Our reviewers evaluate products and services based on unbiased research. Top Consumer Reviews may earn money when you click on a link. Learn more about our process.
There are so many reasons you might find a prepared meal delivery service a huge benefit to your life. Maybe you're facing an illness or had a major life event that has left you feeling like cooking is the last thing you want to do. Or maybe you're trying to eat healthier, but you love the convenience of eating out and want to bridge the gap.
Prepared meals are the perfect solution for busy parents who still want the benefit of home cooked meals around the table with their family or for those who just can't get the hang of cooking and have decided they're sick of burning all their food (we aren't judging!). No matter your situation or reasons, prepared meals are a modern convenience that should be taken advantage of.
Thursday, May 22nd
Sunbasket entered the prepared meals industry in 2014 with an emphasis on organic ingredients to help people create delicious meals from home while accommodating various diets and dietary restrictions. This is a company that believes food plays a crucial role in our mental and social well-being as well as our physical health. They value working with farmers, fisherman, and ranchers who go above and beyond to nurture the land and animals in their care.
Pick your plan, pick your preferences
Customers can either take the easy route on their orders with Sunbasket and get meal kits that are ready in 15-40 minutes or the even easier route with pre-made meals that are ready to eat in just 4 minutes. You'll have total flexibility in the menu you create for yourself by choosing from dishes that fit in categories like paleo, pescatarian, Mediterranean, carb-conscious, gluten-free friendly, keto-friendly, diabetes-friendly, or vegetarian.
Mouth-watering menu
You can choose to order enough food for 2 or 4 servings from Sunbasket to cover meals 2, 3, 4, or 5 times per week. You'll need to order a minimum of 2 meals per week, but once you see the delicious choices you have to consider, you'll have a hard time sticking with just 2. The meal kit menu for the week we were shopping had dishes like lamb orecchiette with cabbage, peas, and lemon-dill yogurt, pad thai with rice noodles, blackened sole with red rice and charred corn, steak-stuffed peppers with pinto beans and guacamole, loaded Aussie-style wagyu burgers with pineapple BBQ sauce and fried egg, and so many others. The pre-made meals looked equally appealing, so we were ready to dive in.
Amazing sides and snack assortment
You can round out your order with some of Sunbasket's popular market items. They have quiche breakfasts, breakfast burritos, turkey sausage breakfast sandwiches, oatmeal, gluten-free waffles, juice shots, smoothies, probiotic drinks, salads, pizzas, empanadas, deli meat, nuts, crackers, desserts, and so much more. Sunbasket proves that eating healthy does not mean you need to go hungry.
Competitive pricing
Clearly Sunbasket has a one-up on many other prepared meal services with their fresh, organic ingredients, amazing menu, flexible delivery schedule, and commitment to healthy living, so will it cost a fortune? Surprisingly, no. We found that besides some more complex, gourmet meals, a lot of servings started at $11.49, which is similar to other prepared meal services. When you're choosing your meals, you can see a picture of them, how long it takes to assemble the kit, and view the price per serving. If you see one that is $15.69 per serving and that's more than you want to spend, then you can go with something else. There is a good price variety at Sunbasket so you have plenty of options in your budget.
Little ways to save
If you sign up to be on Sunbasket's email list, they'll send you a code for $90 off spread across your first four boxes and free shipping on your first order. After this discount is applied, subsequent orders will cost $9.99 to ship.
Not available in all areas
Customers can choose any day Thursday - Sunday for their deliveries. Some zip codes will have more limited days to choose from to ensure that the food arrives completely fresh. Most zip codes in the United States are eligible for deliveries from Sunbasket, excluding AK, HI, MT, ND, and parts of NM.
Guaranteed deliciousness
If you're not pleased with Sunbasket's meals, they'll give you your money back if you contact them within 7 days of delivery. Simple as that.
Extremely happy customers
Normally we'd low key freak out when we discover that a company has an "F” rating from the Better Business Bureau like Sunbasket does. It's never a great sign. However, there are hardly any reviews or complaints filed against Sunbasket with the BBB, so we decided not to weigh this rating too heavily. This is especially the case for us since we found thousands of reviewers who are really pleased with Sunbasket. We aren't at all surprised to find that people are overjoyed with their customer service, feel the deliveries are reliable and delicious, and are grateful that the company always takes great care to provide allergy-friendly foods.
Can't recommend them enough
We're truly overjoyed with our discovery of Sunbasket. They are phenomenal in every way. From the quality of their ingredients to the specific preferences customers can set on their meal choices, pricing, and happy customers, we can't recommend Sunbasket enough. If you want fresh prepared meals with safe, high-quality ingredients, this is your place.
HelloFresh boasts that they are the most popular meal kit company in the world. In 2023 alone, they delivered 1 billion meals, which is quite the feat. The company takes a customer-centric approach to their business and provides an array of food solutions by sending meal kits, ready-to-eat meals, seafood and meat delivery, and even premium pet food right to your house. There are quite a few companies under the HelloFresh umbrella including Green Chef, EveryPlate, Chefs Plate, Factor, Youfoodz, The Pets Table, and Good Chop.
Set basic preferences
To get started with HelloFresh, you'll need to provide your zip code. As long as you live in the contiguous United States, HelloFresh can get food to your door. Then you'll choose from some really basic preferences to help align the weekly menu to your taste. These include:
These choices aren't specific enough for people with serious allergies or intolerances to dairy, gluten, nuts, or eggs. But there is enough variety on the weekly menu for you to be able to avoid these things when you are choosing your dishes.
Starting at $9.99/serving
Next, you'll customize your plan to fit the number of people you're planning to feed. HelloFresh has options for 2, 4, or 6 servings in a kit. The options for the number of meals delivered are 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Like many other companies, HelloFresh's pricing scale favors people ordering more meals for more people. For instance, if you're ordering 2 meals for 2 people, the price per serving is $11.49. But when you up this to 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals, the serving price drops to $9.99. Regardless of how many meals you order, if you are buying for families of 4 or 6, each serving is $9.99. Shipping for each box is $10.99.
Deals on first order
You'll get $31 off your first box at HelloFresh no matter how much or how little you order. This means you could spend as little as $25.95 and get 2 meals for 2 people. Or even 6 meals for 2 people comes in under $100 at $99.87. This is a great way to feel better about giving HelloFresh a trial run.
