All the steps that go into meal prep is one of my least my favorite family tasks.
I hate trying to decide what meals we are going to eat, then making a grocery list based on the ingredients, grocery shopping, and then actually finding the recipes when it’s time to make the food.
We don’t really eat out, I hate cooking, and I want to have healthy meals for my growing kids, but I’m not always sure where to start.
To this end I decided to try as many of the meal subscription kits as I could find, using their first week promo for a discounted box and going from box to box to decide which would be the best long term solution for me, I’ve tried to summarize the pros and cons of each box below then let you know why eMeals ended up being the winner for me. (None of this post is sponsored or paid for in any way, I bought all of this stuff myself and these are 100% my own unbiased opinions)
Hello Fresh
The first meal prep kit I tried was Hello Fresh.
I got a four meal box (2 servings per meal) since my husband works late, and is doing Keto and likes to cook for himself, and my kids don’t each much for dinner.
First they had a great list of meals to choose from, and I liked that I could choose and switch out meals for ones that looked better on their weekly list.
I also loved that when they arrived the meals were all bagged separately, so when it came time to cook, I just had to grab a the prelabeled bag and the included recipe card and get to work.
The instructions were easy to follow, I liked that it had a calorie count listed on the card, and I got to learn how to cook some veggies in fun new ways.
I thought the food was tasty and fun. I love love loved that the chicken for the chicken tacos came precut, and all had to do was cut open the package and dump the content into my pan, and I enjoyed getting to try a few new unfamiliar ingredients.
Drawbacks: My biggest drawbacks were the cost of the meals (when not using a discount code) and the tiny serving sizes. One that made me laugh was the side of sweet potatoes fries for two people. The sweet potato that came with the meal was the tiniest little spud I’d ever seen. Smaller than half the size of my closed fist, and worthy of maybe four fries total, so I guess two per person? … the other meals in the kit seemed to be a little bit fuller, so that tiny potato might have been a one off lapse.
EveryPlate
My second meal kit trial box was from Every Plate.
My first impression of Every Plate was that the meals seemed a lot more familiar in a meat and potatoes style. If you’re cooking for a family (In this case I’m thinking of like my dad, whose pretty set in his hearty meal options way) this might be a good choice, but I was hoping for a few more veggie themed entries and more variety than potatoes and carrots.
Nevertheless my kids were more excited about this crate, and I ended up adding a few more meals onto my trial box, included two of which were burgers in some form (one of the few foods most of my kids get excited for).
First thing I noted about this box, was that there was a lot of food, a lot of potatoes and carrots and such, and while it was separated from the meat and other ingredients in the box it was not divided into pre-bagged meal ingredients like Hello Fresh had been. As this box’s default price was also less expensive, it didn’t seem to unreasonable to me.
The first meal we made (not pictures) was Carmel Onion burgers… and it was a miss for all of us. Turns out I have no clue how to cook a good burger, making sure it’s cooked enough without being overdone, so my kids were not into it, even with the fries, and I didn’t love the lack of green veggies. But… this seems like something my dad would be way down with, so… *shrug*
The second meal (pictured) I loved. It was a vegetarian option with yummy spicy chickpeas and cream guac dressing. It was new to my cooking habits, but it used familiar ingredients and pictured above is a one serving helping. It was delicious, and not overwhelming, and might be a bit spicy for my kids, but I loved every bite.
My biggest takeaways from the subscription is that the food felt by and large like comfort food, and a lot of the produce felt a bit like filler food. Everyone of my five meal used carrots, and three of the five had potatoes as a main ingredient. I thought the food was all good and not too difficult to make, but it also didn’t strike me as super healthy
This box is also cheaper than a lot of the alternative ones, and there is a variety of meals pick from each week, so a decent portion of the potatoes and carrots is a fault of my own making. I walked away thinking it was fine, but if I’m going to pay for a meal box this one wasn’t the best fit for me.
Dinnerly
Next up in my meal kit trial boxes was Dinnerly.
My first impressions were that I really liked how family based this one seemed with flexible serving options for larger families and the option to have vegetarian meals.
I ended up selecting to have vegetarian meals, because I want to have more vegetables and less meat options in my diet, but when it came time to pick my foods I couldn’t resist one of the meat-based options and was happy to be able to add it to my queue.
This box is also been different from the others in the sense that it did not come with recipe cards, instead all the paper business, recipes, referrals etc. was emailed to me.
And with this first meal that I made, I noticed that the serving sizes seem to be a lot bigger than they were with hello fresh, and possibly even a little bit bigger than every plate, while this meal kit is still on the lower end of the spectrum cost wise.
I don’t have a lot of takeaways. It was a good meal kit, but I was determined to try them all before I settled on one.
