When it comes to meal-making, many of us often struggle to think of new or interesting ideas for what to put on the table tonight, whether it is just for ourselves, or for our friends and family.
Couple that with the fact that time also needs to be taken to get all the recipe ingredients you need (some of which might not even be in the store), and what should be a relatively simple affair ends up taking so much time and resources from your or who you’re preparing this dish with’s day.
And with this issue only being compounded more by the everyday stresses of modern life, most of which aren’t known for giving you easy 2o to 60 minutes breaks to cook, you have a recipe for disaster (no pun intended).
However, there are ways of getting around this surprisingly stressful part of the late afternoon and evening.
Meal Kit Subscription Boxes
As subscription boxes (see also ‘11 Best Candy Subscription Boxes‘) and services have become more and more popular over the last 15 to 20 years, one of the services that have become incredibly popular is food meal kits.
Many of these boxes will not just come with a set of recipes for you to try out, but will also come with the ingredients necessary to make these dishes.
Plus, they can often cover a set amount of time too, whether it is just one meal or two, up to food that can cover you for an entire week.
So, the solution to our dinner time problem seems simple: Just grab one of these subscription boxes, and you’re set for dinner.
However, there is another problem to consider.
In today’s market, with literally thousands of meal kits out there, it can be difficult to narrow down your options to just one or two of these boxes.
Fortunately, that’s where we have come in to do the hard work for you!
We have collected some of the best meal kit subscription services that you buy right now, over a massive range of flavors, ingredients, and dietary needs.
However, all of them are delicious to eat, and will inspire you for ages t come!
1. Hello Fresh
If we’re discussing the best meal kits out there right now, we might as well start with the most popular of them!
You’ve seen the YouTube advertisements for them, now it’s time to seriously consider buying a box of Hello fresh for yourself!
Hello Fresh has become one of the biggest names in this particular business, and it isn’t hard to see why.
This subscription service pre-measures out the correct amounts of ingredients that you’ll need for each meal, meaning that there is next to no need to worry about ratios and proportions when cooking them.
Simply find the correct ingredients that you’ll need for today’s dish, follow the recipe as instructed, and you’ll have a ready-to-eat meal in no time flat!
Plus you’ll be able to save the recipes that you get with Hello Fresh for yourself, so you’ll always have the instructions handy to make it again!
Cost: Currently $6.90 per meal is included in your subscription box.
2. Factor
Of course, not everyone is simply looking for new recipes to try out, and the ingredients to try out for themselves.
If that was the case, many of us would be content to just roam the web, finding the right recipe for us.
For some people, dietary requirements are also a key feature that can affect if a service is right for us. For some of us, after all, they aren’t just a nice bonus, they are vital to our health!
So, it’s neat to see that a subscription-like Factor has plenty of options available for those people who want to tailor their subscription service to their needs.
Of course, you have the typical features of a meal kit subscription box. You’ll get a selected number of meals that you can prepare per week, as well as the instruction and necessary ingredients to make them with.
What sets these subscription services apart from others are the dietary customization options that you can tailor to your experience.
There are plenty of options that you can change for the ingredients and recipes that you’ll get, covering a massive range of requirements.
Trying to get that extra protein in your daily regimen? The Protein Plus plan has you covered!
Trying to keep your calorie intake low for your dinner meals? The Calorie Smart plan is the box of choice for you!
Trying out a keto diet for the first time? There’s a plan for that here too, with the Keto plan! Cutting meat or animal products out altogether? Vegan & Veggies options are a plenty here!
Cost: Currently starting at around $60 per week.
3. Home Chef
As we have covered and implied in the last entry, one of the things that sets the best food subscription services apart, is whether they are meal kits or not.
So, if you’re looking for a food kit subscription that gives you plenty of options for customization when it comes to meal plans, then you should take a look at Home Chef.
When it comes to home cooking beautiful meals of your choice, few other services come close!
For one thing, you can tailor how many people are fed with each meal. Whether you’re feeding just you and your partner or friend, a family of four, or even up to six people, you can rest easy that Home Chef has options for you!