Choose your favorites
After checkout you can go through the menu of over 30 recipes and select the ones you want for you and your family. The week we were ordering had dishes like cheesy spinach, tomato & feta paninis, sweet chili pork & cabbage stir fry, buffalo cauliflower tacos, onion crunch chicken, mango salsa pork tacos, backyard grill bourbon steaks, and others. You could always preview what's on next week's menu as well so you can plan ahead. With these comes FDA nutrition information and ingredients for each recipe, so you can browse to make sure it doesn't contain anything you dislike or can't eat.
Assemble your meal with pre-portioned ingredients
HelloFresh specializes in meal kits. That means you'll get an instruction card with your meal and pre-portioned ingredients to make something delicious. This eliminates a lot of prep work and cleanup on your part, but you'll still be putting together your meal each time. This usually takes about 30 minutes from start to finish.
Chilled ingredients at your doorstep
Your meal kit will come in a box with insulated liners and cooling gel packs to ensure optimal freshness during transit. The amount and type of gel packs may be adjusted based on different climates and seasons. Everything inside should be unpacked and refrigerated immediately.
Easily adjust your scheduled meals
Customers can skip, pause, or cancel their subscription to HelloFresh at any time. As long as you make changes before the weekly cutoff to stop your next order, you won't be charged again.
Commitment to the planet
HelloFresh has a commitment to being sustainable for the planet with an innovative supply chain. They focus on sourcing local ingredients as well as reducing food waste and carbon emissions. You can read all about their ingredient sourcing from a report they published in 2022. It outlines steps they've taken in the U.S. and other countries to strictly choose food suppliers, stick with in-season vegetables, buy misshapen produce that wouldn't be available for normal retail, commit to animal welfare, and more. Some of their ingredients are organic, but not all. The company says their focus is more on helping customers have a positive experience in the kitchen and take basic necessary steps to add more fruits and vegetables into their everyday lives.
Tens of thousands of reviews
The Better Business Bureau gives HelloFresh an "A+” rating. There are tens of thousands of people who have written articles, left comments, and posted reviews about their experience with this company. We liked reading that HelloFresh has been a genuine help for people wanting to learn a new style of cooking. The recipes are broad and flavorful, the whole process is convenient, and the portions are good. Here and there we found complaints about customer service, but nothing that was overly concerning.
Delicious and fun
We are big fans of HelloFresh. When we've used it in the past, we've loved the recipes so much that we wanted to make them over and over again. The company does a good job of quickly and accurately making deliveries to keep things fresh. There are enough meal choices that people with different dietary needs should be able to find dishes that they are comfortable with. Pricing is competitive and we like that HelloFresh makes efforts to source local, high-quality ingredients and monitor their effects on the environment. HelloFresh is a fun, delicious choice for prepared meals, so they've earned one of our top ratings.
Factor delivers fresh heat-and-eat meals to your door weekly. They're prepared by chefs and dieticians to aim to make each dish convenient and healthy. Factor's production center is in Goodyear, Arizona and is the second largest industrial kitchen in the country. In 2020, Factor was acquired by another meal delivery service, HelloFresh. Although owned by the same company, their delivery services are completely separate and there are some major differences between their processes.
Instantly fresh meals
Factor Meals combines the convenience of ready-to-eat food with the benefits of fresh, unfrozen ingredients by offering fully prepared dishes. All their meals are shipped in BPA-free CPET individual plastic containers with gel packs to keep the food at refrigerated temperatures. The company says they've thoroughly tested their packaging in all seasons and all climates to ensure your meals arrive in tip-top shape every time. Meals are fresh for at least 7 days after delivery in the refrigerator. They only need to be heated in a microwave or oven to be enjoyed.
Customers should review ingredients
Each week you'll have 35 new meal options to choose from that feed one adult. These meal options have allergen information provided on the website and meal sleeves, so Factor recommends that you view these before selecting a dish. Because there are so many dietary needs and preferences out there, Factor doesn't cater to very many of them, so it's up to you as a customer to review what's in each meal and choose the ones that are safest for you. The main dietary restrictions that Factor caters to with their selection are keto, vegetarian, and vegan.
Commitment to chicken welfare
The only information regarding the ingredients used by Factor in their meals can be found in the FAQ section under "Nutrition & Ingredients” and then "Chicken Welfare”. They mainly focus on buying from farms that provide a safe, healthy environment for chickens raised for Factor's supply chain or that provide eggs. They have a zero-tolerance policy for abuse and ensure they have adequate space to roam with freedom from disease and distress. For a full overview of the efforts they make in this regard, refer to the full overview on their website.
6 plan sizes
There are 6 different plan sizes of 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, or 18 meals delivered to you each week. The more you order in a week, the less expensive they'll be per serving. A 6-meal plan is $13.99 per serving while an 18-meal plan is $11.49. To sign up with Factor you'll first select the types of meals you want to choose from (chef's choice, keto, calorie smart, flexitarian, protein plus, and vegan/veggie. Then you'll choose how many meals you want each week and create an account. After you add payment information, you'll be able to go through and select your meals for the upcoming week.
Delicious add-on choices
In addition to the menu of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners you can choose from Factor, there are other goodies and add-ons you can pair with your weekly deliveries. You might choose a mix of sweet and savory with Factor's pancakes and sausages, some healthy blueberry overnight oats, tasty chicken chorizo and egg bites, some of Factor's cold-pressed juices, an empanada variety pack, a box of chocolates, ready-to-blend smoothies, and so much more. You could go totally wild with all the fun flavors and menu options here, so get ready to have your weekly meals and snacks taken to the next level.
Save 50% on week one
During our most recent visit to the Factor site, there was an offer giving customers 50% off their first order, plus 20% off their second one if they sign up with their email address. There's no reason not to grab this deal since it will save you quite a bit of money. Think of this offer as a trial period for trying out Factor to see if you really want to stick with the service long-term.
Easily cancel anytime
Factor does their best to make subscription management as easy as possible for their customers. You can cancel your subscription at any time through your account and then start back up again when you're ready.
