We tested over a dozen meal delivery services — these are the 11 we recommend

HelloFresh is one of my favorite no-frills meal kit delivery services — the recipes are easy to follow (which, as a non-cook, is key for me), the meal options are varied and the food ends up tasting great. The popular service offers a great mix of dishes in its weekly rotating menu, which can appeal to everyone in the family (including kids), says Leonard.

You can customize your weekly meal settings by selecting from six preferences: Quick & Easy, Pescatarian, Family-Friendly, Fit & Wholesome, Veggie and Chef’s Choice/Meat & Veggie. The service appeals to several dietary restrictions, which impressed our NBC Select editors. “I was pleasantly surprised by how many HelloFresh meals fit my gluten-free and pescatarian diet, although you definitely have a lot more options if you don’t have dietary restrictions,” says Malin, who tried the service for a week. “Overall, cooking the meals was straightforward and the portion sizes were filling.”

You’ll automatically receive meals that fall under your specific preferences, or you can choose the meals you want each week. You can also swap proteins and sides if the weekly recipes don’t quite fit your preferences. The service also offers 14 veggie meals (including up to two vegan meals) in its Classic Plan each week.

Sunbasket offers both ingredient-based meal kits and pre-made meals, all of which consist of high-quality ingredients and organic produce, according to the service. You can choose from 10 meal plans, including chef’s choice recipes and pre-made Fresh & Ready meals, as well as paleo, gluten-free, vegetarian and diabetes-friendly options. The Fresh & Ready option lets you receive single-serve meals to heat in the oven or microwave in just a few minutes. If you don’t feel like committing to a single plan, the service lets you mix and match with over a dozen meals from its weekly rotating menu.

“Since I follow a gluten-free and pescatarian diet, I can usually only eat one or two offerings off a meal delivery service’s weekly menu. But that wasn’t the case with Sunbasket: There were almost too many delicious dishes to choose from, and each one I tried came with an easy to follow recipe,” says Malin, who tried Sunbasket for a week. “And don’t sleep on the fresh and ready meals — they taste like homemade meals, but all you do is warm them up in the microwave.”

Both Resnick and Lisa Moskovitz, a registered dietitian and CEO of NY Nutrition Group, recommend Sunbasket as their top choice for healthy meal kits. “It has a variety of options that can be modified for carnivores and strictly plant-based eaters alike,” says Moskovitz. Most of Sunbasket’s packaging is also recyclable or compostable, using sustainable material like recycled and virgin craft paper and 100% shredded recycled paper filling, according to the brand.

Blue Apron has a number of weekly menu items based on your selected meal plan. Meal plan options include a signature plan that comes with the service’s top chef-favorite recipes, a vegetarian plan and a wellness plan that offers nutritionist-approved, carb-conscious recipes. The prices will also depend on the plan you choose. While Blue Apron does require some cooking chops based on the difficulty level of its recipes, Leonard recommends the service for beginner cooks who hope to “learn from the beginning and hone their basic skills.”

If you’re strapped on time, Blue Apron also offers over 30 pre-made meal options per week. I tried the brand’s Prepared & Ready meals for a week and was impressed by how easy they are to prepare — the meals were ready in under five minutes when I heated them up in the microwave. Plus, there were plenty of meals to choose from, and they tasted so good that it felt like I was eating a homemade meal. Keep in mind, however, the brand does not cater to many dietary restrictions or specific dietary plans like gluten-free and keto.

Try Everyplate at $1.49 per meal and $1 steak with code NBCSELECT149 on EveryPlate’s website.

EveryPlate was my introduction to preparing real home-cooked meals when I got my first apartment, and at a great price point. The service has a weekly rotating menu with over a dozen options, including vegetarian, low-calorie and even quick meals that you can prepare in 30 minutes or less. The service then delivers a kit complete with ingredients and recipe cards for your selections. To me, EveryPlate’s meal options offer variety and fulfill most of my cravings for the week. And as someone without much cooking experience, the recipes are easy to follow.

When choosing your plan, you can highlight your specific dietary and meal preferences, including veggie, quick and easy, and family-friendly. Based on those preferences, the service will show you the most relevant recipes first (though you’ll still have access to all of the recipes on the weekly menu).

If you’re looking for healthy, ready-to-eat meals, BistroMD lets you choose from over 150 chef-prepared meals based on your dietary needs. “BistroMD prides itself on being ‘doctor-designed’ and therefore is more medically therapeutic than most other companies,” says Moskovitz.

You can choose from seven plans: signature (which includes chef-prepared meals for those with limited dietary restrictions), gluten-free, heart healthy (which offers meals containing less than 600 milligrams of sodium and 3.5 grams of saturated fat), keto, vegan, diabetic-friendly and menopause-friendly. Once you choose your plan, BistroMD gives you multiple selections for the number of meals you get per week. The service also offers an EATS (Essential and Tasty Snacks) program that provides healthy snacking options for an additional charge.

