Weeknight meals can be stressful. There’s the mental load of figuring out what to make, and the time suck of getting to the grocery store to buy all the right ingredients. One solution? Ordering a meal delivery service. These kits arrive at your front door with the exact portions of the ingredients you need and step-by-step directions that tell you just what to do with them all. And over the past two months, I tried out several meal kits to find which ones offer the best, most home-cook-friendly meals.
During testing, I learned that these kits go a long way to help streamline the cooking process. Yes, most arrive with lots of plastic packaging (some more than others). But you typically don’t have leftover ingredients that end up growing moldy at the back of the fridge. You also don’t have to question what’s for dinner or whether an online recipe is legit or not. Plus, the best meal delivery services are also a great way to introduce yourself to new cooking techniques, ingredients, and dinner ideas.
If you’re looking to make home cooking a little easier on yourself — and maybe expand your repertoire while you’re at it — these are the best meal delivery kits to consider.
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The best meal delivery services for 2026 are:
- Best overall — Home Chef: from $7.99 per serving, Homechef.com
- Best tasting meals — HelloFresh: from $11.99 per serving, Hellofresh.com
- Best budget meal delivery service — EveryPlate: from $6eal.99 per serving, Everyplate.com
- Best for convenience — Hungryroot: from $8.99 per serving, Hungryroot.com
- Best plant-based meal kit — Purple Carrot: from $13.25 per serving, Purplecarrot.com
How I tested
To find the best meal delivery services, I ordered a sample box from several companies to be delivered to my home before making them in my own kitchen. I started by sorting through all the options on each website to consider the ordering process and how much I could customize the box. Then I noted how long delivery took and the state of the box when it arrived, including how fresh the produce was and how much plastic packaging was included. I cooked each recipe myself, following all the instructions on the recipe card. Then I served it to my family at home, including my husband and toddler, asking everyone for their thoughts on the end result.
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Home Chef
Best: meal delivery service overall
Weekly options: 35 meals and 18 “extras”
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch, breakfast, dessert, snacks, beverages
Recipes per week: 2 to 6
Servings per recipe: 2, 4, or 6
Why we love it
- Easy to make
- Minimal cleanup
- Recipe cards note difficulty, spice, and expiration date
- Lets you easily swap or double up proteins
Take note
- Flavor is sometimes lacking
Home Chef provided the best meal delivery service experience. The directions were simple to follow, and the meals were relatively easy to prepare, requiring minimal cleanup. Your first box comes with a binder where you can keep and sort recipes you love, with pages that include tips for making the most of the service (like how to edit your orders and equipment you’ll need).
Each recipe card lists the difficulty level, spiciness, and how quickly you should cook it after getting your box — helpful details that take out a ton of guesswork. Plus, the estimated cook times listed were actually accurate for me: The feta-stuffed za’atar chicken told me it’d take 40 to 50 minutes, and I had it on the table in exactly 49 minutes. While the meals were not quite as tasty as HelloFresh or Purple Carrot, they were still good, and I definitely enjoyed cooking these recipes the most.
Buy now £7.99, Homechef.com
HelloFresh
Best: tasting meal delivery service
Weekly options: 81
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch
Recipes per week: 2 to 6
Servings per recipe: 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6
Why we love it
- Great-tasting meals
- Options for one, two, three, four, or six people
- Large portions
Take note
- Assembly takes longer than advertised
- On the expensive side
During my week of HelloFresh meals, I felt like I was eating restaurant meals every night (except for the whole, you know, cooking-it-myself thing). Every dinner I had — tilapia with scallion sriracha pesto, chimichurri chicken grain bowl, creamy butternut squash and kale cavatappi — was delicious, with balanced flavors and satisfying textures.
Unlike with Home Chef, it did take me longer to make the meals than the recipe cards promised, sometimes by about 10 to 15 minutes. But I found the results were worth the extra time, particularly since large portions meant we usually ended up with full bellies plus leftovers for the next day.
Buy now £11.99, Hellofresh.com
EveryPlate
Best: budget meal delivery service
Weekly options: 36
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch, plus snacks, breakfast, sides, and dessert as add-ons
Recipes per week: 3, 4, or 5
Servings per recipe: 2,4, or 6
Why we love it
- Affordable
- Lots of meals to choose from
- Good range of cuisines available
Take note
- Ingredients arrive loose in one big box, rather than in separate bag
- Quality varies
The more affordable little sister to HelloFresh (they’re owned by the same company), servings of EveryPlate meals start at $6.99, making it the best budget meal delivery service. I found the quality ranged a little more. While a creamy spinach side was absolutely delectable — and I’m someone who usually hates cooked spinach — a cut of rib-eye steak was pretty tough and full of fat.
But the biggest difference I found was that the recipes seem to be a little “extra”: They had me grate parmesan and carrots and even crush peppercorn myself, steps that I know are technically ideal but feel a little overkill for a weeknight meal I just want to get on the table. (If I were buying the ingredients myself, I’d just buy the pre-grated versions.) Still, I loved the meal options acailable, including a nice range of cuisines.