Overall high ratings
We're pleased that Factor has an "A+” Better Business Bureau rating. They're clearly a frequently-used company since we found over 60,000 reviews from customers about their meals. For the most part, they're really positive and the majority of people give them 5 out of 5 stars for value, quality, taste, and variety. Every so often there are complaints about improperly sealed food that was delivered or wet containers that make people feel concerned about the safety of some meals. Customer service responds to every single one of these reviews, so we're happy to see that they have a team that's on top of things.
A great solution for busy schedules
Factor is a pretty awesome prepared meal service. Our biggest grievance with them is that they don't cater to many dietary restrictions, even basic ones like dairy- or gluten-free. However, they have a really wide selection of meals and add-ons that you shouldn't get bored of anytime soon. We like the idea of receiving meals that are refrigerated rather than frozen and are fully ready to heat up and eat. For busy schedules or those who dread cooking, this is the perfect solution. Factor is a good choice for prepared meals, so we recommend taking their 50% off the first week discount and giving them a try.
ModifyHealth takes a "food as medicine” approach to serve customers healthy, readily-available meals to help chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and GI issues where dietary management is crucial. They provide dietary coaching and remote patient monitoring along with home delivered meals. ModifyHealth empowers people physically, mentally, and emotionally by providing the tools needed to maintain a healthy, balanced lifestyle.
Healing foods
Millions of people suffer from chronic diseases and ModifyHealth believes that it doesn't have to be this way. It's been proven time and time again that our diet is one of the main factors that either makes us sick or heals us from ailments, depending on what we choose to put in our bodies. There are really specific menus available from ModifyHealth to keep people honed in on a specific diet. These include low-FODMAP, Mediterranean, gluten-free, diabetes-friendly, heart-friendly, and carb-conscious. Monash University has certified ModifyHealth as being in accordance with their low FODMAP guidelines.
6 meal minimum
The first step in using ModifyHealth's service is to select your meal plan. You'll select the menu you want to shop from and then be given two options from there. The first is the meal delivery plan of breakfasts and entrees with entrees starting at $12.95 per serving. There is a 6-meal minimum here, so you can add as many entrees as you want, but it can be no less than 6. We like that you can view the menu before adding payment information, which is actually pretty unusual for a prepared meal service. We browsed dishes like blackened shrimp and grits with zucchini and peppers, buffalo cauliflower with ranch-seasoned potatoes, egg roll bowl with pork and rice, maple glazed chicken with roasted vegetables, beef skillet with cabbage and sweet potato, and more. Menu choices will, of course, depend on the dietary menu you select initially.
Ingredient exclusion tool
A feature we were really excited about as we looked through the menu was the "Exclude Ingredients” tool. This led to a drop-down menu where we could choose to omit meals with things like bell peppers, chicken, red meat, soy, pork, eggs, shellfish, dairy, or tofu.
Get guidance along the way
Option 2 is an additional $399 (with a 30-day money back guarantee if you're unsatisfied) for a 6-week program to guide you through the diet and get you back on a better path to health. This includes guided dietician support with 3 virtual consultations, downloadable tools and resources, and a 50% coupon to go towards your first order of meals from ModifyHealth.
Sign up and save
If you sign up for ModifyHealth's email list, you'll get a code for 25% off your order. At the time of this review, they also had a sitewide deal where you could get 15% off your order and free shipping. Both of these are a good deal, but technically ModifyHealth offers free shipping on all orders anyway, so you'll always be able to save on delivery.
All meals gluten-free with organic ingredients
The meals you receive from ModifyHealth are delivered to your door fully prepared and ready to eat in about 2 minutes. They should always arrive on Fridays with major carriers like UPS and FedEx. We were thrilled to see that they prioritize organic, gluten-free, and non-GMO ingredients in their dishes. In fact, every single dish is gluten-free. You won't find this anywhere else. Their beef is grass-fed, the poultry is free-range, and all the fish is sustainable.
Refrigerated rather than frozen
ModifyHealth sends meals in vacuum-sealed, BPA-free, recyclable trays. The trays are wrapped in insulated cardboard boxes with ice packs to keep the food at safe temperatures. Upon arrival, food should stay fresh 7-10 days from delivery in the refrigerator or you could extend their shelf life by 8-10 weeks in the freezer.
Amazing concept, needs some work
We wish the Better Business Bureau had a rating for ModifyHealth, but they don't. There is a profile, but it doesn't have a lot of information, so it wasn't helpful to us. What was helpful were the hundreds of reviews from customers who have ordered these meals and eat them regularly. ModifyHealth has been a saving grace for those who are struggling to stick to what can feel like a strict, restrictive diet. Their meals cater to a lot of tricky needs and we found that people were happy with the quality and taste of what they ordered. The biggest complaint we saw was that the packaging of the food is horrible and often results in spoiled food upon arrival. Some quality control issues with mislabeling or unevenly cooked food seems to get out of hand as well. These are definitely areas that the company could focus on and make major improvements in.
Round of applause for this company
Although ModifyHealth might have some weak points as far as their processes, we have still given them one of our highest ratings because we are thrilled with the concept. No other company we've looked into can compete with the high bar for ingredients that ModifyHealth has set for themselves. We like that they use food as medicine and encourage healing on your health journey while enjoying delicious, convenient meals. This is so important for many people and we're happy to see that a company out there is working to make life easier and more manageable for sufferers of chronic conditions. The pricing here is really competitive, especially when you factor in free shipping. If you're looking for a way to stick to a really healthy diet and stay in a "safe” place as far as potential food triggers go, ModifyHealth is a fabulous resource for prepared meals.
Dinnerly boasts that they're the most affordable meal service on the market. They bring ingredients and recipes to your door for affordable, unfussy weeknight dinners. They deliver in most areas throughout the contiguous United States, so when you select a plan you can check if it's available in your area and see what delivery days you can choose from. Dinnerly has an expanded menu of over 100 recipes each week, so you shouldn't ever feel bored with a lack of exciting meals to try.
Explore the menu
Right away you can explore Dinnerly's weekly menus to see if anything strikes your fancy. They don't have breakfasts or lunch-specific items since this company caters to providing dinners only. There is a photo of each meal with highlighted features letting you know if it's dairy-free, gluten-free, kid-friendly, low calorie, takes under 30 minutes, is spicy, or other relevant things you might want to know. Some are veggie-based while others include meat or fish.