Resnick calls Purple Carrot’s meal kits a “wonderful blend of familiar and innovative.” Because the meals are fully plant-based, the service can be an easy way for people to “add more plant foods into their diets without having to fully convert to veganism,” she says. Purple Carrot offers both prepared meals and meal kits, so you can choose whether you want to cook or simply heat up your dinner or lunch. In addition to plant-based meals, Purple Carrot provides several gluten-free recipes to choose from, as well as gluten-free pre-prepared meals. After selecting whether you want meal kits or pre-made meals, you can customize the number of dinners you get per week — these range from two to four meal kits and six to 10 pre-made meals. Deliveries take place on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays depending on your shipping location, and you can choose to skip a delivery on any given week.

Technically, Hungryroot isn’t a meal kit service. Instead, the NBC Select editor-favorite service is a grocery delivery method that offers a lot of the same benefits and customizations as other meal kits on this list — you take an initial quiz on your preferences and dietary needs, and Hungryroot creates a personalized grocery plan. In addition to delivering fresh food for the week, it also sends you specific recipes based on the groceries you order. You can also edit your delivery every week in case you want a specific ingredient or food item.

With the ability to choose the type of meal you want (breakfast, lunch or dinner) and to customize the groceries you get, Hungryroot essentially “allows you to be a bit more adventurous and cook from the hip, or also follow the recipes exactly,” says Leonard.

The biggest factors to consider when shopping include the price per meal/serving, the quality of the ingredients, the amount of time you’re willing to dedicate and your own cooking ability.

The price of meal kit delivery services varies based on several factors, including the quality of meals and ingredients you’re getting, the frequency of your deliveries, how many people you’re cooking for and the meal plan you choose. More budget-friendly services like EveryPlate and Dinnerly will typically cost around $5 per serving, while most other popular services like HelloFresh will cost anywhere between $8 and $11 per serving. If you’re looking at more premium or diet-specific services like Sunbasket and Green Chef, they will cost you approximately $12 to $15 per serving.

Take advantage of trial offers, says Daniel Shumski, a recipe developer and cookbook author. “So many meal kits and delivery services offer great introductory prices — it’s worth trying around to find one that fits your taste and budget,” he says.

The time you’re willing to allocate to preparing, cooking and plating your food can help determine which meal delivery service is right for you. If you’re choosing a plan that sends you all the ingredients, you should be prepared to take the time needed to prepare each dish, says Christine Wansleben, owner and culinary director at Mise En Place, which offers cooking classes, private events and more. You’ll also need to ensure you’re cooking the meals as soon as possible since the ingredients can be easily perishable, she adds.

For those who don’t have as much time during the week, ready-to-eat meal delivery services are typically the best option.

Generally, meal delivery services have specific rules and procedures in place to ensure their ingredients are high-quality and trustworthy, according to the experts we talked to. But if you’re extremely particular about the freshness and origin of your ingredients, you should likely skip these services and shop on your own.

For those looking to meet specific nutritional goals, Moskovitz recommends paying attention to the individual ingredients in each meal plan, the nutrition facts and the portion sizes. “Don’t just assume that because it’s homemade or marketed as ‘healthy’ that it’s the healthiest option for you,” she says.

Certain meal delivery services will offer a variety of options for those with dietary restrictions. However, Resnick notes there’s one caveat: Those with medical issues, such as shellfish allergies or celiac disease, should be mindful of possible cross-contamination.

“Companies are usually forthright about shared equipment, but eaters with food intolerances should exercise caution,” she says. “That said, for special diets that are usually choice-based, such as veganism or low carb, I think these services are an excellent choice.”

Before committing to a specific plan, you should consider when you’ll be able to receive these meals to avoid ingredients spoiling or not getting delivered, according to Resnick. Most services will offer customizable delivery plans to choose what days you want to receive your weekly delivery — if you know you won’t be there, most services will let you skip a week (but keep in mind there is usually a cutoff time to select this option).

At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also take steps to ensure all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and without undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.

• Ariane Resnick is a special diet chef and certified nutritionist. She’s also a recipe developer and has written about nutrition, health, wellness and identity for a variety of platforms, including The Kitchn, Livestrong and Simply Recipes.
• Ben Leonard is a chef and educator for companies and brands nationwide, including Sur La Table and Greenpan.
• Lisa Moskovitz is a registered dietitian and the CEO of NY Nutrition Group. She is the author of “The Core 3 Healthy Eating Plan,” a program that focuses on simple and sustainable ways to lose weight.
• Daniel Shumski is a recipe developer and author of several cookbooks, including “How to Sous Vide” and “Will It Skillet?”
• Christine Wansleben is a professional chef and the owner and culinary director at Mise En Place in Richmond, Virginia.
• Britanny Saunier is the executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education.

I’m an updates editor at NBC Select who has extensive experience covering meal delivery services, including prepared, gluten-free and vegetarian meal services. For this article, I spoke to six experts about what to consider when shopping for a meal delivery service and how to determine the best one for you. Experts also shared their favorite meal delivery services to try out.

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