Meal Delivery Services Reviewed
Grab your popcorn because this one is wordy. This review was an absolute blast for us to work on. I always have fun when Dustin helps me writing these kinds of blog posts. We had fun reviewing five different popular meal delivery services over a span of the last six weeks. Our opinions were in sync, which added a level of confidence to our reviews about each meal delivery service. There was a ton of variety within the different meal delivery services, anything from top-notch options that left us impressed to one particular service that fell drastically short of expectations. Even though some of these meal delivery services have very well known names, not all meal delivery services are created equal and we definately know that now. With the market being so saturated with different choices it is hard to know where to begin! We narrowed down our selection to just five that we reviewed but we made sure that the ones that we chose were sort of all across the board in terms of level of difficulty, types of food, process of ordering, and cost!
Gluten free info: Only one of these meal delivery services was gluten free and it was actually our least favorite but I will get into that in a minute. Some delivery services made it easy for me to modify things to make them gluten-free, others didn’t. There were some services that have gf options when choosing meals and that was very helpful! But there were also meals for example, if we chose burgers as one of our options, I would just use my own gluten-free bread. Or if there was a meal with pasta, we would make the meal with our own gluten-free noodles. It is something that is normal in my life so I just never really thought anything of needing to substitute these things.
I am going to list them from our least favorite to our favorite!
Freshly - This was sadly our least favorite but we REALLY wanted to like it because it is SO convenient and all of the meals we chose were gluten free! The whole gimmick with this meal delivery service is that all of the food is microwaveable. There is no cooling required. The meals weren’t horrible but they definitely were still microwaved and we could definitely tell. We even plated the meals on plates after they cooked to get the effect that they didn’t just come out of a microwave which didn’t really help. Another downside was they pretty much offered the same meals each week with maybe switching up a few. It was fine for one week but not something we could ever do for weeks at a time in a row. It was also weird because we both ate something different every night. We got Freshly delivered on Saturday. After the promotional sign up cost would have expired, we would be paying around $50 plus shipping for 3 meals.
Hello Fresh - This was honestly the meal service that got this whole review started. Be careful because I accidentally signed up for Hello Fresh before I realized that I was signing up for Hello Fresh. Lol I was trying to look at their meal options and thought I was just setting up my account {my mistake, I should have known when I entered my card *face palm*} but I had actually been setting up my first order the whole time. So watch out for that! The second thing about this service is that they have a ton of options but the really good meals are an additional cost! Which is frustrating, I would rather pay for a higher level subscription than pay an additional $5.99 per SERVING. Besides that hidden fees, we did enjoy the meals! But it was pretty expensive. Like VERY expensive. We paid $70.93 for 3 meals for two people. Safe to say we canceled that as soon as we got the meals. We couldn’t justify the price for what we were getting.
Blue Apron - It was a good meal delivery service. Honestly the meals were either really simple and was something that we already knew how to make or it was a more extravagant and wasn’t something we would enjoy eating, this service wasn’t super inspiring I guess is what I am trying to say. The food was good and it was really fresh for the duration of the week prior to cooking the meals! The meals were easy to make but it’s not something I would continue to pay $60 a week for, think like burgers and fries with nothing special about it or fettuccini Alfredo with again, nothing special about it. After the promotional sign up cost would have expired, we would be paying around $76 plus shipping for 3 meals. Blue Apron will deliver based on your area but for us it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. One plus with this service is that you don’t have to pay for shipping, but it seems like they just build the shipping cost into the overall cost because the other services are less a week including shipping.
Home Chef - So this service was really good and since we did these reviews we have ordered from Home Chef many many times and love getting them. I think they have really upped their game when it comes to meal options in the last few years beaucse it used to be the same thing over and over again each week which is so boring. I also think that there is a chance that they made their portion sizes just a little bit bigger. They are also really good about refunding your money if anything goes wrong with your box which I appreciate. For example one week we were missing the seasoning packets for one of our meals and they gave us a $5 credit for the next week which was awesome. We paid $90.91 for 4 meals for 2 people and you can adjust the amount of meals you get each week.
Every Plate - This was a really good service and hands down our favorite. We actually got it two times because we liked it so much. We loved that these meals were easy for us to make gluten-free for myself while Dustin could still eat the normal meal! Now I’m not saying that they are gluten free but they were just easier to make swaps in order for them to be gluten-free! Like I mentioned in the introduction of this blog post, if they sent burgers I would just use my own gluten-free bread/buns. If they sent pasta I used my own gluten-free pasta and Dustin used what was sent and then we would actually have leftovers! Even though the meals weren’t gluten-free they were smart about it and would default ingredients to be more allergy sensitive, like they would use gluten-free soy sauce. It felt like didn’t go out of their way to add gluten to things. The portions were perfect and there was no waste at the end of the meal! We liked that you could choose the delivery date, we got to choose to have them deliver on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.. tons of options! This was also the most bang for our buck so to speak. We paid $47.92 for 4 meals for two people. This was the best deal for us! Plus we have the option of getting 5 meals a week if you wanted to add it for a small cost increase!
I feel like that was a lot of information so if you have other questions please let me know. But I am curious if you guys have tried any of these services and if so which was your favorite? I also feel like there are more services out there that I would be willing to try so let me know if I missed a major option! I would love to know your thoughts and opinions on the ones that you have tried though! As always, if you guys have any further questions on any of the meal services shoot me an email and I can answer them for you! I am an open book and always want to help you! You can email me at hello@emmatarynjones.com.