HungryRoot
And so I got my first HungryRoot box. Of all the boxes I’d unboxed to this point, this one was my favorite. Why? Because I clicked the option to include snacks with this box, and trying new, unique snacks, is a special kind of pleasure. Last night that pleasure included eating a handful of dark chocolate covered banana bites.
My first dinner was tofu stir fry, and I loved how quick this all came together. This meal took me less than 10 minutes to make, and was delicious. I am such a lazy cook, the fact that I was able to pull this together so quickly, that it’s healthy, that it’s easy, means I have to give major bonus points to Hungry Root … I’m thinking this might end up being the box I stick with because I loved the option to customize my meals in dietary categories (in my case I want to make more low grain vegetarian meals) but there are also options for gluten-free… and honestly a bunch of others that I don’t remember.
The drawback I’ve seen so far, is that you have to order this one a little bit more in advanced than some of the others. The others took about a week to arrive, this one took closer to two weeks.
Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon (connected to Martha Stewart) also had me impressed. Like Hello Fresh all the meals were labeled and separated into individual bags, making them fast and easy to find when dinner time comes. The meal I made were easy to prep and supremely delicious… possibly the most delicious of any of the meal kits I’ve tried so far… and it didn’t hurt at all that this box came with an unexpected bonus of a delicious lava chocolate cake.
Without the discount code I think Marley Spoon might be on the more expensive end of the spectrum, but if you are a foodie, I think this would be the box for you. I’m kind of a food hater, and even I couldn’t deny that these meals were magical, and savory, and interesting, and so so good.
eMeals
But my quest to try them all needed to continue. My friend had told me about eMeals, and even though it wasn’t really a subscription box, it seemed to have most of the markings of what I was looking for, so my friend sent me a code for a free two week trial and trial I did.
Here is the thing about eMeals, it’s more App than Meal Box.
They have sooo many more options that the subscription boxes each week, and they have them divided into a whole bunch of dietary categories like Kid Friendly, Gluten Free, Keto, Plant Based, Quick and Healthy, Clean Eating, Budget Friendly, Diabetic, Low Carb, Paleo, Mediterranean, Vegan and a few more. You get the point.
Each week, each of those categories have 7 new meals, and you can pick meals from any of the categories, so you can bounce between them to fill your list with as many meals as you want.
Then the app takes you to the grocery list portion, and it’s got an auto generated list based on the meals you choose, and you click off all the ingredients you already have. If you already have salt, oil, flour and the like you just click them so they don’t show up on your grocery list.
Then, then the real magic. You link the app with a grocery provider of your choice. They have a bunch of options, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Instacart, Amazon Fresh etc. You put in your zip and it tells you what stores are available around you.
Then it takes your list in this super easy way and syncs it up with whichever store you’ve chosen and searches that stores inventory, and you add what you want. Need Pasta? Here all all the pasta options Walmart has, pick the one and the amount that works for your family, click next and it auto populates the next item on the list.
When you finish with your eMeals list, you can also keep adding other things you need for the week to your cart. Need milk, cereal, diapers, and a giant bag of dark chocolate? Great, add it to the order and get all the other things you need to get through the week ordered at the same time.
Then you can schedule it to be delivered to your front door (depending on which company you are ordering it from) or you can schedule a local pickup, drive over and let them throw it in your trunk when it’s convenient for you.
When it’s time to cook, open the app, and it has all your meals stored and ready. Click on them and you’ll get the ingredients and instructions. If you cook the meal and love it you can save it to your list and add it to your weekly que any week.
This was it for me. I used it once and I was sold.
- I didn’t have to wait two weeks to get food like I did with the meal kits
- I could order the other family stuff I needed for my week
- I could order as much as I wanted, making bigger or smaller servings as needed
- I didn’t feel like I was getting super upsold for each product because I was picking it from my local grocery store and I’ve got a pretty good handle on their prices
- And the app was $5/MONTH rather than $80 PER WEEK for a curated meal kit
This post isn’t sponsored at all. I bought all these kits with my own money and no sponsorship or help from any of the companies, but honestly I’m so pleased with eMeals that I felt like you all deserved to know. I’ve been using it for a few months now, and it probably saves me three hours weekly of meal planning and shopping.
If you’re interested in trying it here is my referral code ( https://www.talkable.com/x/uXU1Nv ) It gives you a two week free trial, and $10 off for both of us if you end up signing up for it.
Closing Notes:
If you want to try the subscription food boxes go for it. If you look a few of them up on Instagram, there is a good chance you’ll start getting adds for them with discount codes, and most of them give you money off your first box trial. As soon as my boxes arrived I would log back onto whatever site and end my account, so I wouldn’t get billed again before I had a chance to see how I felt about the boxes. All of them were easy to find an no sweat to cancel for me, so don’t be intimidated to try them if they seem like a good fit for you.
I’m a few months out from having tried anything but eMeals, but if you have questions about any of it feel free to email me or drop me a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer.