10 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested by an Ex

I didn't Expectto appreciate meal kits as much as I do.

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 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 ofother food deliveryservices.

The WIRED Reviews team has tested and retested more than two dozen meal kit delivery services since 2017.

For a lot longer, I've worked as a food criticonbothcoasts, 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 fromMarley Spoon, which offers a path to genuinely good home-cooked meals on nights when I might otherwise feel uninspired.

ButHelloFreshandBlue Apronhave perhaps caught up after drastic updates that expand both convenience and options.

Others among my favorite meal kits, likeGreen CheforPurple Carrot, offer hassle-free solutions for organic, gluten-free, and plant-based home cooking.

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.

We also tested out the best new meal kits for those looking for alternatives to Blue Apron or HelloFresh.

And not for nothing, we sorted out some often maddeningly non-transparent pricing.

Here are the best delivery meal subscriptions we've tried.

Be sure to check out my investigation into whether sometimesMeal Kits Are Cheaper Than Grocerieswhen trying out new recipes, and WIRED's related guides, includingBest Plant-Based Meal Kits,Best Food Gifts You Can Buy Online,Best Coffee Subscriptions, andBest Delivery Chocolate Boxes.

Updated March 2026: I retested our top pick, Marley Spoon, which has undergone an apparent rebrand and moved further toward convenient and international meals.

I've also updated our write-ups for EveryPlate and Factor, after colleagues with eating restrictions tested gluten-free and vegan meals.

I've updated pricing, plans, and descriptions throughout.

What has long differentiatedMarley Spoonfrom other meal kits in the United States was its 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 was always that Marley's recipes often took a little more time and care to get a hearty Hungarian-influenced creamy mushroom chicken, a boldly Cajun-spiced tilapia, or a delicate eggplant parm.

For me, it's always been worth the trade.

A kale and sausage soup, deeply savory, might be balanced with acid from a surprising splash of red wine vinegar.

Recipes often call for light seasoning throughout the process, not all at once.

Gradually over many months, Marley seems to have changed things up a bit.

After a rebrand, Martha's less front and center than she used to be.

But the “Martha's Best” recipes have stayed.

These are mostly classic, European-influenced recipes with sterling technique.

But I've noticed an increasing tendency toward convenience and global flavors.

A third of the menu is prepared, ready-to-heat meals.

I see more 15-minute dishes and tray oven bakes.

Marley has varied its vibe without raising its prices, which is admirable.

In the meantime, it seems to have broadened its international fare, from takes on a Moroccan-spicedapricot and beef tagineto Indian-influencedkeema matarthat's as easy to make as garam masala sloppy Joe.

Anyway, so far, the ready-to-heat meals can be safely ignored based on the ones I tried, though the 15-minute meals are a good option for tired weeknights.

Still, on recent testing, it's not clear that Marley nails convenience as well as competitorsHelloFreshandBlue Apron, who've stepped up their cooking game lately.

Unlike other top-line kits, Marley sends your ingredients jumbled in a box, which reduces packaging waste but also leaves you digging through a jumble of packets for the right spice mix or dried ingredient.

The meat sourcing isn't as transparent as some kits.

And Marley has also become among the least flexible plans when it comes to advance ordering.

Which is to say, Marley had best look over its shoulder.

Because while the best individual dishes I've made from a meal kit are from Marley Spoon, recent improvements from its competitors mean it's no longer way out in front.

HelloFreshis pretty much synonymous with meal kits: It's the biggest, and among the oldest.

Chances are, if you've tried a meal kit, it's among the first you tried.

But what's surprised me is how much HelloFresh keeps improving since the first time I tried it five years ago: better sourcing, and more cosmopolitan and modern recipes.

It's 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 staples.

After a complete brand refresh this July, HelloFresh has become a strong contender for my favorite meal kit overall.

It's also got the broadest selection of meals, not just because of its 100 weekly recipes but the wide array of styles and options, from aspirationalHainanese chicken feaststo simple sandos and seasonal salads.

What's new since last year?

A lot more options—including backyard grill kits and fresh-dough pizza kits and a whole lot more light, bright food with accents from all over the world.

This means meatloaf withharissain the sauce, Honduran-stylebaleadaswith chicken thigh instead of breast, a shawarma wedge salad designed to be seared on my backyard grill, and pizza made with actual dough balls (some stretching required).

Where possible, HelloFresh has even begun dabbling in seasonal ingredients like conehead cabbage I charred on my grill.

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 (including mine!), the company has added more rice to the rice meals.

