In today's fast-paced world, convenience is key. Meal kits and prepared meal delivery services have emerged as popular solutions for individuals and families seeking to streamline meal planning and preparation. While meal kits save you the trouble of meal planning and a trip to the grocery store, it often still requires you to spend upward of 30 minutes cooking (and then another 15 cleaning up the mess you made). And after a long day at the office, sometimes that’s more effort than I can muster. However, the subscription-based model of many of these services can be a barrier for some. This article explores meal prep options that offer flexibility and customization without requiring a recurring subscription.
Understanding the Appeal of Meal Prep Services
Meal delivery services bring pre-portioned ingredients with easy preparation, or pre-made meals, straight to your doorstep. Meal kits hit the sweet spot with consumers who don’t have the spare time to plan their meals and spend hours at the grocery store or simply don’t want to. These services address several common challenges:
- Time Constraints: Juggling work, family, and other commitments leaves little time for meal planning and grocery shopping.
- Lack of Culinary Skills: Some individuals may lack the confidence or skills to create balanced and flavorful meals.
- Dietary Needs and Preferences: Catering to specific dietary requirements or preferences can be difficult and time-consuming.
- Reducing Food Waste: Meal kits and prepared meals provide pre-portioned ingredients, minimizing food waste.
- Introducing Variety: These services often offer a diverse menu, exposing consumers to new recipes and cuisines.
The Subscription Dilemma
Meal delivery subscriptions often provide healthy food options, but they can be pretty expensive long-term commitments. Not everyone can justify budgeting for an ongoing subscription service, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have access to delicious, wholesome meals on demand. While meal subscriptions are a convenient way to get ingredients shipped to your home, with most services, there is still some assembly required for each meal. While a meal subscription is a convenient way to get ingredients shipped to your home, with most services, there is still some assembly required for each meal. While subscription-based meal kits offer convenience and variety, they may not be suitable for everyone due to:
- Commitment: Subscriptions require a recurring financial commitment, which may not be feasible for all budgets.
- Flexibility: Some individuals prefer to have more control over their meal choices and preparation schedules.
- Customization: Subscription services may not always accommodate specific dietary needs or preferences.
- Leftovers and Household Size It can be tough to customize a meal delivery subscription for every member of the family, making it challenging to find the right amount of food for your household size or to accommodate picky eaters. When customizations are available in a pre-paid recurring service, they sometimes aren’t enough, or may mean additional costs.
Exploring No-Subscription Meal Prep Options
Fortunately, several alternatives exist for those seeking meal prep solutions without the commitment of a subscription.
Prepared Meal Delivery Services
These services offer fully cooked meals that require minimal preparation, such as heating in the microwave or oven. Looking for the most convenient way to get meals on the table, without ordering takeout? This is it. This option is ideal for individuals who want to enjoy healthy and delicious meals without any cooking involved.
Read also: Comprehensive Guide to Meal Prep
- CookUnity: CookUnity is a prepared meal delivery service that partners with professional chefs to bring their recipes straight to your fridge. The focus isn’t so much on calorie counting or hitting macros-it’s about boosting flavor, exploring global cuisines, and making weeknight meals feel restaurant quality. With a chef-forward menu, CookUnity meals come from a variety of globe-spanning cuisines: Ghanaian, Indian, Mexican, Italian, the menu touches six continents. Most meals are regularly available, but there are new ones rotating in (and out), so you can branch out or stick with favorites you’ve already tried. One thing I appreciated that seems unique to CookUnity: Each dish has a user rating out of five stars, along with comments from other customers. I found the reviews super helpful and ended up only choosing meals rated 4.3 and above. As a food editor, I never thought I could like a prepared meal delivery service-until I tried CookUnity. If you properly plated some of my CookUnity meals they really could pass as something I’d order at a restaurant. The quality, cook, and flavor of each dish makes it clear that they’re developed by real chefs-people like José Garces and Esther Choi-and that’s the whole idea behind CookUnity. The meals arrive fresh, not frozen, so you can either dig in straight from the fridge (like I did with a tofu “poke” bowl) or heat them up in the microwave for two minutes. Each dish also comes with a full nutritional breakdown. I found most meals to be pretty balanced in terms of protein and carbs, though a few clocked in around 1,000 calories-just something to note if you’re being extra mindful. I was genuinely stunned when I peeled back the plastic film and was met with the hypnotizing scent of coconut curry smothering perfectly cooked shrimp. I’ve had overcooked seafood from other meal delivery services, but these shrimp were plump with just the right amount of snap. They tasted like I’d made them myself minutes earlier. Portion sizes also felt more generous than most other meal delivery services I’ve tried, especially when it came to the amount of protein in each dish. Nothing felt skimpy. This meal delivery service is great for a microwave-first cooker who still has exacting standards about their food, especially if they like a variety of cuisines.