Select dietary preferences
All of Dinnerly's meals are prepared for either 2 or 4 people, whichever you select. When you're ready to customize your weekly plan, you'll be able to choose your preferences from a series of options:
More meals, more savings
Customers can opt for either 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals per week, depending on their needs. The more meals per week you go with, the less expensive each one is. For example, the "I Like Everything” plan for 2 people is $8.49 per serving for 2 days, $7.49 per serving for 3 days, $6.99 for 4 days, $6.49 for 5 days, and $6.24 for 6 days. Shipping is a flat rate of $11.99.
Flexible schedule
You can pause, edit, or cancel your meal subscription at any time through your orders page with your account. You'll get email reminders every week before the cutoff date, so you know how long you have to make changes for your next delivery if you need to.
Fresh, not frozen
When your order arrives, it will be filled with insulation and ice packs to keep your ingredients chilled and fresh on their journey to your home. When stored according to Dinnerly's instructions, vegetables will last at least 4 days. This means that you aren't getting fully prepared meals that come frozen. Dinnerly takes on a more natural process where you prepare your meals with pre-portioned ingredients that are fresh.
Minimal ingredient information
Dinnerly never claims to have organic ingredients and they don't specify where they come from or what the quality is. They do have an "Ingredient Hub” where customers can view a particular meal and see what ingredients are included with it. It's not the most helpful information, but if for some reason you wanted to see what each meal comes with, you could look it up pretty quick.
Market add-ons
Dinnerly also has a market where you can add different items to your meal deliveries. This way you can get snacks, seasonal items, and other products you may have needed to go to the grocery store for without even having to leave your house. Some of these add-on items are extra meats and proteins, desserts, side vegetables, soups, breads, and pantry staples. Once you're ready to choose your meals at the end of the checkout process, you can see what market items are available to you and add whatever you want.
High customer reviews
Dinnerly has just about everything we look for in a prepared meal service. So, their "D-” rating from the Better Business Bureau threw us for a loop. This is due to their failure to respond to just 1 customer complaint, although there are nearly 100 on their profile. However, we found over 4,900 reviews for Dinnerly on other sites that were mostly very positive. People love the variety and taste of the meals, say the deliveries are on time, and the pricing is reasonable. Any time there is a complaint about Dinnerly, it usually has to do with delayed shipping to some areas where ingredients arrive less than fresh. This is always a challenge for companies like this, so we would hope that their customer service team is responsive and willing to rectify issues.
Good option
We appreciate the flexibility that Dinnerly offers their customers with choosing how many deliveries they want each week. Being able to specify the types of dinners you want is a huge perk, their delivery price is reasonable, and the market add-on feature is pretty great. We wish we knew more about the ingredients they made their meals with, that Dinnerly offered more than 4 servings for bigger families, and that we could find some sort of satisfaction guarantee that reassured us they would refund or redeliver orders that have gone bad before arrival. Otherwise, this is a good, affordable option for prepared meal delivery and has earned a good rating.
Simplicity is at the heart of Home Chef, bringing ready-to-make meals to individuals and families all around the country. As a company, Home Chef has delivered over 320 million meals since their inception in 2013. Their kits are designed for people who want home-cooked meals every night but feel like life is always getting in the way. You'll receive step-by-step instructions to make it easy as can be to put a delicious dish together in the evening with fresh, pre-portioned ingredients.
Do what you have time for
There are a few categories customers can choose from when selecting their weekly meals from Home Chef. Their meal kits are most popular and arrive with ingredients ready to throw together. They take anywhere from 20-50 minutes depending on the dish. Some weekly choices offered to us were chipotle salmon tacos, Japanese steakhouse-style teriyaki steak, and jalapeno popper-stuffed chicken. Their express meals are for those who need a faster assembly time and take under 30 minutes from start to finish. Some tasty dishes here include piri-piri steak strip naan wraps, asiago and spinach-crusted lemon chicken, roasted sesame and broccoli rice bowl, and Italian sausage and potato chowder. The oven-ready meals from Home Chef require very little prep and arrive with pre-chopped ingredients in an oven-safe tin for heating. Similarly, you could go with a "Fast & Fresh” meal that comes ready to heat in the microwave within minutes.
Family plan
There is a Home Chef plan with all the categories listed above or a Family Plan that caters to groups of 4. These meals take between 20 and 50 minutes for assembly and cooking. Some dishes here are one-sheet honey mustard salmon, beef bulgogi burgers, chicken rockefeller risotto, or panko crunchy cheesy chicken.
Specify eating preferences
To get started with Home Chef, you'll select which type of meals you're interested in (express, oven-ready, fast & fresh, meal kits, culinary collection), then provide your zip code and email address. You'll be able to specify how you eat with options that include protein-packed, carb-conscious, keto-friendly, pescatarian, calorie-conscious, Mediterranean, gluten-free, or vegetarian. It's important to note that Home Chef says their gluten-free meals are not suitable for those with celiac or severe gluten intolerance. Home Chef will also ask if there are foods you want to avoid including pork, beef, poultry, fish, shellfish, mushrooms, tree nuts, peanuts, and sesame.
Get "extras” with your box
In addition to dinner choices, there are some lunch items that you could add to your order each week as well. Home Chef also offers "extras” that you can throw into an order so you have tasty snacks throughout the week or fun sides to add to the dishes you're preparing. Some of their popular items are Brew Master pub cheese spread & soft pretzel bites, caesar chopped salad and chicken, chocolate chip cookie skillets, quiche lorraine, roasted garlic artisan batard, smoothies, lemon poppyseed muffins, and the list goes on. Forget grocery shopping! You could get all your food for the week here and you'd barely have to lift a finger.
Get 18 meals free
There is a major promotion that Home Chef offers with your first few boxes. Your first box comes with 40% off + free shipping (shipping is normally $13.99/box for 2 people and 2 meals, or $10.99 for all other plans), then your second, third, and fourth boxes come with a 30% discount. Your fifth and sixth boxes come with 20% off, which all evens out to about 18 free meals.