Alongside excellent sourcing of proteins from multigenerational, family-run meat purveyors, what impressed me most with HelloFresh is that it's evolved into the most cosmopolitan meal kit among those I tried, flipping happily pell-mell among international spices and ingredients (without any particular claim to authenticity, mind you).

I didn't find this to be true a few years back, when I found HelloFresh a little staid.

Lately, the offerings from HelloFresh 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.

HelloFresh is likewise responsible for myfavorite bowl of ramen I've made for myself at home.

Home Cheflets 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 no problem.

Large family?

Home Chef offers acheaper family planfor batched meals.

Only want two meals this week?

Each one will cost a little more, but you can still cut back your order without canceling completely.

But more than any other meal kit I've tested, Home Chef is geared to convenience, and this includes the easy, see-through plastic bags that house the ingredients for each meal.

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.

It's not for nothing that we previously listed Home Chef as the best meal kit for beginner chefs: Home Chef's recipe instructions are full of little hand-holds and added advice.

That said, the meals we tried in 2025 weren't quite as accomplished 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.

We'll look forward to testing these more ambitious options in the future.

But convenience, flexibility, and good administration count for a lot in this world.

If you've got a family life with ever-changing meal demands from week to week, Home Chef may be precisely the meal kit you need.

This is a bit of a game-changer for meal kits, frankly, though the meal I've 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 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.

Meaning just as in the rest of life, you can choose meals based on budget.

This is an ambitious turnaround for a meal kitWIRED reviewers had loved in the pastbut which had gone through somebumps in the roadundernew ownership beginning in 2023.We'll keep testing, but 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.

On most, prep hovered around 30 minutes.

And on each, it was possible to sub in our main protein for other ingredients.

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 draining the grease.

And so she still cooked in a skillet first.

This is perhaps expected from a slate of new recipes, which do often suffer from hiccups and vague instructions.

A Chilean salmon sent by Blue Apron in August also 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, one I'll keep testing as Blue Apron settles into a whole new set of logistics.

But for now, the low-stakes, no-obligation $10 loyalty model seems like a bargain for small households and those who order most weeks.

Gardencupis a little like having the whole menu of Sweetgreen sent to your house, except in cylindrical form.

Basically, you pick out a menu of premade salads, soups, and snacks, and they come in little cups—fresh, lovely, crisp, and ready to eat.

Even in winter, wrote WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe in her recent review, the produce somehow tastes wonderfully fresh.

Especially, this is a great way to keep yourself eating healthy when you've got no time to cook—and DoorDash or freezer-meal temptations run wild.

This is 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 alsotaste like snozzberries.Some dishes needed a little added seasoning, Strampe said, but in general this 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.

The cups are reusable, or they're recyclable.

And because it's mostly salad, the meal kit is basically guilt-free.

At $7 a serving plus shipping, HelloFresh budget optionEveryPlatehas increased its price but 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 a bit less than the calorie count from its more sophisticated and more expensive cousin, HelloFresh.

So what's the catch?

In some ways, there isn't a big one.

EveryPlate's meals cost less because they're simpler, 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 at about 35 options, but still competitive with many competing 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 most household budgets.

My colleague Molly Higgins, who eats no meat,had a good experience with EveryPlate's shorter menu of vegetarian optionsand 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.

Ready-to-eat meals promise a 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, butCookUnityhas 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.

It's the best ready-to-eat meal kit I've tried.

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 meals 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 an achievement.

Menus and 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 thedelivery mapto check whether your area can get meals.) I've had good results from the small Seattle hub, and my colleague Louryn Strampe said the adobo flank steak andrigatoni alla vodkashe 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 for 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 iscompostable and recyclable.

Each meal lasts in the fridge between four and seven days from the date of delivery, through the miracle ofmodified atmosphere packaging.

Hungryroothas 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.

But especially, Hungryroot can be customized 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 little dietary and lifestyle and budget preferences (hate a mushroom?

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 naughty snack.

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.

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, and keto meals also in attendance.

Especially, 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-personinspections 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, more unimpeachable in terms of technique than any other kit I've tested from parent company HelloFresh.

The 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 $ 12-per-meal price used to be expensive; now it's in the middle of the pack among premium meal kits.

Green Chef especially shines on gluten-free options.

Many gluten-free meal kit items are a sad parade of gummy tapioca pancakes, sawdusty meatloaf, or limp zoodles: poor substitutes for wheat, on products most often made with wheat.

NotGreen Chef.

After a week of testing gluten-free meals from HelloFresh's organic meal-kit brand, I actually didn't find myself missing gluten at all.

