At-home meal services are a great way to ensure that you have the time to prepare nutritious and high-quality meals without the hassle of shopping for groceries every week. After a busy day at work, it’s rare that people will want you to spend a large amount of time prepping and cooking. At home meal services cut down a lot of the excess time. They can also help you to discover new dishes and ingredients without having to buy excess quantities of them. The amount of at-home meal prep services that are available is growing steadily and today there are plenty of options available for a variety of different needs. If you want to upgrade your home cooked meals and discover new and delicious options, one of these services is worth a try. With that in mind, below are 7 of the best home meal services throughout America.
1 - Sun Basket
Sun Basket focuses on the quality of its ingredients as the centerpiece of its food philosophy. All of their ingredients are organic, the meat is antibiotic-free, and all of the seafood is sustainable. They also offer meal plans for specific diets like paleo or vegan. Customers of Sun Basket love the quality of the ingredients that are used as well as the relative simplicity of their meals to prepare. They deliver weekly in 100% compostable packaging. As you might be able to tell, this company is sustainable and planet-focused all the way.
2 - Home Chef
Home Chef offers a variety of about 12 meals weekly, and all of them are able to be prepared in about 30 minutes or less. Home Chef focuses on making their service accessible to people with a variety of dietary restrictions and preferences. Home Chef sets its menu five weeks in advance, which makes it easy to plan ahead. The service curates impressive but still simple-enough meals that are classy enough for a date night in but easy enough for a busy Monday night.
3 - Purple Carrot
Purple Carrot is one of the premier vegan at-home meal prep services. Every meal that Purple Carrot offers is completely plant-based. The most impressive thing about Purple Carrot is its variety of seasonal produce and great plant-based recipes. They also offer a meal plan specifically for athletes called TB12, which focuses on high-protein, higher-calorie meals that limit undesirable additives like soy or refined sugar.
4 - Blue Apron
Blue Apron is the OG of the meal-kit services. Blue Apron focuses on curating recipes from its chefs that are able to be prepared and served in about 45 minutes. The directions are also extremely simple to follow along to. Blue Apron is excellent, partially because of its inclusion of sustainable farming practices for its produce and meat providers, availability of direct shipping, and their focus on eliminating food waste. They also provide detailed background of where they source their ingredients from, which is comforting. They also have a wine subscription with bottles made to pair with certain meals.
5 - Plated
Plated focuses on high-quality, seasonal recipes (around 20 a week that you can select from.) Plated has pretty high standards for its meals, with antibiotic-free poultry, and organic produce whenever possible. They offer different sizing plans as well, such as two, three, or four-serving meal kits. Some people consider Plated to be a little too expensive, but it’s reasonably priced considering the quality of the products.
6 - Chef'd
Chef'd works with professional (often famous) chefs to curate its list of offerings. It offers around 650 total recipes from chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Duff Goldman. There is no subscription for Chef'd, meaning that you can select specific meals for a week whenever you want with no pressure to continue the service.
7 - Daily Harvest
Daily Harvest is one of the more unique options on this list. Daily Harvest offers a limited (albeit super-convent) array of meal options like smoothies, soups, and oats (all packaged in attractive containers you can eat right out of.) Daily Harvest is even available in many grocery stores, meaning you don't have to wait for shipping.