Buy now £6.99, Everyplate.com
Hungryroot
Best: meal delivery kit for convenience
Weekly options: Dozens
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch, breakfast, snacks, dessert, pantry staples, supplements, produce
Recipes per week: Customizable
Servings per recipe: 2, 3, 4, or 5
Why we love it
- Quick and easy recipes – more heat and assemble than cook
- You can order groceries, too
- App suggests a cart based on your preferences
Take note
- Taste varies
As long as you’re getting meal kits delivered, why not get some general groceries, too? Hungryroot makes things easy by offering a box filled with a mix of recipes, pre-made meals, snacks, and breakfast and dessert options. You don’t even have to scroll through an endless list to choose what you want. After inputting your preferences, it suggests your weekly cart for you, which you can then customize — swapping, deleting, or adding as much as you’d like.
The recipes themselves were often more about assembling and heating up than intense cooking. A couple of them were just a bagged salad (the same kind that I get at my local market) plus some chicken I had to cook, or salmon that had already been smoked. The result was decent, though not as tasty as Purple Carrot or HelloFresh. But there’s only so much you can expect from meals you can put together in just 10 minutes or so.
Buy now £8.99, Hungryroot.com
Purple Carrot
Best: plant-based meal delivery service
Weekly options: 28
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch, breakfast, groceries
Recipes per week: 3 or 4
Servings per recipe: 2 or 4
Why we love it
- Vegan
- Surprising and delicious flavors
- Healthy
- Customizable recipes
Take note
- No meat
- Not the most options to choose from
My husband typically winces at anything labeled vegan, so when I made these meals, multiple times he told me he wasn’t hungry, but he’d “just try a little” — then he downed a whole serving. Even my toddler was able to find parts that she loved, and I was reminded of just how delicious tofu can be with the right prep, making Purple Carrot the best plant-based meal delivery service.
Also impressive: The produce was pretty hardy and lasted for five or more days when I didn’t cook it right away. All the meals were full of healthy ingredients with appropriate portion sizes. And I appreciated that the recipes included notes on how to customize the flavors to your liking, letting you choose how much sriracha or red onion to add — more than any other delivery service I tested, it gave me a sense of being in charge of the cooking.
Buy now £13.25, Purplecarrot.com
Green Chef
Best: organic meal delivery service
Weekly options: 42
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch, breakfast, sides, drinks
Recipes per week: 2, 3, or 4
Servings per recipe: 2, 4, or 6
Why we love it
- Organic produce
- Sustainably-sourced ingredients
- Certified clean recipes from the Clean Label Project
Take note
- On the expensive side
- Meals don’t always have many veggies
If you’re looking for clean, healthy, organic meals to make, Green Chef has you covered. From the same company as HelloFresh, the ingredients are sustainably sourced, the produce is organic, and select recipes are certified clean by the Clean Label Project (meaning they’re free of heavy metals or contaminants).
There are 42 options to choose from every week, and you can filter for things like high protein, high fiber, or low in sugar. Many of the meals take only 30 minutes or less — and I found these estimates fairly accurate. But considering “green” is in the name, the meals I ate felt a little light on the veggies. Plus, unsurprisingly, the price tag is a bit higher since you’re getting things like grass-fed beef. Yet those kinds of high-quality ingredients do add up to tasty meals.
Buy now £11.99, Greenchef.com
Blue Apron
Best: flexible meal delivery service
Weekly options: 78, plus drinks and snacks
Meals offered: Dinner, lunch, breakfast, snacks, drinks
Recipes per week: Customizable
Servings per recipe: 2 or 4
Why we love it
- Don’t need a subscription
- Quick delivery
- Very customizable
Take note
- Lots of plastic bags
- Quality of produce varies
Want to try a meal kit every once in a while without having to commit to a subscription? Blue Apron lets you order a recipe (or pre-made dinner) whenever you want, without needing to sign up for a membership. And you can do it pretty last-minute: Unlike Purple Carrot, which you have to order a week in advance, I ordered my food on Friday, and it arrived on Monday. As you search through the dozens of options, it tells you exactly how much you’ll pay per serving, so there’s no mystery over how much you’re spending. Plus, most of the recipes allow you to customize the protein — for example, if you prefer salmon over shrimp, you can swap.
I did find that the quality varied. One stalk of bok choy arrived wilted, and a Vietnamese-style ground beef bowl was pretty bland. But a cheesy pork tortilla casserole was so easy and flavorful that I saved the recipe to add to my regular weeknight lineup.
Buy now £7.99, Blueapron.com
What is the best meal delivery service?
Home Chef was the best meal delivery service thanks to its impressive overall experience. The box contained the most enjoyable meals, the recipe cards were full of helpful tips (and some shortcuts!), and the cleanup was relatively quick. It’s a smart intro to cooking for beginners, and it can make weeknight meals easier for anyone. Although it’s pricier — particularly since you’re not getting any meat — plant-based Purple Carrot is another fantastic option, with surprisingly delicious, healthy meals that even meat-eaters in the family will love. But I found that the most flavorful food overall came from HelloFresh.
How I tested the best meal delivery service
I put a range of different meal delivery kits to the test in my own home kitchen to whittle it down to this list of the best. As I tried out each one, I focused on a few main factors:
Why you can trust IndyBest U.S. reviews
Jennifer Heimlich has more than a decade of experience as a journalist within the health and wellness industry. The former senior fitness editor at Well+Good, she regularly writes about and reviews all kinds of health and nutrition products, from protein bars to Trader Joe’s snacks, making her the perfect fit to review and find the best meal delivery service.
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