From unimpeachably trimmed bavette steaks in creamy red pepper sauce, to a sweet-spicy honey-ginger shrimp rice bowl, 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.

Heck, I even loved the kale-quinoa salad.

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.

Of all theplant-based meal kitstested by WIRED vegan meal-kit testerMolly Higgins,Purple Carrottook the, uh, carrot.

Purple Carrot does offer 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 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.

Like Blue Apron, they're a flexible plan.

Order what you 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.

And especially she loved 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 were a parade of textures, as tasty as one would expect at a restaurant, Higgins wrote, with relatively little effort.

But another meal of squash dumplings required both boiling the squash and individually stuffing the dumplings, which took north of an hour.

The result was Higgins' 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 withfitness influencer Robin Arzon.

Are Meal Delivery Services Worth It?

If 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, since I've always 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, you know: 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?

Pretty 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 wehre I live, requireds 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 vbariable schedules, the service I'd probably recommend isBlue 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.

But if you're one of those people who's gone half the summer for camping or road trips, here's your answer.

Don'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 lovely recipe developers, of course.

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.

Chances are, wherever you are, whatever week it is, I'm testing a meal kit right now.

I constantly cycle among 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, and 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 onspirations all over the globe.

Sometimes, I test the same meal kit multiple times for different dietary needs, and our vegan tester,Molly Higgins, often tests the same meal kit I do but with a different focus.

Sunbasket Chicken and Greek Orzo
Sunbasket (~$14 per serving): Sunbasket is a plan that focuses heavily on fresh, organic ingredients, and offers a whole lot of variety and good cooking techniques, including deglazing and attentiveness to saucing.

And like Hungryroot, it also offers breakfasts and snacks to supplement meal options with little extras like coconut yogurt and sous-vide egg bites.

The meal kit also lets you filter out allergen-containing items.

My colleague Louryn Strampe loved the flexibility and add-ons (and even some crickets!) On my most recent test, I enjoyed in particular 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 annualThanksgiving meal kitwas alovely and welcome extravagance at $200.

Dinnerly ($6 to $9 per serving):Marley Spoon's lower-cost meal kit,Dinnerlywas long WIRED's budget pick.

Frankly, it's still a good affordable pick.

It's also a stolidly meat-and-potatoes pick, and often straightforwardly Midwestern in its recipes.

The proteins are generous and of excellent quality, and the produce is fresh.

The meals are balanced.

But the recipe development and instructions weren't quite up to Marley Spoon standards on my most recent test of the kit, though I did love the middle-American trashiness and hold-my-beer inventiveness of a “Reuben meatloaf” stuffed with sauerkraut and caraway seeds.

This year I ended up preferring the meals I tried from EveryPlate, which has the further merit of being a buck cheaper a meal.

Factor (~$14 a serving):Factoris 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: They've never been frozen.

They were made fresh in a commissary kitchen and were shipped out with cold packs.

It's kinda like restaurant leftovers.

This means that 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 ofFactor's high-protein planwas 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 toaster oven or theNinja Crispiair fryer, 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 ($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 prepared meal plans I found.

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 ($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 baked at 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 avery 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, youbuild 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,Thistleismostlya 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 hereto see if you can get delivery.)WIRED reviewer Adrienne Sohas used Thistle as a means to get herself to eat more vegetables, and thus avoid a life of rickets and/or scurvy.

But especially, it's friendly to the solo diner, with individually prepared meals with low to no prep.

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 testerMolly Higgins' 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.

Tovala (~$13 a serving):It's not every day you get to try something that feels so new.Tovalaoffers 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, especially a recent 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.

Tovala is best as a solution for the solo diner: Meals aren't big enough for couples, and servings are one at a time.

Gobble ($12 to $17 a serving):Gobble was our prior top pick for fast-cooked meals, in part because its speed-demon meals also offered interesting and worldly flavors.

Indeed, our 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 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—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.

Theonline menu interfaceallowing 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.

Modify Health's Braised Beef (top) and Paprika Salmon (bottom)
ModifyHealth ($10 to $13 per serving):The idea behind ModifyHealth is that food can be medicine.

Sometimes, I'll admit, it tasted like it—or at least it tasted like food designed purely for nutrition rather than flavor.

ModifyHealth is a prepared meal delivery service tailored to people who need a heart-healthy, low-carb, orlow-FODMAP dietto avoid dire digestive or health consequences.

GLP-1 weight-loss plans are also available, for diabetics or others.Gluten-free mealsare 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 Harvestis another ready-to-eat meal delivery service specializing in dietary restrictions plant-based, 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.

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 claimsfor 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-Gowas 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 itappears to be out of business.

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