Healthy Food Delivery: My Review Of The Top Services

This post is sponsored by Blue Apron!!  Andrew and I have been cooking up a storm in our kitchen to put together a review of five different healthy food delivery services.   These are all my own thoughts and opinions!  I’m going to go through each company and list the pros and cons that we found along with a little summary!  I hope I can help you find the best option for you if you have been interested in trying out different healthy food delivery options!  Also, the first 50 readers to go HERE will get $30 off their first Blue Apron order!

Blue Apron’s Healthy Food Delivery

Pros:  Blue Apron always sends us the freshest ingredients and is such an affordable option for us.  In 2.5 years of using Blue Apron, I have never received anything that was bad or not ready to use.  I was shocked that this was not the case with some of the other companies we tried.  Blue Apron recipes are by far the easiest for us to follow and understand clearly.   I feel like I learn new skills and cooking methods with Blue Apron meals.  I’m not just following steps, I’m also learning new techniques with each Blue Apron meal we make.  The cost starts at $9.99 per serving for the 2-person plan, and is $8.99 per serving for the family plan.  Also, something we have been really excited about is that you can now choose to do 2 meals per week for the 2-person plan, before the only option was 3 meals per week but this works out better for us personally! You get all of the ingredients that you need for each recipe and everything is packaged so nicely and arrives cold, in the refrigerated box, and fresh.  Blue Apron uses ingredients and recipes that I have never used before.  This wasn’t the case for some of the other delivery kits.  They now group all of the ingredients for each meal into a bag together which I think is awesome because it makes it so convenient to just grab the bag out of the refrigerator and start cooking.  We love meat at our house and I feel like Blue Apron’s meat, especially their fish, is the best quality of all of the services.  On average we spend about 30-40 minutes preparing each meal from Blue Apron and they turn out looking/tasting like we spent way more time than that. There is no commitment, you can skip or stop the service at anytime.  They have a HUGE selection of recipes and each week they add new dishes to their menu.  They offer an incredible recycling program that is very easy to use.  PS did you know why they are called Blue Apron?  It is because chefs in training around the world wear blue aprons- it’s a symbol of lifelong learning in cooking.  I am constantly learning new cooking skills through Blue Apron, it gets me out of my cooking rut and trying new to me things!

Cons:  We aren’t gluten free but Blue Apron does not provide gluten free options or other specific dietary plans yet although it is very easy to change your menu each week or skip to fit your needs.

Summary:  I’ve been using Blue Apron for a long time now and will continue to use them as my number one healthy food delivery option.  Everything I have ever received from them is fresh, the meals are exciting and new and they take the perfect amount of time for us to cook!  Each recipe is creative and flavorful.  We love all of the fun flavors we get to try and that we learn something new or taste something new with each meal.  I feel like each meal is totally worth the cost and we always feel full and satisfied after a meal.  The sides they include are fun and creative.  I personally love how fresh their meat always is.

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Plated’s Healthy Food Delivery

Pros:  We loved the list of where the produce comes from that is included on the box from Plated.  The box was organized well with each meal placed into one bag.  The produce arrived very fresh.  The meals from Plated are a bit fancier meals than what I normally cook at home.  They have a very user-friendly app for you to use to order and you can add desserts to your order.  They offer a lot of options to choose from each week which is nice when you put together your order.

Cons:  Plated was the most expensive of the Healthy Food Delivery services that we tried.  It is $11.95 per person for the 2 person plan plus $7.95 for shipping which is definitely more expensive than eating out or cooking at home for us.  Their family plan is $9.95 per serving.  These meals took us longer than the other services (roughly an hour per meal) and they were a bit more complicated.  When we opened the box, right when it arrived, everything felt a little warm except the meat did feel cold.  They left out the eggs needed for one of the recipes. I prefer every ingredient needed (except for olive oil, salt and pepper) to be in the box.  For one of the meals we had spaghetti and chicken meatballs which tasted really good and it was fun to make the sauce BUT we would have loved to have some sort of side of bread or salad with this meal.  It felt a little plain especially for the price.

Summary:  I feel like Plated is a little overpriced for what you are getting!  The meals tasted great and it felt like the food was high quality but for the price and time it took to cook each meal, I’d rather eat out.  I love the option that you can add dessert to your order, the recipe cards were beautiful and the meals turned out looking just like the pictures on the recipes.

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Sun Basket’s Healthy Food Delivery

Pros:  They have great and easy recycling options  and Gluten Free and vegetarian options.  The meals were very fast and simple to make if that is what you are looking for.  The food tasted good but it was nothing amazing or new.   We were not very impressed with these meals (hard to think of pros)!

