You still have other meals every day you need to think about! Planning your meals is self-explanatory- you create a meal plan and grocery list for the week, then cook all of your meals at home.

Buying groceries is usually cheaper than eating out or having your meals delivered. Savvy Tip: Like the convenience of having your meals delivered to your home but not the price of the meal kit services? It has more great tips and ideas!

Want to batch cook for the month and freeze the dishes? My Freeze Easy can help you get started with their free Quick Start Guide. Meal delivery is a great alternative if you eat out more or grab to-go meals from the grocery store. However, if you cook at home more and are very frugal about grocery shopping, it could cost more than getting groceries yourself and meal planning.

As a busy mom, I say these are most worth the cost when your family is really busy; meal kits help prevent food waste or eating out. Prepared meals are literally all put together for you, and just need to go into the microwave, govern, or skillet to heat up. Meal kits are all the ingredients for a recipe delivered to you with a recipe and directions so you can whip up the whole meal yourself.

It may be cheaper because it specifically offers kid meals rather than meals for adults or families. I like this service because it offers a family plan to make sure you have enough food to go around.

In my opinion, HelloFresh offers the most variety of meals, including great vegetarian options that could fit your weight loss plan. But check out the other meal delivery services to see other meal plans and see what fits best with your visions.

Cheap meal delivery services are a great way to get dinner on the table without any hassles and at a reasonable price. Most have easy-to-follow recipes, take the guesswork out of shopping for ingredients, and are easy to use. Most meal delivery services are also super convenient. Delivery services offer a wide variety of meal kits and prepared meals that make dinner times go faster.

All in all, meal delivery services are a great way to spend less time cooking and more time enjoying your family! Hi, I'm Brittany Kline! A organization, productivity, and home systems expert. With my master's degree in education and life experience as a mom I help other moms simplify and organize their entires lives.

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Pei Wei SW 37th Ave 40—55 min. McAlister's Deli NW 87 Avenue. McAlister's Deli NW 87 Avenue 35—50 min. But these services can range quite a bit in price, with some costing even two or three times as much as others. This can make it particularly challenging for anyone on a tight budget to find an option that works for them.

We included an assortment of both prepared meals — which can typically be heated in the microwave or oven with no meal prep required — and meal kits, which include preportioned ingredients and recipe cards so you can make your own meals at home. Keep reading for 5 of the best affordable delivery services in , along with our feedback on each service and a closer look at how they compare.

As part of our testing, we consider several factors, including the ease of the signup and meal selection process, the variety and nutritional composition of the meals offered, ingredient quality and freshness, ease of cooking, and, of course, the taste.

We score them accordingly. Learn more about how we test meal kits. Each service in this article:. There are a few factors you may want to consider when selecting a meal delivery service to ensure that the company fits your lifestyle and budget:.

Meal delivery prices can range quite a bit. If you regularly dine out or order takeout, a meal delivery service could save you money, depending on the service you choose. But compared with buying groceries and cooking meals at home, meal delivery services tend to be more expensive.

Meal delivery services can range quite a bit in price, making it challenging for people on a budget to find suitable options.

But several cost-effective services are available, many of which offer options to fit some dietary restrictions and food preferences. When deciding which meal delivery service is right for you, consider factors such as variety, quality, cost, availability, and ingredients.

Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available. VIEW ALL HISTORY. These Black-owned companies check all the marks for freshness, flavor, and elevating Blackness in the food industry.

Dinnerly is an affordable meal kit service that provides quick recipes and the ingredients you need to prepare them.

We put Dinnerly to the test to…. While they're not typically able to prescribe, nutritionists can still benefits your overall health. Let's look at benefits, limitations, and more. A new study found that healthy lifestyle choices — including being physically active, eating well, avoiding smoking and limiting alcohol consumption —….

Carb counting is complicated. Take the quiz and test your knowledge! Together with her husband, Kansas City Chiefs MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Brittany Mohomes shares how she parents two children with severe food….

While there are many FDA-approved emulsifiers, European associations have marked them as being of possible concern. Let's look deeper:. Researchers have found that a daily multivitamin supplement was linked with slowed cognitive aging and improved memory.

