Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post; the spare change I earn from purchases you may make through those links helps me ditch the meal delivery services and just buy take-out for my family.
Cooking dinner for my family is one of my least favorite jobs. More specifically, I detest
a. Menu planning
b. Shopping for the ingredients
c. Complaints about the meal being served
d. Cleaning up
e. Tossing the inedible leftovers I forgot were in the fridge
The actual cooking part does not make my top five worst things about the dinner experience. If I have all the ingredients and I know what I’m making, I don’t mind preparing and cooking it. I stick my earbuds in and listen to a book on Audible while I work, and I do get a bit of a June Cleaver-feeling when I put a lovely meal on the table.
I am the perfect candidate, therefore, for the meal delivery companies who drop the ingredients for yummy dinners on my doorstep. In typical Dana fashion, I went all-in and tried four different companies over the course of six weeks. The menu planning is simplified into a limited number of choices, the food shopping is done for me, and I choose the number of servings to eliminate leftovers.
So what did I think?
Week One
I tried Home Chef the first week, and I received an email informing me that my box would arrive by 8 p.m. on Tuesday. It did not arrive until late Wednesday afternoon. I called customer service Wednesday morning, and I was credited my cost and re-issued the discount I used for my first purchase.
I planned on tossing the food when it arrived, given that it was in transit more than sixteen hours longer than it should have been. But all of the eight (8!!!) ice packs were still partially solid, the meat was cold, and there were no weird odors.
I threw caution to the wind and cooked both meals, and no one became ill. Success!!
Week Two
The second week, I tried Plated. My house must be in the Bermuda Triangle because the delivery wasn’t here by 8:00 pm AGAIN. I called, again, and the customer service rep could not have been lovelier. He credited me for the two meals, and re-applied my new customer discount to a future purchase.
My box arrived at 9:30 p.m., so I was able to make both meals without fear of food poisoning.
Week Three
This week, I purchased meals from Hello Fresh. Astoundingly, my box arrived an hour before the 8:00 pm deadline, debunking my theory that my house is invisible to GPS systems.
Weeks Four, Five and Six
Weeks four and five were the second deliveries of Home Chef and Plated. This time, both boxes arrived well before the 8:00 p.m. deadline. No more free meals for me!
I tried Blue Apron during week six, which is the service my mother has been using and loves. It arrived at about 6:30 p.m., and I was impressed by the compactness of the packaging. The food was comparable to the other companies, but Blue Apron wins for the most environmentally conscious packing.
So how was the food?
Every meal service sent fresh, high quality food. We ate every meal I prepared, although we enjoyed some more than others. Of the eighteen meals, I would probably only make three or four again, but it was nice to try new recipes and get out of my kitchen comfort zone.
My issues
With the meal plans, of course. My issues in general would require a book, not a blog post.
Number of servings
Three is a tough number to serve for these meal plans. Home Chef, Hello Fresh and Blue Apron don’t have a three-person option, so I felt like ordering for four was a bit of a waste in terms of both food and cost. Plated’s three-person option doesn’t meet the threshold for free shipping, but in retrospect I would still save money (and food) by going with three servings instead of four.
Menu choices
Most services offer different choices for the two-person and four-person plans, with the four-person plan being more family-friendly. Matt will eat anything (except liver and pineapple), but finding meals that appeal to both my teenage son and me was challenging. I preferred the more adventurous menus of the two-person plans, but I knew that many of them would not fly with the 16-year-old.
Healthy options
While most meals were generally under 700 calories, the meals I chose had more starch and carbs than I prefer to eat for dinner. Had I only been cooking for Matt and me, I could have chosen differently. Every plan had plenty of vegetarian options as well. I didn’t order any pasta meals, because I have enough pasta dishes in my own repertoire.
Should you try a meal delivery service?
Whether or not a meal delivery service is right for your family depends on your goal.
Yes, you should try one if your goal is to:
- try new recipes
- avoid meal planning
- get out of a rut
You may not want to try one if your goal is to:
- avoid meal prep
The four services I tried still required meal prep, particularly cutting produce. I didn’t mind spending thirty minutes preparing and cooking dinner, but if that’s too much prep time, try a service like Terra’s Kitchen, which chops and cuts everything for you. - eat inexpensively
While I didn’t find the pricing unreasonable, a family of four can eat less expensively than $40 a meal. But for some, the convenience and ease of having fresh food delivered to your door is priceless.
The outcome
For now, I have cancelled all four meal delivery services, mainly because I don’t want to be responsible for remembering to skip weeks if I keep the subscriptions. A subscription can be reactivated at any time, so I will likely do that at some point when I know we will all be home for dinner, and the menus please all of us.
Here’s a handy dandy comparison chart of the four services we tried, for those of you who skimmed all my blather and just want the information.
One final note: Blue Apron and Home Chef are both on Ebates, so you can get cash back on your first week of meals. There are also plenty of first time discounts to be found via Google, so don’t pay full price. Happy cooking!
I’ve only tried Hello Fresh, and it was nice to do once 🙂
I’m with you – nice to do every once in awhile, but I couldn’t do it all the time.
Hey Dana, can’t tell you how timely this is for me. I am in a deeply cavernous meal rut at the moment. Can’t for the life of me remember what I used to cook at dinner time and find myself preparing the same meals over and over. Ugh. Perhaps I should explore this option. Thank you for the nudge.
You should, Kelly! It’s a great way to try new recipes.
You crack me up! My top five reasons for not cooking are the same. I don’t mind the actual cooking (If I’m listening to audible – #soulsisters), but abhor everything else. I loved learning about the different companies. My crew is too big and too picky, so I think we’re out. What I do need – is a personal chef.
Oh, I would LOVE a personal chef! I have a friend who makes dinners twice a week, and I love buying them and just putting them on the table.
