowds at Whole Foods over Thanksgiving? Bodega fresh out of prime cuts for the holidays? Avail yourself of a Blue Apron holiday ham box. There are even summer BBQ options and other seasonal drops that happen throughout the year, and therefore plenty of ways to get your feet wet.
Menu highlights: Lemon-caper salmon and orzo, seared chicken and kale salad, avocado and poblano tortas
Price: Prices start at $8 per serving for five meals per week that feed four people.
Subscribe NowThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service for Global Flavors: Marley Spoon
The hook: So many meal kits offer up a taco option here and there, maybe an orange beef, that was cooked up by their test kitchen and then stop there when it comes to varied cuisines. But Marley Spoon really goes for it, with recipes for everything from congee (yes, you heard that right) and Turkish beef flatbreads to fusion dishes like gochujang bacon carbonora that aim for authenticity with their spices and seasonings. Don't fret if your taste buds aren't that worldly, though. There are also the standard meatloafs, pizzas, and rice bowls here for people who'd prefer more of a TV dinner experience. Marley Spoon is also the only meal kit that gets to say it works with thee Martha Stewart, and its recipes are either inspired or pulled directly from her vast archives. They're all tagged for easy browsing to help you select the “easy” dishes you could pull together on five hours of sleep and the low-calorie, kid-friendly, and dairy-free options out of the stack that will make your life easier. We also love that many dishes are customizable, so you can swap out proteins like you're in the Sweetgreen app.
Most PopularIn our testing, we opted for the Mongolian beef, the Cuban crispy shredded beef, and a curry noodle dish. Everything across the board felt like a step up, a definite challenge compared to the easy-to-medium difficulty dishes this tester had been pulling from, say, the New York Times Cooking app. That meant that the cook times were often off, and took quite a bit longer to pull together. But the pre-portioned ingredients really helped avoid the whole “what do I do with the rest of that giant broccoli” situation and skirt food waste. And the dishes themselves were really tasty. Some were a little over-seasoned (partially due to user error), and the curry noodle dish didn't really feel authentic to either of the Indian or Thai roots it was pulling from, but otherwise the dishes felt true to their origins and a lot better than scouring takeout options. We'd suggest it to anyone who's fallen into a rut with their local options and wants to level up their cooking skills.
Menu highlights: Chicken shawarma hummus bowl, shrimp in purgatory, baked sweet potatoes with spiced chickpeas (pictured), stir-fried tofu congee, gochujang bacon carbonara,
Price: Meals start at $9 per portion.
Subscribe NowThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service for Fancy Takeout-Style Meals: Territory Foods
The hook: Ever dreamed of having a personal chef on speed dial so you don't have to prep any more sad late night salads in your pursuit of “healthy eating”? Territory Foods might be the next best thing. Out of all the meal kits we've tested, this one is the A1 choice for fresh, heat-and-serve food, chiefly because it actually works with local chefs and small businesses around the country to prep your food. Meals are filling enough to pack some up for seconds, come in eco-friendly packaging, and taste a whole lot better than standard takeout. Plus, there's tons of categorization and food variety here to ensure than even the pickiest eaters on your list are eating well tonight: Filter by tags like “mixitarian,” “diabetes-friendly,” “vegan,” “whole30,” and “low fat,” then add to cart. Even better for those with dietary restrictions: every dish is free from gluten, dairy, and refined sugars.
Most PopularOne other perk that takes this meal delivery service over the top is that Territory Foods donates part of its proceeds to nonprofits like Feeding America and the James Beard Foundation, and even provides an option for customers to donate (instead of purchasing meals). Consider a “one for you, one for me” situation if you're feeling generous.
Menu highlights: Butcher's Daughter-inspired rice noodle pad Thai, tempeh bolognese with spaghetti squash, lemon blueberry griddle cakes, salmon oregano with asparagus rice pilaf
Price: Meals start at $10 for low-calorie meals between 250 and 450 calories, and range up to $14 per meal for "standard-size" meals between 400 and 650 calories.
Subscribe NowThe Best Plant-Based Meal Delivery Service for Heat and Serve Meals: Mosaic
The hook: Try any of these prep-and-serve meal kits and you may notice a common theme: measly portions that require a little extra snacking in between meals. Not Mosaic. Out of all the meal kits we tested, we appreciated that Mosaic delivers on the food front (a wealth of tasty meatless meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner), and packs lots of it in each ready-made serving. It even offers tasty family-friendly dinners in case you're a working parent who wants to get dinner on the table before 8 p.m. or just have a ravenous appetite for one. These feel more like home-cooked meals than TV dinners, and during our testing there were clear winners and losers: the BBQ meatloaf and the penne alla vodka were hearty and flavorful, while the veggie pot pie felt a little half-assed.