- Tovala: Proteins are all raw, produce uncooked. But getting the meals from box to plate involves little more than plopping pre-portioned ingredients into aluminum trays and scanning a QR code on the recipe card. Every Tovala meal gets prepared in the Tovala oven, which, while not free, comes at a 77% discount ($69) if you order Tovala meals. And you get to keep the oven if and when you stop using the meal delivery. Using a mixture of steam baking, convection roasting, and broiling, the Tovala oven turned out delicious meals in 20 minutes (including cooking time) with juicy chicken, flaky salmon, or creamy sweet potatoes time after time. Also, the ingredients, even the risky ones like salmon and shrimp, arrived surprisingly fresh. Every Tovala meal tasted better than every other prepared meal I’ve tried-textures came out much closer to what I’d get if I was cooking from scratch, flavors were robust. And while there is more work involved than simply peeling back a plastic seal and popping in the microwave, the fact that everything cooks at the same time in the company’s oven makes the process feel fast and effortless. The meals themselves are like better versions of all the frozen Trader Joe’s meals I’m sure you’re fond of (I definitely am). Someone who doesn’t love the idea of prepared meals but still wants the ease they offer.
- Factor: Factor positions itself as a nutritious, dietitian-approved meal delivery service with meals “designed to support your wellness goals.” The experience is pretty standard for a prepared meal delivery service: Each meal is packaged in a segmented plastic tray with a plastic film that you’ll peel back or pierce before microwaving until heated through. Factor will prompt you to register for an account and enter your address and payment information before presenting you with that week’s menu (an annoying feature of many meal kit delivery services) that will have options clearly labeled with tags like “Protein Plus,” “Carb Conscious,” or “Vegetarian.” The clear nutritional labeling makes this a particularly good option for anyone looking to track their macros, follow low-carb, low-calorie, high-protein, or keto diets, etc. Microwaves are known to zap every bit of moisture out of a piece of protein, but the chicken breast in the Green Chile Chicken was shockingly juicy even after the suggested two minutes of heating. Everything was also well seasoned-and I say that as someone who can’t help but sprinkle flaky salt on pretty much everything I eat. Factor meals often follow a formula of main protein plus carb and vegetable sides, which meant that each meal felt balanced and multifaceted, with a good mix of protein, carbs, and fats that helped keep me satiated. People looking to meet specific wellness goals, or busy people who want relatively healthy and balanced meals-no meal prep required.
- Panera: Panera’s ready-to-eat meal delivery lets you personalize your favorite meal ingredients and avoid having lots of leftovers by choosing meals that match your hunger level and fit your dietary needs. Browse Panera’s menu to build your custom prepared food delivery order that satisfies your cravings on-demand.
Traditional Meal Kits with Flexible Subscriptions
A small number of services, like Blue Apron, may offer one-off orders for their meal kits, but this is quite unusual and often more pricey than subscription models. Most meal kit companies, like Home Chef, Green Chef, and Martha and Marley Spoon, are subscription-only. However, with all meal kit service subscriptions, you can skip weeks of delivery, change your plan to get a box delivered only every other week (or more), and cancel with no extra fees or commitments. These options give you more control over your subscription and fit it to your needs.