Cons:  The lettuce we received was not fresh.  We had to throw it away the day we received our box.  The tomatoes we received were smashed and the paper bag was ripped open so the juices leaked out.  The mango we received couldn’t be cut because it was not even close to being ripe so we didn’t include it in the recipe (2 days after receiving the box).  The recipes came in a little book that was harder to read. I prefer a single sheet of paper with the recipe and easy to follow steps.  The sauces for the meals came already made. I prefer mixing together my own sauces to learn the steps and what is going into the sauces.  Both meals felt like we were just putting the ingredients together (pork already cooked) or heating and serving.  Sides were either non-existent or boring for example the corn on the side just had butter on it etc.  We were also hungry not too long after finishing our meals with Sunbasket.  They were not as filling (we were still super hungry after the lettuce cups) as the other services we tried.  They were more expensive coming in at $11.49 per serving for the two person plan and $9.99 per serving for the family plan.

Summary:  Sunbasket is definitely not a delivery service that we will be ordering from again.  If you need gluten free options or vegetarian options this might be the way to go for you though.  I did not love the meals as much as the other services and I didn’t really get the ‘cooking’ experience that I was looking for.

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Home Chef’s Healthy Food Delivery

Pros:  Home Chef sends you a binder to hold all of their recipes so you can easily save and store each sheet.  Each meal, except for the meat, is packaged in a larger bag which makes it very convenient to grab and start cooking.  It is also helpful that they tell you to cook it within a certain amount of days.  You can add fruit or smoothies to your meal for an additional price.  They are priced at $9.95 per serving although their premium dishes are sold at market price.  Shipping is free when you spend over $45 and it costs $10 if less than $45.  Their customer service was really great.  When I called to tell them about the bad produce they were very nice and willing to do whatever they could to fix the problem.

Cons:  The basil we were sent was bad and we had to throw it out the day the box was delivered to us.  We found their cooking instructions for the recipes a little bit harder to follow.   The tomato we received for a recipe was not ripe. We had one of the meals for lunch and were hungry shortly after. The meals seemed a bit smaller than the others. The pictures of the different meals on their site were not very appetizing to us.   The Shrimp Pomodora that we made tasted good but the sauce was just butter. I was expecting a little bit more flavor.

Summary:  I wasn’t thrilled with some of the ingredients that we received from Home Chef.  I was bummed that we couldn’t use those items in our meals.  I guess I could have gone to the store to pick up the items that weren’t good but the store is what I am trying to avoid with these delivery services.  I enjoyed their meal more than Sunbasket but it is not something I would order again.  Their customer service was awesome and I love the option that you can add fruit or smoothies to your meals!

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Hello Fresh’s Healthy Food Delivery:

Pros: They offer breakfast options (although breakfast foods are usually cheaper to make) and cute packaging. The burger we made was really delicious but the side salad it came with did not have a dressing.  You can choose the day each week for your meal to be delivered (Wed-Friday).  They have an easy to use app.  Their vegetarian-only box is cheaper than the normal box.  Prices are comparable to Blue Apron which I think is a good deal.  They offer great nutritional facts and I thought the recipe cards were pretty.  The food turned out to look like the pictures.

Cons:  They offer ‘premium dishes’ that look more delicious than the other meals but those cost more money. The lettuce we received for one of the meals had to be used that day or it would have gone bad.  Our bread was smashed. I found the glass bottles that they use for some of the ingredients to be unnecessary and hard to get things out of.  For one of the meals we needed to have butter and that was not provided with the meal so we used our own.   One of the meals we received was an egg-in-a-hole BLT which tasted really good but it was something we could have easily made on our own and for way cheaper.  Another meal that we tried was the quick sausage bolognese which tasted great but it would have been fun to have a small side along with the pasta dish too!

Summary:  We enjoyed the Hello Fresh meals that we received.  They came in second place for us after Blue Apron.  A few of the ingredients we received were just about to go bad but overall not as bad as some of the other delivery boxes that we tried.  The price is right but I did feel like the portions were a bit smaller than what we would have liked.  The menu was a lot smaller than some of the others and not quite as original as we find through Blue Apron.

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Healthy Food Delivery Options Verdict:

In conclusion, we will be sticking with our Blue Apron meals.  We found them to have the freshest ingredients, the most interesting recipes and meals (with sides) that made our stomachs the happiest!  Thanks for stopping in today and for reading, I’ll see you tomorrow with a recap of all of our usual randomness!  Don’t forget, the first 50 readers to go HERE will get $30 off their first Blue Apron order!

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I’d love to hear from you today… what was the best meal that you have made recently?!

What is your run today?  Or is it a rest day or cross-training day?  Who is still enjoying tank top running weather?

How often do you eat meat?

Have you tried any healthy food delivery services?  What were your thoughts?