There's a colorful slate of veggie bowls to choose from, including noodles you can slurp up at lunch time and hearty and flavorful rice dishes. For truly time-crunched lunches there are also smoothies and soups for the taking. And to please picky eaters (or any adult who could stand to ease up on their Domino's cadence), Mosaic has even launched pizzas—from the classics (mushroom lover's) to whatever an aloo chat and mint chutney pizza entails. If you need any more convincing, Mosaic also partners with the non-profit City Harvest to donate two pounds of food to those in need for every box you spend. Warm and fuzzies, coming right up.
Most PopularMenu highlights: Spicy dan dan noodles with five-spiced tofu and bok choy, coconut chickpea curry, BBQ ‘meatloaf’ and sweet potato mash, North African veggies and couscous
Price: Family-size meals (serving four) cost $20 per dish; oat bowls, soups, and veggie bowls range from $5 to $11 per dish. Minimum orders start at $70, and orders ship free over $100.
Subscribe NowThe Best Delivery Service for People Who Love a Leafy Salad: ThistleThe hook: Thistle is plant-forward nutrition for people who say things like, “I could eat vegetarian all the time, if it tasted like this,” at restaurants. Its dishes use locally sourced produce when possible to create “plant-forward” meals that doesn't include dairy or gluten. While some of the meals require some light prep like heating a skillet, for example, some of our favorite dishes in general were those that were just delicious, out-of-the-box salads.
You can select to have meat added to some of your meals, or have it include no meat at all. You're also able to select options that exclude certain dietary allergies from the rotation. Then, you select from breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner, pick a delivery date and the meals appear on your door step with just a little coordination from the delivery driver. One thing to note is that because the meals do favor regional, in-season vege, there's an East Coast and a West Coast menu each week.
While the menu rotates each week, Thistle also keeps a handful of jarred salads—Southwestern Black Bean and Thai Peanut Crunch—in stock all the time, so you can fall head over heels with your greens and not have to worry about when they'll be back in rotation.
Menu highlights: Jarred salads hit the spot for easy, quick lunches; while enchilada bakes feel right for an easy dinner.
Price: Roughly $11.50 a meal
Subscribe NowThe Best Meal Delivery Service for Juice Bar Fiends and Lazy Vegans: Splendid Spoon
The hook: Splendid Spoon is probably most well-known for its selection of juices and smoothies (spanning green sippers packed with vegetables, immunity shots, and superfood-packed blends), but the brand also recently launched a range of heat-and-serve pre-prepped meals for time- and food-starved vegans. Meals arrive frozen, in plastic takeout-style containers, and contain a ton of fiber and protein in each serving (which is a huge plus for vegans who are struggling to keep up their daily protein intake, but also means we'd suggest chasing these with, ahem, a Beano or two).
The cumin-spiced falafel was tasty and filling, the faux parmesan “chick'n” tasted surprisingly like the real deal, and the Brussels sprouts were tender and flavorful. Everything states that it's heatable in the microwave for a few minutes, or primed for popping in the oven for just 10 minutes, though we experienced mixed results with each. For some meals, the microwave turned our frozen vegetables into mush, while others definitely needed much more than 10 minutes to defrost in the oven: pick your poison! Portions are designed to be lunch-sized, though were filling enough that our testers only needed to follow up with a light meal at dinner time.
Overall, we'd say it's a tasty lunch option for any plant eater who's short on meal prep time and wants to save money on takeout, but we do think there are better-tasting vegan and vegetarian options on this list. Splendid Spoon also offers pre-made grain bowls, soups, and noodles, though we haven't had the pleasure of testing those out yet. Maybe the biggest perk that sets it apart is its line of beverages: Pop one of its tasty sippers in your cart at checkout to chase your meal with.
Menu highlights: Vegan chick'n parm, falafel with creamy hummus and tabouli, kale pesto noodles with roasted tomatoes, carrot lentil curry soup, roasted cauliflower grain bowl, raspberry cacao smoothie with coconut and rose water, green dream juice with celery and apple
Price: Choose between “breakfast, lunch, and dinner” plans, plans with smaller portions for breakfast or lunch, or bundles that combine meals and beverage selections in one box. Meals start at $9.