Starting at $9.99/serving
Customers can customize boxes for 2, 4, or 6 people. After your first few boxes when normal pricing kicks in, you can expect to pay $11.99 per serving at most if you're just getting 2 meals a week for 2 people. If you add more servings to your box or more meals per week, the price per serving drops to $9.99. This applies to the family plan as well as the Home Chef plan for smaller servings.
No guarantees on organic
The ingredients from Home Chef are never guaranteed to be organic. Their menu changes so frequently that they say they order from different suppliers and consider seasonal ingredients, which makes it so they can't always promise a certain type of ingredient. What they can do is give customers the option to upgrade to organic chicken breasts in some of their meals if that is important to them. Using the "Customize It” menu feature, customers can always see if this is an option.
Refrigerated, not frozen
Home Chef ships their meals with biodegradable, insulated boxes with water-soluble, cool gel packs that are designed to keep your food refrigerated, not frozen.
Hit or miss
Home Chef has a profile with the Better Business Bureau, but not a rating. They have average reviews from customers and after we read through many of them, we decided that this company can be really hit or miss. People say that some meals are amazing and others are overwhelming and even sometimes missing ingredients. It's a common theme for customers to say that they appreciate the convenience that Home Chef adds to their life and the consistency of deliveries. However, some feel like after being subscribers for a long time, the quality is going downhill recently. Again, it seems really hit or miss here for some reason.
A lot to like
We like that Home Chef takes a lot of dietary preferences into account. There are such a wide variety of likes/dislikes, intolerances, and allergies these days, so it's important to find a service that can cater to everyone in your family. They have an extensive FAQ section that we appreciate because it ensures customers know everything about the service before signing up. We really like what we see here, especially since there are meal kits as well as heat-and-eat options for people who want to do minimal prep and cooking. If it weren't for their mediocre reviews, Home Chef would earn one of our highest ratings among prepared meal services.
EveryPlate is a meal subscription service established in 2018 based out of New York that focuses on affordability and flexibility for customers needing to simplify their weeknight meals. Each week they deliver classic, home-style recipes with fresh ingredients. You can pick the recipes you like best, have them delivered each week for a flat-rate cost and save money compared to other prepared meal services.
Feeds 2-6 people
The portion sizes from EveryPlate cater to groups of 2-6 people. If you don't have two people to feed, think of the double portion size as a lunch and dinner. Some of the menu items include dishes like creamy lemon herb chicken, grilled onion burgers, lemony chickpea and feta bowls, sriracha pork stir-fry, beefy tex-mex tacos, loaded turkey lettuce wraps, and more. They even have add-on items you could choose from to complement your meals or just have some essentials on-hand for other meals throughout the week. Add-ons are chicken breasts, boneless pork chops, ranch steak, bacon, diced steak, shrimp, broccoli, rice, pasta, flour tortillas, garlic bread, salad kits, and other staples.
Minimal preference choices
When you go to select your plan, you can choose from the following preferences (or select all of them):
Prepare meals in about 30 minutes
At checkout, you'll see the date of your first delivery and the timeframe it should arrive at your door along with the day of the week and time of subsequent deliveries. All ingredients come pre-portioned with easy-to-follow instructions for preparing the meals. They take about 30 or so minutes to assemble from start to finish.
Meals for $5.99
The cost of EveryPlate is just $5.99 per meal with a fixed delivery fee of $10.99. To give you an idea what this cost might look like weekly, dinner for 2 people 3 times per week comes out to $46.93 per week. If you up this to 4 times per week, you're looking at a cost of $58.91 per week. Dinner for 4 people 5 times per week comes out to $130.79 and so on. If you compare these prices with other meal delivery services, you'll find them to be significantly cheaper.
First week: $2.99 per meal
A big discount that was offered to us when we visited EveryPlate was $2.99/meal on our first box plus a free lunch item per box with active subscription for a limited time. This is a really affordable way to give EveryPlate a try to see if you like the variety, quality, and cooking process.
Doesn't cater to dietary restrictions
EveryPlate has extremely low prices compared to many other prepared meal delivery services we've explored. The tradeoff for this is that they don't cater to special diets like paleo, keto, gluten-free, vegan, or low carb. Rather, their range of 26 recipes each week caters to regular diets that aren't worried about excluding certain ingredients. They also don't claim to use organic ingredients, grass-fed meat, or any other extremely high-quality labeled ingredients, but for the price, that isn't something we would expect.
Never locked in
You can skip a week or cancel your subscription up to 5 days before your next delivery is scheduled. EveryPlate is big on emphasizing that you're not locked into anything and they want this to feel like a helpful service to you.
Confidence from customer reviews
The Better Business Bureau gives EveryPlate an "A+” rating, which is great. Their customer reviews give us confidence that the customer service is fantastic to work with, the meals taste good, the prices have everyone happy, and people find life easier with the simple dishes and recipes. Every so often there is a complaint about herbs or vegetables coming a little wilty or mushy, but for the most part, it seems that EveryPlate is excelling.
Better than average
If you're just going for cheap and convenient, EveryPlate is one of your best options. For people who have little to no dietary restrictions, want the ease of meals delivered to their door without eating out, and aren't concerned about where their ingredients are sourced or if they're the highest quality, this is a fantastic choice. You won't necessarily be opting for the most nutritious or healthy meals out there, but this could be a fabulous solution for eating at home more with fresh ingredients. EveryPlate has earned a slightly better-than-average rating from our team.
The idea for Territory began in 2011 when a group of friends in Washington D.C. went searching for high quality meals to fuel their busy lives. They found a chef to prepare their meals and now chefs all throughout the country work with Territory to craft unique dishes and deliver thousands of ready-to-eat meals across the country. This service helps people easily commit to rituals of eating healthy and living an active lifestyle. They've been featured by Women's Health, Entrepreneur, Delish, Self, and Forbes.
Diet-specific menu choices
To begin your subscription with Territory, you'll fill out your name, email, and zip code, and right away you'll be able to see the current week's meal options. If you want to narrow down the selection, you can select from specific menus like paleo, low carb, plant-based, keto friendly, Whole30, mediterranean, or performance nutrition. With the photo of the meal you'll also be shown the calories, carbs, protein, and fat content of the dish along with the price.