Read more: Are Some Meal Kits Cheaper Than Buying Groceries? I Did the Math. If you're looking for inexpensive vegan meals by mail or an affordable meal kit service that includes steak and seafood in the standard plan, we have picks for those, too.

The takeaway? Being budget-friendly certainly doesn't mean the food has to suck. If you're looking to eliminate a few weekly tasks -- grocery shopping, meal planning, prep, cooking -- without squeezing your budget, we tested more than 10 top wallet-friendly services to find the best cheap meal delivery for The bottom line : EveryPlate's meal kits were all solid and easy to make.

EveryPlate meal kits are easy to prepare and I loved everything I made in multiple rounds of testing. You won't find a lot of foofy, upscale cuisine or complicated recipes, but you will get a lot of satisfying comfort food, such as hoisin meatloaf with mashed potatoes, cheeseburgers, umami pork chops and sweet potato quesadillas.

I tested EveryPlate and was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the meals. Having tested all of the leading prepared meal delivery service options, Fresh N Lean ran away from the competition, ticking more boxes than any other.

The food is healthy, thoughtfully prepared, tastes fantastic, looks appetizing and is fairly affordable, depending on the plan you select. Fresh N Lean has five meal plans to help keep folks on track with their specific nutrition goals, including low-carb, vegan, paleo and protein-plus options.

The food I tried was all made exceptionally well, made from simple, whole ingredients. This is the perfect service for families with picky eaters trying to eat well on a budget.

Much like EveryPlate, Dinnerly has a lot of comfort foods such as ravioli with spinach and parmesan sauce, carne asada tacos and chicken pad thai. Dinnerly has an enormous menu of recipes -- typically more than 60 to choose from in a given week.

The bottom line: This plant-based meal delivery service had some of the best, healthy prepared meals of any service we tried. I sampled about nine of Mosaic Food's plant-based prepared meal offerings and the vegetarian prepared meal delivery service had an astoundingly high hit rate.

Mosaic uses bold and interesting global flavors and employs creative use of meat substitutes such as tofu, jackfruit, cauliflower and vegan sausages to create tasty and satisfying vegetarian meals -- even for this omnivore. There are some vegan meals, but many of them use dairy products, so vegans must choose their Mosaic meals more carefully.

The bottom line: Blue Apron is a classic example of a quality meal delivery service. One of the original providers of this service, it also stands out for eco-friendliness.

Blue Apron is one of the original meal kit services and it's also one of the best. In fact, Blue Apron topped our list of best meal delivery services for with a wide range of excellent recipes, all for an affordable price.

It's true, you can order bistro steaks and roasted trout dinners with Blue Apron's standard plan, where many services charge extra for those premium proteins.

In addition to solid meal kits, Blue Apron is the most eco-friendly service of the major players, according to a recent study.

The heartier meals are great too, like the cauliflower rice and pesto harvest bowl with cashews and spinach. You won't need more than a saucepan, toaster or blender to prepare most of the meals, and most can be made in as little as 5 minutes.

When I tried Daily Harvest , I loved the interesting smoothie combos such as a chocolate blueberry smoothie with greens, banana and almond butter. The bottom line : It doesn't get much easier than HelloFresh. This service has tons of cheap meal kit options, more than 50 per week, and allows you to add proteins or extra servings to keep the whole crew fed and happy.

HelloFresh has as many as 25 dinner meal kits per week, so it is nearly impossible not to find something you'll like. HelloFresh also has five or six plant-based recipes a week, making it the best cheap meal kit service for vegetarians.

Over the past few years, we've tested nearly every meal kit delivery and prepared meal delivery service we could get our oven mitts on, and that includes the best budget meal delivery services. Many of the menu options for the meal delivery services we've listed include nutritious plant-based food or high-protein recipes with lots of veggies and lean meats.

To test each cheap meal delivery service, I tried at least four and sometimes as many as 10 meals from any given service. I always choose a range of meals from the various menu and meal plan offerings. For instance, if a meal subscription service offers vegan or vegetarian meals I was sure to try at least one.