Subscribe NowThe Best Healthy Meal Delivery Service That Offers Groceries, Too
The hook: Hungryroot has a simple message: “The easiest way to eat healthy.” Unlike many other healthy meal subscriptions out there, Hungryroot is more so a grocery store that happens to offer a mix of both kits you can assemble meals based on your needs and a one-stop shop for healthy groceries. Here, you can stock your fridge and pantry with everything you need to round out your weekly diet and stick to your meal prep goals. Plus, you can tailor the assembled meals to your liking as you're picking and choosing ingredients (feel free to sub in tofu or salmon as your meat of choice, for example). It's one of our favorite meal kit options because you don't have to make a separate grocery order to pick up your Banza pasta or pre-blended salads for the week. And no matter your dietary preferences, the selection rotates so that you don't get sick of the menu after a couple of boxes, and you can add in snacks, desserts, and side items whenever you fancy them. Whether you're hoping to meal prep to pack healthy lunches to work, easy recipes for dinner, or tasty snacks for the hours in between, Hungryroot has a well-balanced selection for all of the above.
Menu highlights: Extra veggie baked ziti, creamy garlic and cucumber bagel, Sriracha chicken chopped salad, grilled ginger chicken and superblend stir fry, curry chicken and veggies, trimmed string beans, sweet baby broccoli, brown rice quinoa blend, cauliflower gnocchi, butternut squash ravioli
Price: Pricing depends on the number of meals ordered. The smallest subscription box starts at $65 per delivery, although a decent-sized box of breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods will cost $137 per delivery.
Subscribe NowMore Healthy Meal Subscriptions to ConsiderThough we haven't had the chance to test out the below quite yet, we've assembled a couple more notables that we've heard great things about.
The hook: CookUnity delivers fresh, chef-prepared meals direct to your door—no cooking required. If you've been traumatized by sodium-filled frozen “meals” in the past, CookUnity isn't just Lean Cuisine for the DTC generation. Your parents may have been happy with cheap frozen lasagna and salisbury steak, but younger folks have a more sophisticated palate (just look at what we've done for coffee, craft beer, and the culinary scene in general). CookUnity works with a community of chefs who craft delicious and perfectly portioned meals that you can heat and serve at home, and for less than what you'd pay at a fancy restaurant. Best of all, CookUnity doesn't freeze its chef-prepped meals, so they arrive fresh and ready to eat.
Because it works with a variety of chefs around the country who are well-versed in different cuisines, you can also have your pick of international In addition to its range of meat, seafood, and vegetarian options, CookUnity allows subscribers to load up on pantry essentials you won't find in local grocery stores, like Momofuku noodles.
Menu highlights: Mexican seafood paella with Spanish chorizo by chef Santiago Lopez; Chinese-style drunken chicken with charred string beans and blistered tomatoes by chef James Grody; and chana masala with coconut rice and sautéed vegetables by chef Lena Elkousy.
Price: Select four to 16 meals per week; meals cost between $8 and $9 per meal
What customers are saying: “Thanks for making our lives easier. We live in a small town with every fast food place out there, but very little as far as good healthy food choices. You are just what we needed.” —Annette, quoted on the CookUnity site
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The hook: Trying to learn how to cook healthy? Then the aptly named Green Chef is the meal subscription box you'll want to add to your weeknight dinner rotation. Each week, Green Chef lets you choose from 80 different quick and healthy recipes plus pre-packaged foods (with 46 meals available in total), and your meal kit comes with instructions and ingredients that don't require much culinary expertise to assemble. You can even schedule a session with a registered dietician to make sure you're selecting the right meals for your highly specific fitness goals and diet. Green Chef's meals are healthy and tasty, but they also center organic produce if you're fussy about your nutrition. Week by week, you'll get yourself out of your comfort zone (and hopefully learn something new!) as you attempt new recipes that go way beyond smoothies and salad.
Menu highlights: Truffle butter steak, blackened chicken with bacon Brussels sprouts, cranberry walnut chicken salad wraps, apple pecan skillet cake, vegan Italian garden white bean soup, kale and ricotta flatbread, lemon butter tilapia
Price: Meals start at $13 per meal, with optional add-ons.
What customers are saying: “First of all, both keto and gluten-free! I have been so impressed with these kits. I feel so 'fancy' cooking these meals. Not only are they awesome meals, but they are easy to cook. The cook time estimate is right on. I have gotten to taste other flavors I otherwise would not have tasted. I love this meal plan/kit.” —Cynthia, quoted on TrustPilot
Subscribe NowRead More11 Excellent Meal Kit Services That Will Finally Kick Your Takeout HabitLearn to cook, or just find a healthy microwaveable alternative this year.
By Daniel Varghese and Lori Keong
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Lori Keong is a freelance writer and editor who's been contributing at GQ since 2021. She's previously worked on staff at The Cut, The Strategist, SELF, and Marie Claire. Elsewhere, her writing on design, style, wellness, and beauty has appeared in Architectural Digest, Dwell, Allure, ELLE, PAPER, and beyond.