35+ meal choices per week
Some of the meals we had to choose from were artichoke pesto chicken, red chimichurri chicken, chicken enchiladas, moroccan-style turkey meatballs, lemon dill chicken, braised beef panang curry, lentil shepherd's pie, and more. There are about 35 or so meals for you to browse each week. You could also add on sides like sweet potato fries, bone broth, seasonal soup, cookies, or roasted broccoli. Most of them come refrigerated and fully ready to heat and eat in as little as 2 minutes.
Always anti-inflammatory
All the meals from Territory are made with healthy fats, fresh produce, clean proteins, and never contain gluten, dairy, refined sugars, or inflammatory oils like canola. They focus heavily on plant-rich, nutrient-dense ingredients to help you get the most out of each meal. When you click on a meal, you can read over the full nutrition information, ingredients, and macronutrient ratio.
Single servings starting at $10.99
We noticed that most meals cost between $10.99 and $15.99 per serving. There is a good range between there so you can easily stick with cheaper meals if you need to or splurge a little here on there on the fancier choices. Meals come with a single serving, so if you are ordering for more people, either add multiple meals to your order, or Territory suggests making an entirely separate order for other people so you can maximize the number of meals delivered and set your own separate preferences.
Only available in 27 states
Meals are usually delivered twice a week (Wednesday and Sunday) to ensure maximum freshness, and you can order as many as 12 meals per delivery day. Territory isn't entirely clear about where they are able to deliver, so you'll need to enter your zip code to see if their service is available to you. From what we can tell, they're available in about 27 states, so that eliminates half of the country as far as people who have access to these meals.
Refer to best by dates
There is a best by date on each meal, so be sure to follow this for maximum freshness. Food will arrive refrigerated, not frozen, so as soon as you get your delivery (typically on Wednesday and/or Sunday) be sure to transfer your meals into the refrigerator as quickly as possible. Each package will have a fresh tag card inside the box with a sticker that indicates if meals are within the correct temperature for consumption.
Rate your meals
Territory appreciates honest feedback from their customers. That's why they ask for you to rate each meal at the end of the week. Based on the ratings you give and your history of selections, Territory will pre-slot meals for you every week (but you can still change them).
Few but good ratings
Territory isn't rated by the Better Business Bureau and they don't have a lot of customer reviews. The few that we saw were almost all positive and people said they would recommend the company. Territory is commended for their healthy meals, top quality ingredients, robust flavors, and orders that always arrive on time. We aren't surprised by this based on what we saw from Territory.
Not for everyone
We like everything that Territory is trying to do. Eliminating inflammatory, poor ingredients from all meals is praiseworthy. We like the idea of trying to work with local chefs and support community farmers. The main reason we haven't given Territory a higher rating is because they aren't available in a lot of areas and their prices can range quite a bit higher than some people would want to spend for a single serving. It's a little bit of a pain that they don't cater to delivery for more than one person too, so families probably will find this service too much of a hassle. Territory has earned an average rating from us.
2005 was the year bistroMD got its start. It was founded by physician Caroline J. Cederquist when she worked at a medical weight loss clinic and noticed that patients struggled cooking healthy meals at home. Together with her husband, she developed a set of meals they could cook for people struggling to lose weight. Over time, demand grew for this service and they've expanded into multiple kitchens throughout the U.S. with over 150 menu items. You may have heard of bistroMD on Dr. Phil, NBC, Lifetime, The Biggest Loser, or The Doctors.
Take the quiz
BistroMD tries to help customers quickly find the right meal program for them by offering a short quiz when you reach their website. It will ask your health goals, your gender, if you have food sensitivities, what your main diet focus is (gluten free/celiac, diabetes, vegan diet, keto friendly), and then it will ask you to input your name and email address before showing your results. Based on our information, we were recommended a 5-day Keto Flex Program with a 40% off + free delivery offer for our first order.
Choose a program, view your menu
You could easily skip the quiz and either browse the menu and pick your favorites or go with one of their programs like the women's program, men's program, heart healthy program, gluten-free program, keto flex program, diabetic friendly program, menopause program, or vegan program. For whichever program you choose, you'll be shown the breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu for the week.
5 or 7 day meal plans
We found bistroMD's website to be a little overbearing and it took us a while to really get a solid understanding of their process and how everything works here. We figured out that all the meal plans come with the option of either having 5 or 7 days of meals with them either being only single servings of breakfast, only lunch and dinner, or all 3 meals each day. Normally the weekly cost for the full 7-day meal plan is $219.80, but you get a big discount for the first week, bringing it down to $131.88 instead.
Adjust meals as you go
After you sign up for a meal plan, you'll get a login for bistroMD's website. With this you can view your menu and change out the meals as you'd like. If you want a different meal than what's available that week, you'll get other available recommendations of equal nutritional value. You'll need to make any changes to your upcoming week's menu by Wednesday at 5 pm ET the week before.
Non-organic ingredients
We found that not all ingredients from bistroMD are certified organic, but they do say they are committed to using ingredients from responsible sources by using environmentally-responsible seafood, rBGH-free beef, and hormone-free chicken while partnering with local and family farms when possible. In truth, some of these bars are actually quite low for ingredients, but we'd like to give bistroMD the benefit of the doubt, especially since they say they take extra steps to prepare food by baking, steaming, and roasting rather than frying.
Flash frozen meals
All packages of prepared meals arrive frozen with dry ice to maximize freshness. Meals can be kept in the freezer for quite a long time since they are flash frozen after preparation. Refer to the best by date stamped on the film that each meal is sealed in. The standard shipping cost for each delivery is $19.95 and they come through FedEx. The box and sleeves can be recycled with other paper products, and the bags and plastic trays can be recycled with other clean plastics. To enjoy your meal, instructions on how to cook it from frozen or from the refrigerator within 48 hours are included and should be followed carefully.
Unfavorable reviews
The Better Business Bureau only gives bistroMD a "B” rating because of the number of complaints filed against the business. When we looked up other reviews of bistroMD, it didn't make us feel any more confident in this company. It's a pretty common theme for people to complain about the taste and quality of food here. That alone is a big turn off for us. Others say that customer service is a pain to deal with and aren't sympathetic when meals don't meet expectations. Based on customer reviews alone, this prepared meal program doesn't sound very promising.