I also mixed up the cuisine types to include pasta, meat dishes, bowls and other various styles offered by the brand. To test the best cheap meal kits, there was another set of standards and protocols to adhere to. Here's more on how we test meal kits at CNET.

The first big decision you'll make is whether you want meal kits, which require some prep and cooking, or a prepared meal service that sends fully cooked meals ready to heat and eat.

Prepared meals require almost no time and energy, other than what it takes to actually eat the food, but typically run a few dollars more per serving.

If you're keen on eating low-calorie, low-carb, plant-based or pescatarian food, certain meal kits and meal delivery services are better than others. Our list of the healthiest meal delivery services for is a good place to find the most nutritious options.

With almost every service, the more meals or servings are in your order per delivery, the cheaper it becomes per meal.

Ideally, you'll want to determine exactly how much food makes sense for your household. That means it's less of an issue if you order too many meals on your first go-around. Services like Daily Harvest and Splendid Spoon have meals for similar prices but are focused more on grain bowls and smoothies and might be better for breakfast or lunch versus dinner.

When it comes to meal kits, your options are many, and most services provide weekly recipes that are low on calories but still filling. HelloFresh has the most recipes per week of any meal kit service, so that might be your best bet for finding consistent meals that keep your diet goals on track.

But all services list the calorie content for each recipe, along with carbs, protein, sugar and sodium. Depending on your weight loss goals, a healthy prepared meal delivery or meal kit service can help.

Fresh N Lean, Pete's Real Food and Daily Harvest all have low-calorie meals to choose from. Some of the services listed here are healthy prepared meal delivery services , sending fully cooked meals -- often frozen or partially frozen -- and ready to eat when you receive them.

Others include health-focused meal kits with premeasured ingredients all boxed up and ready for easy weeknight cooking. Our list of the healthiest meal delivery services for is a good place to find all the most nutritious options.

Lastly, you'll want to hone in on exactly how much food you'll want sent to you per week. Most services allow you to change the number of meals or servings in your plan even after you've started.

With nearly every service, the more meals your order per delivery, the cheaper it is per meal. All the meal delivery services may look delicious in their website glamour shots, but that's certainly not enough to convince me.

To settle on this list of the best meal delivery service I tried as many as we could get our hands on, noting everything about them from freshness and flavor to ordering, packaging and delivery.

Testing meal kits for CNET means rolling up our sleeves and cooking at least one week's worth of meals from each service, often more. How each meal kit tastes, how easy it was to prepare and the portion sizes are all considered. We also evaluate the website and how easy it is to navigate along with determining how easy it is to pause, cancel or change your order at any given time.

To learn more, we have an in-depth look at how we test meal kits here at CNET. To test each meal delivery service, we tried at least five and sometimes as many as 10 meals from any given service. I choose a range of meals from the various menu and meal plan offerings and took note of the ordering process, recipe variety and information available.

I reheated meals according to the instructions. If there were none, I heated them the way I would if left to my own devices. Often that meant warming gently in a nonstick skillet or reheating in my air fryer. Many of the meal delivery services offer a microwave heating option, but I almost always found that produced worse results than my trusted methods, even if they typically take a few seconds longer.

Not all meal kits are created equally. Some services are much better depending on your dietary preferences, budget and culinary skill level. If you're looking to cut some of the legwork out of dinner, meal kits and prepared meal services are definitely worth it.

The most budget-friendly services cost about the same as buying all the groceries you'd need to make the same meal, with the convenience of having all the ingredients or a box of fully prepared meals sent to your home each week.

That's definitely cheaper than eating out or getting restaurant food delivered, and about the same cost as buying the groceries needed to make the same meals.

In a previous story, we crunched the numbers to find out how much meal kits cost versus buying the same groceries.

In reviews and best lists, Blue Apron and HelloFresh are two of the most popular meal kit services for Fresh N Lean and Factor are some of the most popular options for prepared meal subscriptions.

Wellness Nutrition. Best Meal Delivery Services of We've tested and reviewed more than two dozen meal delivery services. Written by David Watsky. Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks.

