I’ve been very open and sharing on social media about how I am trying many of the different meal box subscriptions. I got free or greatly discounted boxes either from friends sending referral links/codes or just for being a new customer. The whole 4-6 weeks we tried this was almost completely free! I told everyone I would give my opinion about which ones were my most and least favorites, and about which ones give the most bang for the buck. So, here is the moment you’ve all been waiting for!
If you’re not familiar with how these boxes work, I shall explain. You begin by setting up an account, then download the app for the company you are ordering from. Most all of them have apps, with the exception of one out of the handful I tried. Once you log in, you can choose how many people and portions you’d like for the week. Most offer a two or four person option and you can choose how many meals you want for the week. Some differ on this, but it’s pretty standard. Next, you browse through the week’s recipes. It’s usually around 6-7 and you choose the ones that you want you want in your box. You have a deadline to change, edit, or skip, usually by Wednesday or Thursday the week before it is to be delivered. Then, on a day you choose, your meal box is delivered. It arrives in an insulated box, packed on ice packs. The food is only the exact amount you need of each ingredient for each recipe. So, if the recipe calls for a quarter cup of red wine vinegar, or three cloves of garlic, that is all they send. Everything contained within is recyclable and all companies encourage recycling. Most of the services separate everything by meal so you know what goes together. But they contain recipe cards for each meal that are super easy to follow!
First up for us was Blue Apron. I waited on that delivery so excitedly, I think I checked the front porch every hour. When it arrived, I met my FedEx guy mid-yard and he asked me if we liked these things. I eagerly told him it was our first time! He said this one was definitely the one he sees most and seemed to be a favorite. I was so surprised to open and see how everything was done. The tiny containers of ingredients and spices were so precious!! And from a branding standpoint, it was super cohesive, which pleased my obsessive and compulsive tendencies.
I’m an adventurous eater, and would eat pretty much any recipe out there. Our kids are 11 and 2, and my husband and son are picky eaters. So, I knew it would be a challenge to find recipes that we would all be on board with. We went with the Spice Rubbed Beef Roast and the Chicken Lo Mein. Both got the thumbs up from the entire family! I was surprised that the kids wanted to be involved in the cooking and that they tried new things! I hadn’t thought about doing a blog post about this yet, so I didn’t take a pic of the meals. But, I did snap a pic of the leftovers for my hubby who would enjoy them later after work. I was floored that the kids and I could eat and this much was left over! I did tweak the recipe a bit to suit our taste. Instead of vinegar marinated shallots, for instance, I did a crispy fried shallot since we aren’t huge on raw onions of any sort. Not much liberty was taken with the lo mein but we did add a little soy sauce and sriracha for some kick. I was impressed with the fresh noodles. Toddler was a HUGE fan. All of it was enjoyed! 
Next up was Sun Basket. The thing that drew me to this was the ingredients and dietary options. The ingredients were farm-to-table, organic, non-gmo, and options were available for Paleo (which is how I eat and am getting the family on board), gluten free, dairy free, nut free, vegetarian, soy free, and low calorie. The recipes seemed more flavorful and unique. When the box came, it just made me smile because it was so pretty and happy!
It seemed to be a little more expensive, but totally worth the little extra for the quality. We chose Swedish Meatballs and Tofu Ramen for our first two meals. And I figured out that I was going to need to write about this and take obsessive pics before eating.
Obviously, that was glorious and there wasn’t a crumb left. The lingonberry jam on this was ridiculously good!
Here’s the ramen, which I was thrilled to make. The dashi (broth) they sent was amazing and I was so happy to see what real, fresh ramen noodles looked like. I felt like a freakin pro. Hubby and son were not a fan of the tofu, but it was smoked and I was obsessed. So yummy!!
These recipes needed no tweaking at all. I was in love with Sun Basket already, but still had a few more to try. The boys needed more convincing. But the little lady was clearly becoming a huge fan of noodles and ate them with her hands like a proper gargoyle.
Next, we moved on to Hello Fresh! This one really seemed to be popular amongst our friends. It was a joy beyond compare that they had breakfasts included in their plans! It’s the most important meal of the day and I normally skip it, but this made me excited to cook in the morning! Our first recipe was not the breakfast, but the Juicy Lucy Burger with onion and tomato jam. 
I’m just gonna leave this here. Even this doesn’t begin to do it justice. Yes, that is cheese oozing from within over there on the left. 
It was one of the best burgers I have ever had.
Our second meal was the Grilled Cheese tacos. I’ve always wanted to work with halloumi cheese, but never had until this. It was every bit as amazing as I imagined. These tacos were tip top, but for some reason I didn’t snap a photo in time. Probably the morning rush. But here is the photo from their app. The only issue was that the avocado wasn’t ripened enough to eat. 
Our next meal was supposed to be pork tenderloin and cauliflower mash. It sure looked pretty, but three of the ingredients were not so fresh, and we ended up not being able to cook it. We spoke with customer service, and they were kind and gave us another box on the house, which we have yet to use. The recipe selections are always great and a nice balance of classics and adventure meals. Despite the slight hitch, we really liked everything! 
Next up were Home Chef and Plated, which I hadn’t heard of until friends recommended. Home Chef was difficult for me to find recipes. They seemed a bit basic and boring for my taste. But so many friends love it, so I gave it a chance. These were the recipes we chose .
I cooked the pork tenderloin for my kids and parents. Daughter and folks loved it. Son was meh. It was tasty and easy, and I always love cooking for my parents! But I wasn’t super impressed with anything. The fig jam and goat cheese were the star of the dish.
