Home Chef

Home Chef is a popular meal kit company and recently launched a line of oven-ready meals like cajun chicken with rice and beans, meant to take nearly all the work out of dinner but still delivering home-cooked food, technically speaking.

If it’s oven-ready meal options you’re after you’ll want to choose Home Chef’s Fresh & Easy meals which are focused on no-fuss easy oven-ready options. Plus there are grill-ready meals for summer and 15-minute entree salads for those craving lighter fare or slow cooker meals that likewise require very minimal preparation and cleanup. This new category from Home Chef is designed to be low technical skill and is a good option if you’re wanting a home-cooked meal delivery plan but not interested in enlisting at a culinary institute to make it happen.

Pricing: No matter how you slice it, Home Chef meal service breaks down to just under $10 per serving. Most people choose six to eight meals a week, so the average cost is about $70. But you can choose as few as six servings and as many as 12 and will save slightly more with a larger order.

Daily Harvest

Daily Harvest launched in 2015 with an army of frozen and ready-to-blend smoothies, premade soups and hearty grain bowls to keep stocked in the freezer. Some of the bowls and soups could pass as dinner but I like these best for a no-fuss lunch or breakfast. Depending on the specific offering, you either drop it into a saucepan or skillet to heat and eat. Or add nut milk and blend it up, as with the protein-packed smoothies, oat bowls or lattes.

This is a great plant based meal delivery service if you want to simplify your week and keep to a healthy eating frozen meals plan. Daily Harvest uses lots of ancient grains, oats and superfoods in their recipes, which are all mostly satisfying and well balanced in terms of flavor.

Pricing: With so many different offerings and options you can really choose whatever you want but soups, smoothies and chia bowls can be had for as low as $5.99 per serving, if you order a subscription and in bulk.

Veestro

If you are looking for a vegetarian option, Veestro offers a wide-ranging menu meal delivery plan of 100% prepared plant-based meals for those keeping to a vegan or vegetarian diet. Vegetarian meal offerings from Veestro include dishes like tofu with red curry sauce, carrot osso buco and country-fried chick’n. Veestro uses more meat alternatives than say a Purple Carrot in the meals, so if you like seitan, tempeh and other faux ingredient meats this is a good meal delivery service to check out.

The carnivore in me has to admit that many of the vegetarian options and plant-based meals I tried from Veestro were as satisfying as the food I’m used to. I would suggest this meal plan for anyone trying to cut back on meat but not going full-fledged vegetarian, as much of the food is designed to replicate a carnivore’s diet and makes for a soft landing.

Pricing: Veestro meal service breaks down to roughly $11.70 per meal for 10 meals, although it’s more expensive for a one-time order. This vegan meal delivery service gets less expensive, however, if you choose a 20-meal plan ($10.80 per meal).

Freshology

You might have guessed by the name but this healthy meal delivery service doesn’t specialize in creamy mashed potatoes or mac and cheese. Depending on your nutrition goals, you can focus on specific menus like vegetarian, low-carb or keto meals or to help manage diabetes. All the meal plan nutrition and calorie information is provided to help you meet those diet goals. Freshology powered by Diet-to-Go is intent on helping customers stay on track all day, too, with a full slate of breakfast, lunch and dinner options.

There is less of an emphasis on delivering haute cuisine but rather hearty and nutritious fully prepared meals with good protein, and you’ll find lots of lean protein, whole grains and green veggies without a ton of pomp and circumstance.

Pricing: Customizable meal plans start at $9.99 per meal. You can have as many as three meals per day delivered if you really just don’t want to cook. Ever.

Home Bistro

Home Bistro is definitely the priciest meal delivery service on the list but that’s because the meals are of a higher caliber to be sure. You’ll find a bit less grilled chicken breast or simple pasta dishes but rather more complicated proteins like Chianti-braised short ribs, Peri-Peri pork tenderloins and chargrilled pomegranate salmon with Home Bistro.

Though this takeout kit is more expensive — comparable to takeout — if you eat a lot of meat but don’t have tons of great prepared food or delivery options in your area, this is a good meal delivery service to try. And since you can order these prepared meals a la carte, you can always save it for special occasions.

Pricing: Individual meals are between $19 and $27. You can order Home Bistro meals a la carte or packages of 7, 10 or 20 meals to be delivered weekly or bi-weekly.

Gobble

Gobble is also not technically prepared meals but with many of the takeout kit dinners taking as little as 15 minutes to cook, it might as well be. The team at Gobble does all the recipe prep work — chopping, dicing, measuring — so you can breeze right into a cacio e pepe with shrimp and asparagus or sirloin steak with mashed potatoes. Gobble is another great option for meal delivery if your goal is freshly prepared food with very little effort.

Pricing: Gobble meal kits start at $11.99 per serving but you can try your first six meals for just $36 as a one-time offer.

Freshly

Freshly delivers precooked meals (fresh, not frozen) to your door. While they have healthy recipe options a-plenty, Freshly is one of the better meal service options if you want the occasional cheat meal or comfort food delivered to your door (yes, please!). Penne bolognese, peppercorn steak with mashed potatoes and chicken casserole are just some of the heartier choices you can have at the ready. But there are also healthier, low-cal options to keep yourself honest.

Pardon the word-play but Freshly did have some of the freshest tasting ingredient meals, likely because they didn’t arrive pre-frozen. Not everything felt restaurant quality but overall this company delivers a lot of crowd-pleasers including chicken tikka masala and chili-topped macaroni and cheese.

Pricing: The more you order the more you save with Freshly and the difference is significant. Four meals per week breaks down to $11.50 per meal but up that to 12 and the price per meal drops to $7.99.