Reviewing all the Home Meal Delivery Services I’ve Tried & Matching Them to Every Lifestyle

Meal Delivery/planning services are at their peak of popularity right now…it seems like a new one is popping up every month! I love the idea but never wanted to commit to one…so every couple months over the last two years, I’ve taken advantage of each of the trial offers and tried them out for about a month each. Now that I’ve basically tried them all, I have a pretty good sense of each program and how it would fit into your lifestyle.

A couple things that are pretty consistent about them all is that the user interfaces are all similar and easy to use, and the delivery dates are pretty much the same for each of them.

I included a discount for every meal service listed, which makes it actually cheaper than grocery shopping and cooking on your own!

Freshly: for the busybee

Freshly is basically a healthier, hot meal version of a Lunchable. They have things like meatloaf and veggies, stews, chicken and rice, etc. and they are much better than frozen lunches. It’s a great option if you’re trying to cut back on eating out for lunches but still want something yummy (or trying to get your bf or hubby to eat out less for lunch and save some $!). When I did Freshly, I brought my weeks’ worth of lunches and kept them in my work fridge to grab every day. Zero meal prep, zero thought into my lunches for the week and no spending hours on Sunday prepping for the week.

The meals were yummy for being pre-prepared and it was really nice not having to think about it or cook, however we love cooking and it just didn’t totally fit within our lifestyle. But it’s a really great option for the people who just want to “grab and go” but don’t want a frozen meal!

Get 30% Off Your First Week of Freshly

GreenChef: the most versatile

This one we love and go back and forth on all the time depending on the recipes. You can choose so many different options for your diet: keto, paleo, vegan, gluten free, dairy free, etc. It’s great! The produce has always been fresh, and the meals are very clean and good.

Click here to get $55 off your GreenChef box

HelloFresh: for those who value simplicity

HelloFresh is definitely the simplest, and it really meets the middle ground between quality, simplicity, and price. Their dietary preferences are pretty good, and they’re all n the 500-700 calorie range (not amazing, but not terrible).

Click here to get $80 off your HelloFresh box! + FREE shipping!

Home Chef: quality meets convenience

Home Chef is my favorite of them all for when it’s a busier time for us and we just want something easy. The recipes are a little more sophisticated than HelloFresh but not very time consuming at all. The veggies are always fresh and they seem to have more options than most in terms of dietary preferences, calories, and you can upgrade and get a “nicer” dinner like a filet, etc.

Click here to get $30 off your Home Chef box.

Blue Apron: for those who want to learn new recipes all the time

Blue Apron is definitely the most sophisticated out of them all, which makes it the most time consuming. I would definitely recommend to try it at least once when you have some time to cook because the recipes are amazing! You learn some pretty interesting cooking techniques, too.

Get $40 off your first 2 boxes! or $60 off your first 3 boxes!

Gobble: for the comfort food lovers

These recipes are super good and it’s a really great value for what you get! They are pretty large portions (for example, you can get 3-4 servings out of the 2-serving meals), so I just use the rest for lunch the next day. If you have a picky significant other or aren’t calorie counting, I would recommend trying this one at least once. I had yet to make anything in the boxes I got and they were all really interesting.

Get Six Meals for $36 at Gobble!

SunBasket: for the organic obsessed

I actually did a full review of SunBasket last year here! But in short: SunBasket is the most “clean” out of all them. They only use organic ingredients unless otherwise noted and all the ingredients are healthy. The recipes are also very simple. It is one of the most expensive services but all of their stuff is really really good and I really love the organic thing!

To help you a little with the price, you can use this link to get $80 Off: $35, 25, and 20 off your first three orders!

Get $80 Off: $35, 25, and 20 off your first three orders!

PlateJoy: for those who just need the gameplan

This one is not a meal delivery service, but a meal planning service. So if you’re price-conscious and/or you don’t hate going to the grocery store like me but just need a little planning help so you’re not just buying a ton of stuff at the store hoping you use it but end up throwing half of it out when it goes bad…or spending hours on Sundays planning your week and making your grocery list…this service is for you!

I’ve been using it lately in conjunction with my FASTer Way To Fat Loss carb cycling and intermittent fasting program (writing a blog post about this soon!) even though I absolutely hate the grocery store but they have an option to export the entire shopping list they create for you based on your week to InstaCart! It works great with specific diets because you can choose the recipes and it gives you all the nutrition info and macro breakdowns.

Get a 10-day free trial of PlateJoy

Get $10 off your subscription

So here’s how PlateJoy works:

Answer a bunch of really specific and necessary questions to get a feel for what you like to eat, your restrictions, how many people you’re cooking for, how you like to cook, and even if you like using your dinners for lunch the next day or not. See some of the questions below:

2. Choose what meals you want planned and how many per week, which you can change at any time. I don’t eat breakfast because I intermittent fast with the FWTFL program and Danny just naturally doesn’t eat breakfast. We also typically just either snack or eat out on the weekends…maybe cook once (or we’re up North at the cabin) and eat out one weekday lunch and one weeknight (we just can’t help it no matter how much food we buy and how much we plan!), so I chose to get just 4 lunches and 5 dinners planned.

3. Check off what you already have in your pantry and choose ingredients that you already have that you want to use up.

4. Choose your plan, get your meals, and either send your list to InstaCart or use the app in the grocery store to shop!