Plus, when it comes to each recipe, you can customize or swap out ingredients for ones that you do want or need. Whether it’s swapping out pasta for rice, or salt for a substitute. You’re covered with the many meal plans here.
It’s also great if you have allergies to specific ingredients too, like wheat or nuts!
Plus, with over 30 meals to pick from each week, you’ll be spoiled for choice when it comes to cooking them anyway!
Cost: Currently starting from $65 per week
4. Blue Apron
Of course, all the options that we have covered so far, as well as the options to come, are made to high food standards.
However, if you’re looking for a service where you know the hands of a professional were involved in picking every meal you ate, then Blue Apron is the choice for you and your household.
Like the previous option, there are plenty of options for you to choose from when you decide to go with this service.
You can choose whether you want your meal to contain two servings, or 4. This is a decent variety if you’re looking to feed either a couple of people or a family.
Plus, you can choose how many meals you want to be covered in your subscription. Do you want just a few special meals spread across the week? Or are looking to cover almost every weekday?
Are you feeding adults, or do you also need meals that kids will appreciate and eat? There are options for this in Blue Apron, with their Family-Friendly food options available too.
Plus, there are meal options for vegans too, with plenty of plant-based recipes and ingredients for you to choose from.
Cost: Currently starting from $9.99 per serving.
5. Sun Basket
Of course, when it comes to healthy lifestyles, simply choosing any old meal kit box may not be enough to maintain your healthy lifestyle.
At least, not without ruining your diet in the process!
If this sounds like you, and you want to pick a subscriptions services that prioritize health as much as it does great flavors, then Sun Basket is the service for you.
The ingredients sent to you for each recipe are sourced from the cleanest of places, suppliers that meet the highest of food standards rating.
The recipes themselves cover a massive range of dietary requirements, as well as whether you are going for a vegan, vegetarian, or even pescatarian diet.
Considering how often that last option gets left out of dietary options, we are very glad to see this variety in this box!
Plus, with over 10 different plans that you can choose for this recipe box, there is no shortage of other options available to you.
Not only that, but the vast majority of these recipes are incredibly quick to make as well, with virtually all of them taking less than 40 minutes to make and prepare.
Now that’s efficiency!
Cost: Currently starting at $9 per serving.
6. Tovala
As we briefly touched on, efficiency is a great aspect of many of these subscription services. Being able to make a recipe in less than an hour is always a bonus in our books!
However, if you’re looking for subscription services that maximize efficiency in your meal routine, Tovala has something a little different to offer.
Something a little more. You don’t just get ingredients with this subscription box like you do with any other service.
With this box, you’ll also get Tovala’s own uniquely designed smart oven. What makes it so smart?
Well, the smart oven here takes the meals that you have the ingredients for, scans them, and then takes the best-possible cooking times for your meals into its system from the internet, and prepares food for you with those ingredients.
This takes out one of the most frustrating elements that many people have with both baking and cooking from frozen foods, as well as microwaving meals too.
The oven doesn’t just work for Tovala’s ingredients that they send you, either. This cutting-edge piece of technology works with store-bought ingredients too, so you won’t be just stuck with having to rely on Tovala either.
Sure, there are a few drawbacks to this service. The upfront cost is probably greater here than in any other service (you are buying an oven, after all!), and you do need to be connected to the internet to use it to its fullest.
However, if convenience is your priority, you won’t find a better service than here!
Cost: Currently starting at $99.99, not including the Smart Oven itself.
7. Marley Spoon
Not everyone is looking for the most extravagant subscription box on the market, however.
Many people who are looking for the convenience of simple recipes and home delivery don’t want stack loads of new high-tech that they’re not sure that they’re even going to use all that much.
So, if you’re looking for a back-to-basics subscription box for your meal kits, Marley Spoon is an easy recommendation from us.
This is your classic meal kit box, where you’ll get plenty of fresh and delicious ingredients to prepare your dinner meal with.