If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement. David lives in Brooklyn where he's spent more than a decade covering all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools and cooking tips.

Since earning a BA in English from Northeastern in Boston, he's toiled in nearly every aspect of the food business, including as a line cook in Rhode Island where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom.

Right now, he's likely somewhere stress-testing a blender or researching the best way to make bacon. Anything with sesame is his all-time favorite food this week. Expertise Kitchen tools, appliances, food science, subscriptions and meal kits.

See full bio. Why You Can Trust CNET. Table of Contents Top. Best Meal Delivery Services of What's the best meal delivery service? Best meal delivery services of Home Chef. Meal delivery services compared. Factors to consider when choosing a meal delivery service.

How we tested meal kit services. Other meal delivery services we tested. Meal delivery service FAQs. See at Blue Apron. Best for meal kits. See at Factor. Best meal delivery service for weight loss.

See at Pete's Paleo. Best for gluten-free meal delivery service. See at CookUnity. Best meal delivery with a variety of recipes. See at Mosaic Foods. Best for prepared plant-based meal delivery.

See at HelloFresh. Best meal delivery service for families. See at Purple Carrot. Best plant-based meal kit service. See at Green Chef. Best for organic meal kits.

See at EveryPlate. Cheapest meal kit service. See at Fresh N' Lean. Best prepared meal delivery service. See at Home Chef. Best meal kits for eating keto. FILTER BY all Meal Kit Prepared Meal. Showing 11 of 11 Results. Show less. Pros Steak and seafood options are included in a standard meal plan Affordable if you choose more than two recipes per week.

Cons Fewer recipe options than other services Doesn't allow for much customization. Type Meal kit. Recipes per week Good for Vegetarian, pescatarian, diabetes-friendly, low-calorie, picky eaters, quick meals.

Diet types: Vegetarian, diabetes-friendly, wellness, family-friendly, fast and easy. See at Blue Apron Best for meal kits Blue Apron.

Show expert take Show less. Pros Tons of healthy menu options per week Healthy food to service most diets and nutrition plans. Cons Expensive if you only choose a few meals per week Quality was somewhat inconsistent.

Take the quiz and test your knowledge! Together with her husband, Kansas City Chiefs MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Brittany Mohomes shares how she parents two children with severe food…. While there are many FDA-approved emulsifiers, European associations have marked them as being of possible concern.

Let's look deeper:. Researchers have found that a daily multivitamin supplement was linked with slowed cognitive aging and improved memory.

Dietitians can help you create a more balanced diet or a specialized one for a variety of conditions. We look at their benefits and limitations. Liquid collagen supplements might be able to reduce some effects of aging, but research is ongoing and and there may be side effects.

A Quiz for Teens Are You a Workaholic? How Well Do You Sleep? Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Nutrition Evidence Based The 6 Cheapest Meal Delivery Services. Medically reviewed by Alissa Palladino, MS, RDN, LD, CPT , Nutrition , Personal Training — By Rachael Ajmera, MS, RD — Updated on November 28, On this page Our picks Comparison table How we tested How to choose FAQ Bottom line.

How we vet brands and products Healthline only shows you brands and products that we stand behind. Our team thoroughly researches and evaluates the recommendations we make on our site. To establish that the product manufacturers addressed safety and efficacy standards, we: Evaluate ingredients and composition: Do they have the potential to cause harm?

Fact-check all health claims: Do they align with the current body of scientific evidence? Assess the brand: Does it operate with integrity and adhere to industry best practices?

We do the research so you can find trusted products for your health and wellness. Read more about our vetting process. Was this helpful? Share on Pinterest. Comparison of the best cheap meal delivery services.

How we test meal delivery services. Each service in this article: is in compliance with U. Department of Agriculture USDA and Food and Drug Administration FDA food safety and manufacturing regulations uses a trusted shipper to handle its food products lists all ingredients, allergens, and nutrition facts on its website or product packaging promotes a healthy approach to well-being does not make unsupported health claims on its website or marketing materials.

How to choose an affordable meal delivery service. Frequently asked questions.