- Blue Apron: Blue Apron offers one of the only true no-subscription meal kits through their Market. These options include the Fast & Easy Meal Kit, Date Night Craft Meal Kit, and more, designed to let you try the service without a subscription. You can also get a flexible subscription plan delivery with a greater variety of options-you can skip a week or cancel at any time. The service has withstood the test of time and remains a well-loved meal kit brand-and one of the few that lets you order single boxes without a subscription! Blue Apron offers creative chef-created dishes with pre-portioned ingredients and restaurant-quality flavors. The menu includes a fancy meal kit option, a few ready-to-eat meals, and recipes with easy and fast meal prep.
Meal Kit Services with Flexible Subscriptions
Since we started reviewing meal kits a few years back, we have learned that almost all are operated as a subscription service only. You would have thought you could just order them whenever you wanted without requiring you to subscribe-but that is, in fact, very rare! To help you find a meal kit service with a flexible subscription that works for you, we’re breaking down the best meal kits to try in 2024. We recently re-checked these services and their offerings to keep our info up-to-date and add more flexible meal services to support your needs.
- EveryPlate: To receive EveryPlate, you need to create an account and subscribe, but it’s easy to pause, skip weeks, or cancel after you sign up.
- Dinnerly: Dinnerly is a weekly subscription meal kit service that allows you to skip weeks, pause, or cancel at any time.
- Green Chef: Green Chef requires setting up an account and subscription but allows you to easily pause, cancel, or skip a week at any time.
- HelloFresh: HelloFresh is a flexible weekly meal kit delivery subscription that lets you easily skip weeks, pause, or cancel. You can choose to get meals to serve 2, 4, or 6 people, with between 2 to 6 meals in the box. When signing up, you can pick a preference for recipe recommendations.
- Factor: Factor meals come in single-serving, microwave-ready containers. You can get 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, or 18 meals in your weekly box.
- Home Chef: Home Chef is a weekly plan where you can get meals to serve 2, 4, or 6 people, with anywhere from 2 to 6 meals in your box. You can easily skip a week, pause, or cancel your subscription from the online account. With Home Chef, you will give your preferences up front to choose between quick meals, oven-ready meals, fast and fresh microwaveable meals, or meal kits-or mix and match!
- Marley Spoon: Marley Spoon is a flexible subscription where you can customize your plan, skip weeks, or cancel anytime. When signing up, you pick to receive meals with 2 or 4 servings, with between 2 and 6 meals in your delivery. The Marley Spoon menu has 100+ weekly recipes, including extra simple one-pot recipes and microwave-ready prepared meals. You can also shop the market for add-ons, including sides, quick lunches, and more.
- BistroMD: When signing up for Bistro MD, you enter into a contract-free subscription that can be paused or canceled at any time. You can also skip weeks to get meals on a schedule that fits your needs.
Skipping Weeks: A Simple Process
Though most meal kit services require a subscription, skipping weeks is easy.
Here Is How You Skip Weeks In A Few Easy Steps With HelloFresh:
- Log into your online account and go to the “My Menu” section.
- Click on the “Edit Delivery” option
- Select “Skip This Week” for the weeks you wish to skip.
- Answer the question about the reason for skipping the week and press “Skip This Week”.
As you can see, skipping a week is straightforward and can be done for weeks ahead! You simply need to do this before the cutoff date for the next delivery. Since the terms of skipping weeks can differ between services, please make sure to check your chosen services’ policies so you meet the cutoff.
Read also: Meal replacement guide for women
The Value Proposition of Meal Kits
Yes! We’ve been reviewing meal kits for many years and think these services are worth it. Here are some clear advantages of using meal kits:
- Meals delivered to your door.
- Flexible without a huge commitment.
- Fewer trips to the grocery store.
- Easier meal planning.
- Less food waste.
- Chef-designed meals at home.
- High-quality of ingredients
- Support for your diet with less effort.
- Diversify what you eat at home.
- Many have healthy meal options for a better balanced life.
If you are looking to simplify preparing home-cooked, healthy meals, it’s worth trying a meal kit.
Read also: Low-Carb Meal Ideas
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