Lots of pros and cons here
We're concerned that with a company so focused on calorie counting, it may leave people hungry and unsatisfied if they're not worried about losing weight. However, if you're determined to stick to a certain type of diet or calorie restriction, this might be a solution for you. If the quality of meals is low as some customers suggest, however, it may not be worth it. But since you can cancel your plan at any time, you could always give it a week or two with bistroMD to see what you think. We would like to see higher standards for the ingredients from bistroMD and some more flexibility when it comes to deliveries. We also know that while frozen, ready-to-eat meals are the ultimate convenience for some, others might not like the idea of eating frozen meals 3 times per day as it can affect the taste in some cases. Based on everything we've seen here, bistroMD has earned an average rating.
Gobble aims to take the load off of individuals who want freshly cooked meals throughout the week by doing all the work for them. You can select from their weekly menu to choose the dishes that look most appealing to you and have them delivered straight to your door. Say goodbye to marinating, measuring, and a sink full of dishes with this service. They've been voted the #1 meal kit service by Parent's Magazine.
Hand-select meals for yourself
The main menu options offered by Gobble are "Classic Dinner”, "Lean & Clean”, or "Vegetarian”. If all of these sound good to you, you can opt to have all of them in your meal plan mix. They don't offer specific meal plans for people who are vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, or on a specific diet, but each week there are usually meals that fit these criteria. Customers can view the list of ingredients in each dinner and recipe card to identify which ones are best for them. Each week you'll get to choose your favorite meals and those are what will come in your next box.
Forget the prep
All of the meals from Gobble are designed to go from kit to table in 15 minutes. They do most of the preparation by providing cooked sauces, grains, and pasta along with pre-sliced meat and vegetables. We can't speak for the quality or certifications of the ingredients used by Gobble since they don't cover this anywhere on their site.
Big deals on first box
If you sign up for Gobble's newsletter with your email address, you'll get your first 6 meals for $36. You'll also get free shipping on your first box and then the flat rate afterwards is $9.99. Regular pricing for Gobble's meals depends on how many nights you opt for dinners. Dinner for 2 ranges from $16.99 per serving for 2 nights to $11.99 per serving for 5 nights. Dinner for 4 ranges from $12.99 per serving for 2 nights to $11.99 per serving for 5 nights.
Comes chilled, not frozen
Each Gobble box is prepared for shipping in a way that keeps the contents fresh for up to 72 hours in transit. Depending on the season and location of the customer, boxes might be adjusted with extra ice packs and added insulation to keep everything cool to the touch. Once they arrive, Gobble recommends treating them like regular groceries and storing them in the fridge for up to 7 days. If you need meat or seafood to stay fresh for longer, they can be stored in the freezer.
Not available everywhere
Be aware that Gobble may not be available in your area. They deliver to all the contiguous U.S. states with the exception of Montana. There is limited service in Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Louisiana. Gobble provides a link for you to visit and supposedly check if their service is available in your area, but it actually just takes you to their homepage, so it's no good.
Bad BBB rating, good reviews
We had a big fat "Yikes!” moment when we saw that Gobble has an "F” rating from the Better Business Bureau. Luckily this is due to their failure to respond to a few customer reviews and nothing more alarming. Their customer reviews were somewhat redeeming, though. There are a few loyal customers who have been ordering from Gobble for years and are completely pleased with their service in every way. However, it seems sometimes ingredients are missing or go bad before people need to use them. This is an issue that many prepared meal services run into though, so it's not necessarily an issue that's unique to Gobble. For the most part people have no complaints about the service here.
Not a favorite
To us Gobble is a bit more expensive than some other prepared meal companies without good reason. They don't say anything to make us think they use the highest quality ingredients and each meal is between 700 and 900 calories, so portions aren't huge. We're glad people are so happy with customer service, but overall we felt that Gobble's website was a bit less straightforward than their competitors and some things were unclear like whether they offered add-on snacks and meals or if everything on their menu counted as one meal for the week. In short, Gobble is a decent place to order prepared meals, but it's not grabbing us as one of our favorites.
Top Chef Meals is a fully customizable prepared meal delivery service that's suitable for many diets. What makes this company unique is that it isn't subscription-based. Customers can log in and order meals whenever they want, but they won't automatically come on a regular basis. Their meals come frozen and ready to eat for convenience and longer-term storage.
No minimum or maximum requirements
There is no minimum or maximum order required for you to buy from Top Chef Meals. However, based on your zip code there is a minimum meal requirement if you want free shipping. Each meal is a single serving, so you'd need to order multiple meals to your cart to cater to bigger groups. This usually means ordering anywhere from 21 to 42 meals depending on your zone. Since you aren't on a subscription here, you may want to stock up on Top Chef Meals' dishes as much as you can in each order and freeze some to use later. Then you can get free shipping and go longer between orders.
From $9.95 to $19.95
There are no major discounts available on your first orders from Top Chef Meals. However, if you're a senior citizen, you'll always get 10% off your order. The prices here vary quite a bit from $9.95 for something like chicken teriyaki or smoked gouda mac & cheese to $19.95 for beef wellington. The menu is divided into categories like seasonal specials, seafood entrees, chicken entrees, turkey entrees, beef entrees, vegetarian entrees, breakfasts, soups, and desserts. You can customize all your choices by specifying low sodium, diabetic, gluten-free, dairy-free, or low fat.
Ingredients done right
Top Chef Meals doesn't include the nasty stuff like artificial ingredients, preservatives, trans fats, or high fructose corn syrup in their meals. Their ingredients are always locally sourced and they make sure their meat is antibiotic- and hormone-free. They don't claim to source organic, but do say they aim for the best seasonal products.
No guaranteed delivery dates
Delivery days and times are not guaranteed by Top Chef Meals. Their meals are made fresh Monday - Friday, so they say if you have a critical need for a delivery, they'll do their best if you call their kitchen at a provided phone number. This seems a little odd to us since you'd probably want to know when a food order is arriving at your door, so our hope is that Top Chef Meals has really specific tracking information with your order so you know when it will arrive. A zone delivery schedule map is available on Top Chef Meals' website for customers to browse and get an idea of how many meals they need to order for free shipping and what days they might arrive.