And, of course, you will receive your recipes for making each meal along with these tasty ingredients.
You’ll get to select these recipes for yourself too, 10 days in advance of receiving them, meaning that you won’t be caught off guard with a recipe that won’t meet your dietary or health needs too.
Plus, you can even skip certain weeks if you don’t want every box every week. The service is flexible to your needs, not the other way around!
Cost: Currently starting at $62.93 per week.
8. Daily Harvest
We’ve covered a few subscription services that give you the option of having vegetarian or vegan options for your food.
However, we haven’t had a subscription service that is tailored TO showing you the best fruit and veggie recipes out there, dietary requirements notwithstanding.
Daily Harvest is a meal Kit subscription service that scratches this particular culinary itch.
All of their recipes are tailored around making the best vegetarian recipes out there, covering virtually every kind of meal and snack out there.
From flatbread recipes to foraging bowls, to even lattes and smoothies (see also ‘10 Best Smoothie Subscription Boxes You Must Try This Week‘), there is plenty of variety for you to choose from here.
Simply pick the recipes that you want, check out your orders, and you’ll be swimming in healthy and delicious fruity and veggie goodness in no time flat!
Cost: Currently starting at $6 per item in your box.
9. EveryPlate
When it comes to a subscription box, one of the things that you need to consider is if it is good for kids, especially if you are ordering a box for three or more family sizes.
Kids can be picky eaters, after all, so making sure that they are going to enjoy the food that is delivered to them is vital, especially if you want to avoid tears at the dinner table!
For these types of situations, we would highly recommend a subscription service like EveryPlate.
Their subscription service covers a wide range of palettes for you to enjoy that are kid-friendly too, from a classic service to a veggie-friendly service, and, of course, a family–oriented service.
Plus, there are over 16 tasty recipes for you to decide between for your family, all of which are on a rotating menu that you can pick from every week.
It should be noted that the subscription service does not cover any specific dietary needs that you or your family may have, such as gluten intolerance or food allergies.
However, this is still another great subscription box service that is great for the whole family, and one that you should consider for yourself and your little ones!
Cost: Currently starting at $29.94, not including shipping and delivery charges.
10. Freshly
Freshness is the aim of the game with these subscription boxes.
So if you’re looking for ingredients that are perfect and ready to start cooking with, we would recommend the appropriately named Freshly subscription!
With so many different food items and recipes available here, from steak peppercorn to sausage baked penne, to even sweet chicken teriyaki, this service has so many different flavors packed into it.
Plus, there’s no sign of any freezer-stored food here. Everything you get is 100% fresh from the source here, ready to be used in the freshest recipe possible!
Cost: Currently starting at $49.99 a week, depending on your meal portion sizes.
11. Gobble
No, as far as we can tell, there isn’t a turkey in this meal kit subscription box (although we’re pretty sure that there’s a turkey recipe in here somewhere…).
This is a subscription box that takes ease of preparation and efficiency to the next level.
Not only will you be sent your ingredients and recipe instruction in this box, but the ingredients themselves are already prepared, chopped, or seasoned, ready to be thrown into a frying pan, or into the oven.
This takes so much time out of the cooking process for you, with most recipes only taking 15 or 20 minutes to fully prepare. That’s an insanely quick cooking time, and frees up so much of your evening as well!
Cost: Currently starting at $12 per serving.
12. Green Chef
When it comes to food and the ingredients we use, almost as important as how it tastes is how it is made and produced. For example, how sustainable is the farming practice that brought you your fresh scallions or beef?
If you’re invested in making sure that the subscription food that is delivered to you comes from ethical sources, then Green Chef is the subscription box for you.
As their name would suggest, this subscription service is dedicated to making sure that your food has both of these qualities, being both fresh and delicious, as well as being grown in a way that won’t rob the land that it is grown of nutrients to grow the next batch of ingredients with.
Plus, the recipes included can cover a wide range of dietary needs, from Mediterranean meal plans to vegan and gluten-free options as well.
Cost: Currently starting at $71.94 per order, not including delivery.