But the pizza was also not great. It literally came with packets of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce and packets of ranch dressing. The pizza crusts were already made. They were super bland. The chicken was only seasoned with salt and pepper and roasted in the oven. Boring. Basic. Easy. We ate one, and the other one sat in the fridge until someone was desperate enough to eat it. What bothers me so much about this is that I am adamantly against processed foods and table sugar these days. Of course no one law in my house cares, but I’m a nutritional therapist. I do a lot of research of what makes people sick and overweight, because of my own struggle with chronic pain, mood disorders, blood sugar issues, and weight gain. The more I study, The more I find that foods with a label are one of the root causes of illness and weight gain. They are not beneficial to the body, and that is one of the reasons I wanted to cook at home more. Convenience eating is the downfall of many, including myself, and I was surprised that this service cut corners in that way. I can’t rationalize paying for that (and I did pay some for this box). I canceled the subscription immediately. Then a week later got an email saying my order was on its way! After sending an email saying I had canceled, they claimed I didn’t, charged me anyway, and the extra food went in our freezer. Not the best experience!
Plated was semi-good. We had a Parmesan Crusted Chicken with “Caesar” salad. The chicken was good, but not great. The salad was ghetto Caesar, or as coined by my son, bootleg Caesar. It was romaine lettuce and tomatoes, but the dressing was mayo, lemon juice, and anchovy paste. I love that my 11-year-old’s discerning palate was able to detect this falsehood at an early age! I quite enjoyed it and so did the little miss, but I will admit it definitely didn’t taste like Caesar dressing. If you’re gonna use packets, why not just give me a packet of Caesar and call it a day? No photo of the finished product, but it looked exactly like the picture on the recipe card. Except it was a quick and easy recipe, so the corners cut to save time meant that the Parmesan/breadcrumb coating fell off every time you cut a piece off.
We also had a Carne Asada Burger with yucca fries. It wouldn’t have been carne asada if I hadn’t used my own spices to flavor the burger. Their recipe called for only salt and pepper, so I’m not sure what that was about. I’d give it another chance, but Plated was not my favorite. Some of their other recipes look better and I will probably revisit later. They offer dessert for an additional cost, if you’re into that.
I thought I was done, but Martha Stewart’s Marley Spoon popped up in my Facebook feed. Thanks, algorithm! With this one, you are not limited to people and portions. You choose how many portions of each meal you want (I think there’s a minimum), and the price changes accordingly. Not bad, Martha! We had a crazy week and for some reason, we had to cook all of the meals in one day. I want to say this one wasn’t as well organized as the others, which is surprising. But I could be wrong! All of this is starting to run together! We had fried chicken sandwiches, root veggie fries, ginger beef fried rice, and baby bok choy and radish salad. All of it was amazing. No tweaking necessary. Just yum and everyone loved it! We had tons left over.
Bless you if you’re still reading and have made it this far! Almost done!
The last one was Green Chef. Also organic and dietary restriction friendly. But they charge more for paleo meals. Thought we would try it and see if it was worth the price. Jury is still out on that one. It was close to $100/week for three dinners for two, where others are closer to the $60-80 range. They don’t let you choose your meals, so you just get whatever three meals they have that week. Ours were Cajun Cod with Swiss chard, zucchini and peppers (pictured below and damn good for someone who doesn’t like cooked fish so much), Pork Burrito bowl with cauliflower rice, and Red Curry Chicken with sweet potato mash and garam masala slaw. We didn’t get to some of these in time and kinda had to combine two of the meals. But they were all super flavorful, even so. This one had the most in the negative category even though it was probably the most delicious. No meal choice, more expensive, and nothing was organized at all when it arrived. They also do not currently have an app.
We got a Sun Basket that week too and decided it was way too much and some of the ingredients went bad. My advice is if you can’t cook it within 2-3 days, don’t get it. Or maybe limit to less meals per week. We would freeze the meat and intend cook later, but would find that some of the produce and other ingredients would go bad. Coconut milk was a repeat offender on that front. I wasn’t aware that it could ferment that quickly! But if anything goes bad too fast, the services will most likely give you a discount on your next order.
My intention was to pick a winner, and for me, it was Sun Basket. I think Hello Fresh was a close second, with Blue Apron rounding out my top three. But there are too many factors to really commit to that answer! It depends on your needs and tastes as an individual, couple, or family. It depends on time you have, everyone’s appetites, and budget. My sister mentioned that they have larger appetites in their family with a 13 year old who is already 6’4″! I personally loathe shopping, and when I try to plan recipes for the week, I get stressed out trying to find something we all like, then I end up buying too much and the excess rots in the crisper drawer. So, it’s nice and worth every penny for me to let someone else take the guesswork out of it. I look forward to my boxes every week. I have rediscovered my passion for cooking. I have healthy leftovers to take to work for lunch! We are trying new things! I’m sticking on my dietary needs better than ever! After a busy day at work, I am happy to come home and enjoy a meal at the table with my kids. We are actually spending less since we really don’t buy many groceries anymore.
I give the whole extravaganza an A++++. Hope this helps you get a better idea of what’s what and how they all work. If you want to try any or all, I would love to send referral links for free or discounted boxes. If you order, I’ll get credit on my account. Please do this! I worked hard on this blog, so I hope someone will throw me a bone! Haha! I’ll post some links on social media, but if you follow this blog sans social involvement, just comment here and I’ll hook you up!
Buon appetito a tutti!
It Doesn't Hurt 