Guaranteed freshness
Your meals will arrive in cardboard, jute, and plastic bags for packaging and then with dry ice and/or gel packs to keep your food safe during transit. They are flash frozen after preparation and will arrive this way. Top Chef Meals offers a 100% guarantee, promising that their products will arrive in the best condition possible. If meals are damaged, spoiled, or inedible as a result of shipping or delivery, the company will promptly replace your order or credit your account.
Surprisingly great reviews
For providing frozen meals that (in our opinion) don't look quite as appetizing as we've seen from other prepared meal services, Top Chef Meals sure does have good customer ratings. There are over 6,600 ratings we found from people who have purchased dishes here and the consensus is that the flavor is fantastic. Top Chef Meals has amazing customer service and they don't seem to have complaints about delivery issues. It seems like ordering meals from Top Chef Meals would be a really safe bet.
Didn't grab us
We're thrilled that so many people like Home Chef Meals, but we have our own reservations. The prices on some of the dishes are higher than what you can get from other companies that provide similar fresh, anti-inflammatory food. In some ways it's nice that you don't have to subscribe to anything, but usually when people are ordering prepared meals, they're expecting to subscribe. This way you can spread out your cost instead of buying a ton all at once. We also aren't as big of fans of frozen meals over ones that come refrigerated, but this will vary by customer. The perk of frozen meals is that you can store them longer, which is good when you're shopping somewhere like this. Top Chef likely provides yummy meals, but they didn't come in as one of our top options.
Diet-to-Go says they take "a sustainable, common sense approach to healthy eating.” This meal delivery company is focused on making healthy eating both affordable and easy. Their chefs make low calorie, nutritionally balanced, fresh meals to help customers meet their weight loss goals. Diet-to-Go was ranked the #1 meal delivery service for weight loss by U.S. News in 2023-2024.
5 menu options
There are 5 menus you can choose from at Diet-to-Go, which include:
Adjust menu items after ordering
For each of these menu options, you can view sample plates to see exactly what types of food are included. You can also see everything included in the meal, the nutrition facts, and view the ingredients. This is a good way to identify any meals that might include possible allergens or ingredients that you are trying to avoid. After placing an order, you can customize the menu for meal preferences and substitute one meal for another if you want something different.
Heat and eat
Each menu from Diet-to-Go comes with a 5-week meal rotation. You can view what you'll be receiving each week and then after week 5, the same rotation starts over. The meals you receive from Diet-to-Go are "heat and eat”, meaning they come frozen and can be ready to eat in 2-3 minutes in the microwave or oven without any preparation required. If you live close to Diet-to-Go's facilities, you'll get deliveries twice a week instead of once in insulated boxes with cold packs, not fully frozen and with a 7-day refrigerated shelf life. Others are flash frozen to preserve freshness. Instructions on how to reheat your meals will be included with your shipment.
Adjust options to fit your budget
So how much does this all cost? Before getting your price, you'll need to select whether or not you want seafood included with your meal, your gender, how many delivery days you want (5 or 7), and if you want 2 meals (no breakfast) or 3 meals per day. We chose the 7 day plan with 3 meals per day and found our total for the Balance Meal Plan to be $163.19 the first week and $203.99/week after that. A 5-day plan with 3 meals drops to $130.39 the first week and then $162.99 weekly. You could play around with the different selections pretty easily to find something that comfortably fits your budget, but keep in mind shipping is going to add $19.98 to whichever selection you choose.
Guaranteed satisfaction
Your order from Diet-to-Go comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. You can always put your order on hold or cancel if you need to so you only pay for what you need. If you're not happy with Diet-to-Go's service or their food, they promise to make it right or refund your money.
Success stories, but few reviews
Diet-to-Go has a series of success stories you can view if you're interested. They show how much weight some individuals lost and how their lifestyles changed. We wish that Diet-to-Go was rated by the Better Business Bureau, but they aren't, unfortunately. There are very few honest, third-party reviews about this service as well. In an age where there are so many competing prepared meal services, Diet-to-Go may not be a forerunner in people's minds.
Limiting for some
There are no gluten-free, vegan, or kosher meal plans here for those who really need it. Even people trying to eliminate dairy or soy may find that there are very few meals that will fit this criteria. The people who may benefit from Diet-to-Go are those who have no major food sensitivities or restrictions and just want to focus on keeping calorie counts low consistently enough to lose weight. Anyone outside of this will find more robust prepared meal options ranked higher on our list.
If you're concerned about a prepared meal delivery service because you're a picky eater, have allergies or serious food intolerances, fear not. One reason prepared meals have become so popular is because they can cater to anyone's preferences and needs. If you need to avoid gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, or any other specific ingredient, many companies will let you specify this and will adjust your meal options accordingly. You can choose vegetarian meals, paleo meals, calorie-conscious meals, or mostly order meals from your favorite cuisine.
Depending on the prepared meal service, some meal selections may cost more than others. If you want gourmet meals that give you a high-end restaurant experience for your taste buds at home, you might pay a bit more (worth it!) but if you're on a budget, there are still mouth-watering, nutritious options that shouldn't stretch the amount of money you've allotted yourself for meals. Whether or not the ingredients in your prepared meal are organic, locally sourced, or come with other specialty labels may affect the overall cost, so pay attention to this as well.
Some companies will deliver meals to your door that are practically ready to open up and eat on the spot, while others require a little prep on your part. Even the meals you have to assemble yourself are made to be as simple as can be. Ingredients come perfectly measured out with step-by-step instructions that can give confidence to even the most inept home chef. Useful tip: you could save the instructions and ingredient information if you want to make the meal again in the future and give it a go on your own!
We've made ourselves very hungry with all the research we've done about the top prepared meal services available to customers. In the end, we've narrowed down a few things that are important to look at when you're considering signing up with one of these companies:
To give you the best, most convenient experience with ordering prepared meals, the experts at Top Consumer Reviews have pored over all the details of popular companies available to you. We hope this information helps you find simple, enjoyable meals that you'll look forward to eating every day.
Select any 2 Prepared Meals to compare them head to head