If I’m not at my desk writing, out for a jog or bike ride, or in active dad mode, you can usually find me in the kitchen.
I cook at least 15 meals a week for my family of two vegetarians, one person who loathes mushrooms (disclosure: that’s me), and one kid who’d eat sushi for breakfast, lunch, and dinner were that feasible.
The kitchen is my happy place, but far too often, I find myself rushing to get a decent meal on the table on weeknights — let alone go to the store to find all the ingredients.
My favorite solution to the age-old problem is meal-delivery boxes. I’ve tried seven popular brands on the market, and they’re all a little different.
Here’s how the boxes stack up — and how to decide which is best for you.
HelloFresh is my all-time favorite food-box service.
I think HelloFresh’s meals taste great and its overall ordering process is easy.
Choosing my meals from HelloFresh takes minutes each week. I just hop onto the site, click on the week I want it delivered (you can plan as far as five weeks out), and start selecting my meals.
I can also click on each meal to get all the information about prep time, difficulty level, ingredients, and nutritional information.
The deliveries are very organized. A box contains separate bags with the individual ingredients for each meal. The included recipe cards also feature pictures and clear step-by-step instructions that make the cooking process easy to follow.
Some of my favorite recurring meals from HelloFresh are the loaded-baked-potato soup, moo shu pork bowls, and Greek diner spaghetti with feta.
The four-meal, four-person box comes out to about $9.30 a serving.
Blue Apron is a little more gourmet if you’re looking to hone your cooking skills.
I have a love-hate relationship with many of Blue Apron’s meals.
I love them because they come out tasting restaurant-quality, but they require a lot of hard work — that puts even competent home cooks like myself to the test.
Many take 35 or more minutes to cook, and that’s not counting the prep time. The cooking process also often involves well over a dozen steps, which are largely laid out in text without accompanying images.
Everything I’ve made has been worth the effort, but if you’re already a bit weary in the kitchen, I’d start with a different box.
That said, it’s a great service if you’re actively looking to hone your cooking skills. Plus, the four-person, four-meal box comes to about $9 a meal, so it’s on par with HelloFresh even though it’s more elevated.
EveryPlate is the most affordable food-subscription service I’ve tried.
Food-delivery boxes aren’t the cheapest way to eat, especially if it’s the only way you’re shopping. However, I think EveryPlate’s pricing is most comparable to what I’d spend on ingredients at the grocery store.
A $96 EveryPlate box consists of four meals with four servings each. That’s about $6 a person per meal. It’s hard to beat that at the cheapest fast-food chains these days — and I think the meals are far superior.
The images and instructions accompanying the boxes are clear, and the cooking process is easy and approachable.
With two vegetarians in the house, I wish the company offered more meals that weren’t centered on meat. But for my own eating, EveryPlate is a solid, affordable option.
Sandwich lovers should try Carnegie Deli.
Carnegie Deli isn’t your typical food-delivery service, but it’s great if you love corned beef or pastrami (or both). The mail-delivered sandwich kits were a revelation to me when I first found them.
The meats arrive frozen and are best thawed overnight in the fridge, so the box requires a little patience.
Carnegie Deli’s range of products is also much more limited than other subscriptions, but you can get things like pickles, bread, mustard, hot dogs, chicken soup, and potato knishes alongside the deli meats. There are even some desserts.
I don’t think this box is for everyone, and even for sandwich-lovers like myself, it’s more of an occasional treat.
A box that makes four 6-ounce sandwiches costs $109. There’s free nationwide shipping, but it still comes out to about $27.25 a sandwich. Luckily, it’s a really good sandwich.
If you’re looking for a more unique choice, there’s Green Chef.
Green Chef — which is actually owned by HelloFresh — has a robust online profile to fill out before ordering. You can set preferences like “protein-packed,” “calorie smart,” ” gut and brain health,” and “quick and easy.”
Although the food boxes are well-organized, with each meal’s ingredients sealed in a separate bag, many of the meals are more challenging to make. However, I was impressed with the diversity of options on the site compared to other services.
I opted for harissa chicken with apricot pan sauce, honey-butter pork chops and barbecue beans, and creamy tomato shrimp and bacon linguine.
Preparing and cooking the dishes took time and effort. Its four-meal, four-serving box option also comes to about $12 a serving, so it’s the priciest option I’ve tried.
However, all the meals I’ve made have been delicious.
Purple Carrot is like a vegan Blue Apron.
Purple Carrot’s big thing is that every meal is plant-based and vegan-friendly.
As an omnivore who loves a good steak, salmon fillet, or fried chicken, that’s not really a selling point for me, but I also have the aforementioned vegetarians to consider. Plus, the meals I’ve tried over the past few years have been so tasty that I hardly missed the animal-based ingredients.
Recently, the brand’s sesame carrot soup was the standout in my kitchen.
Purple Carrot isn’t cheap at an average per-meal price of $11 for a four-person box. But the boxes also make vegan cooking easier than ever, so I think it’s worth it for some.
Hungryroot delivers meals and groceries.
Hungryroot takes a different approach to food delivery. Unlike most boxes I’ve tried, it offers both meals and standard groceries.
In addition to a large array of meal packs, I can select anything else I may need for the week, from red onions to whole-grain tortillas.
If you hate shopping or just don’t have time for it during the week, Hungryroot is a great option.
The one issue I have is that you have to set up a recurring subscription. I have to plan ahead each week by either changing the items that will be shipped my way or remembering to pause my membership.
There are also different plans based on how many meals you want and what combination of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners you order, so comparing the pricing here is a little harder (especially when you take into account the à la carte options).
That said, with a bit of organization, it’s a time saver and a great way to introduce some new dishes into your repertoire.
The post I’ve tried 7 popular food-delivery boxes. From HelloFresh to Purple Carrot, here’s how to choose the best one for you. appeared first on Business Insider.