Interesting comparison! I have considered these, but have never tried one because A) none offer a family of 5 serving B) my family is ridiculously picky and I’m fairly certain that, for every menu I’ve ever seen from these companies, at least 2 of my 5 wouldn’t even touch it. 😫 I guess, for now, I’ll just continue with the menu planning & shopping on my own.
You are right about servings for 5 and picky eaters! There are some good recipes on the websites, so there’s that.
What?? How cool is that? You did the work for us! That said, I don’t mind the meal prep work so that’s a plus for me. I DO mind meal planning and shopping. I think I’d be a perfect candidate. Like Bev, we have some local places. Not the same ones, but there are a few western MA businesses that do this. I love the idea but they’re like.. way too western MA for me. Vegan and all.
You rock for writing this.
Thanks Tamara!
I have contemplated using one of these services and appreciate your review. I’m thinking I may skip for now and just try to find a few more recipes. It sounds like a bit of a hassle- keeping up with subscriptions, etc. Thank you for sharing your experience!
It is a hassle when you juggling multiple services, that’s true. But the websites are good resources for recipes as well – I should have mentioned that.
We’ve tried BA, HF and HC. I found them relatively comparable, but probably prefer HC because I think their portions are bigger. With 3 guys in the house, that matters!
I’m sure it does! I didn’t pay attention to portion size because we had four servings for three people, which was always more than enough.
I have a horribly depressing view/opinion of the above services. (lol…. yeah, I know, what a surprise) and, I suspect, it’s not just a gender thing.
the speed of change in the world is breath-taking. to see something as fundamental as eating meals (with or without the family unit) change before our eyes, cannot but give one pause.
for better or for worse, I suspect that, for future generations, (aka the kids waiting for the school bus), kitchen cupboards and pantries will be curiosities, like oil lamps for illumination and work as the primary expression of humanity.
I hope you’re wrong, Clark. I think these services make cooking more convenient without eliminating the process altogether. I felt like I accomplished something when I put dinner on the table; I don’t get a feeling of accomplishment when I order take-out.
You are right about the speed of change in the world, though. For some things. For others, we seem to be making no progress at all…
We sometimes use a meal delivery service that’s local to Boston and most of the ingredients are from farms around New England which I really appreciate. Like you, I’m not a huge fan of meal planning (though I found having a family Trello board with about 15 stock dinner items to be helpful) nor am I a massive fan of grocery shopping (though sometimes it’s something to do with Eve!), but I love cooking, and Eve’s been really into helping me in the kitchen lately. I do appreciate the convenience of a meal delivery service, especially if it’s a week that’s really busy and we might not have time to get to the grocery store. You’re right, though, about them not really being designed for a family of 4 (thankfully Eve is still small enough that a 2-person kit still seems to provide sufficient food!).
We do have a local meal delivery service – I should look into using them, as they use local farms and also provide subsidized meals, which I’m happy to support.
Do I live under a rock? I haven’t tried any of these and it seems I’m the first commenter in that boat. It would be smarter (read cheaper) than the number of times we eat out or order in, but when I can get myself together, I really like to cook. Interesting to do the mix of 4 options to find a match. We’re a family of 3 too, so good points on that one. Hmmmm, food for thought…
Plated is the best option for a family of 3 – I would definitely do it again, if the menu for a particular week was to everyone’s liking.
Interesting. I tried Door to Door Organics for about three weeks during the summer but canceled. The first time around the mini peppers arrived moldy, and the third time, the kale was all wilted. Price-wise, I figured I could do better just planning more judiciously when I go the the grocery store. Plus with my now limited food choices, I need more leeway in choosing what I can and can’t eat. But Blue Apron sounds good; maybe I’ll give it a whirl early next year!
I really liked their two-person options – interesting menu choices that I wanted to try. Maybe when we are empty nesters.
Well you know my answer…ha ha. Love you Emily!!
I loved this blog though.
And you know I love your meals…if only you could cook for me every night!
We use Blue Apron, mostly when I’m looking to try something new. My favorite meal delivery is Dinners by (the other) Dana! Homemade but not by me!
I agree Emily!
This is awesome. I’ve been debating trying other services. We did Blue Apron for about eight months and while many of the meals were delicious, the prep time killed me (like the ears of corn??? I mean, come ON) and also, they were often meals that Tucker wasn’t in love with, so I’d end up making him something else. One thing though that I loved about it was that the two-person service was enough for three of us usually, and their side dishes were unique and awesome (usually) and things I’d not have tried anyway. I’m thinking of trying the one that prepares everything and you nuke it for three minutes, just to see. So glad you linked this up!
Sorry for the stretch on the sentence…but I like to join you if I can! You are right, some of the sides were cool. It’s just hard to please everyone.
I experimented with Hello Fresh and it was a miss for us. The delivery was fine but we are a hard to please family of three. Just like ordering pizza one has all meat, one has all veggies and one is a mixture of both. It makes no sense for us to order three pizzas but that’s what we do. So while I “kinda” like what we had, it was too fattening for what I wanted to eat for dinner, my husband found something else to eat and Christopher ate unimpressed.
I get it, Kenya – it’s tough to please everyone, isn’t it?
This is awesome as I have been doing Blue Apron for us here for the last month or so, because our neighbor gifted us a free week in the beginning. Not going to lie, but we have loved having our meals planned out in advance for the week. Plus, the price has been comparable to what I would pay if I was planning these meals out in the grocery, but easier as all supplies are included. Plus, the meals come fresh and on time every Monday early enough for me to not worry for the week ahead. But also loved finding out about the others in case I decided to experiment still. So thanks for sharing here 🙂
You’re welcome, Janine! I thought Blue Apron’s meals were good – they just didn’t work for three people.