13. Dinnerly
Many of these subscriptions that we have covered, while amazing and delicious in their own right, can often be out of many people’s price ranges.
We are firm believers that this is a service that everyone can benefit from, so we want to shine a light on meal kit boxes that more people can try for themselves, such as with Dinnerly here!
This is a simple subscription box that does exactly what you need and provides inventive recipes and fresh food (see also ‘26 Best Food Subscription Boxes‘) for you to prepare.
A great meal kit box to start with, or if you are on a budget!
Cost: Currently starting at $4.99 per serving.
14. Sprinly
When it comes to subscription boxes that focus on plant-based meals, there are plenty of options for you to choose from.
However, when it comes to the sheer variety of vegan-based dishes, it is very hard to beat the 6 to 18 high-quality meals that Sprinly offers its customers.
Whether you are about to go vegan or have been for years at this point, you should consider this box!
Cost: Starting from $109 per week.
15. Hungryroot
Some of you may already be familiar with Hungryroot’s grocery delivery service that they provide, but did you know that they also have a meal subscription box?
The recipes that Hungryroot provides are not just tasty but can be prepared in next to no time at all.
When the longest cooking and preparing total time is no more than 15 minutes, you know that you have great service on your hands!
Cost: Currently starting at $70 per delivery.
16. ButcherBox
Many subscription boxes are jumping on the healthy living and vegetarian bandwagon that many people are jumping on these days.
However, if you’re looking for a primarily meat-based subscription service to satisfy your meat cravings, then Butchersbox is here to take care of the carnivores reading this list!
Cost: Starting at $129 per box.
17. Fresh ‘N’ Lean
If you’re looking for a meal service that combines both great flavors with high nutrition and next to no fat (metaphorically speaking), then you should check out Fresh ‘N’ Lean, for the best pound-for-pound nutritious meals out there!
Whether you’re trying to stick to your high-protein or keto diets, trying out a paleo meal plan, or even going vegan, this subscription service has your needs met!
Cost: Starting at $8 per meal included.
18. Purple Carrot
Time for another high-quality vegan meal that is going to serve anyone who wants to keep flavors in their vegan meals.
As with many vegan options, this service helps you cut out virtually all meat (see also ‘4 Best Meat Subscription Boxes‘) and animal products from your diet.
From staple foods such as avocado-loaded toast to more exotic meals that can tickle your taste buds.
This is a great service for people who want to stay away from any foods that had meat or animals anywhere near them.
Cost: Starting from $51.94 per box.
19. Yumble
We’ve shown you a few subscription services that are for family meals.
However, if you are looking to get your kids interested in a wider range of healthy foods, we couldn’t recommend a service like Yumble enough!
Coming with the clearest of instructions, and the freshest of ingredients to boot, you’ll be able to make your kids some stunning meals that they will adore!
Cost: Currently at $47.94 for 6 meals per week.
20. Snack Nation
Okay, so technically, this meal box isn’t a true meal box.
It’s full of snacks. Lots and lots of snacks.
However, if you’re looking for the perfect snacks to help keep you going between the big meal times of the day, as well as the perfect side to a lunch box meal, this subscription service has you covered.
Cost: Currently at $27 per box delivered.
21. Sakara Life
This is another excellent subscription box that can help you watch your weight, whilst still keeping all your favorite flavors!
The meal boxes that come in this box are incredibly easy to prepare, and taste amazing!
Cost: Currently at $119 per box.
22. RealEats
If you’re looking to cut out heavy junk food and greasy takeouts from your diet, you should consider the great tastes and ethically sourced produce that comes with RealEat’s subscription box!
Cost: Currently at $56 per week, with 4 meals.
23. Boycemode
Finally, we have another amazing meat-free meal kit box that can make a vegan out of pretty much everyone, with Boycemode’s amazing subscription boxes!
From chowders to eggplant burgers, there’s plenty on offer here!
Cost: Starting at $15 per meal
Final Thoughts
Now, all you have to do for yourself is pick just one of these amazing services for you and your family!
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