Best Healthy Meal Kit Delivery Services for Busy Families

Getting dinner ready for a busy family can be challenging when you’re a busy, working parent with an active family schedule. But meal prep and delivery services have come in to rescue overwhelmed parents from the daily question, “What’s for dinner?” Although I was not initially a fan of these services, I can see the benefit of these services to families who simply struggle to make a meal plan for the week and prep healthy meals at home. If you’ve been frazzled by creating healthy meals at home – and ending up at the takeout restaurant or drive-thru more often than you’d like – maybe it’s time to look at the possibilities of a meal kit delivery service to see if meal kit services are a good fit for your family.

I’ve rounded up my top picks for meal kit delivery services. Many of the delivery services are now catering to busy, active, and health-conscious families. I drilled down into these services to give you a clear picture of what to expect from each. The information below is accurate as of the writing of this post, but I encourage you to check out each site for yourself to explore the options.

Healthy Meal Kit Delivery Services for Busy Families

Blue Apron

Blue Apron makes it easy for busy families to prepare healthy meals week after week. Their kits include pre-measured ingredients and step-by-step recipes for three meals that feed a family of two, four, or six. They offer six recipe options each week.

Blue Apron’s kits are packaged for less food waste as everything is pre-portioned. Their plan is flexible and you can skip a week if none of the items appeal to you. Another bonus is that meals can be personalized for food sensitivities, allergies, or other preferences like red meat, fish, or shellfish.

Price: Starting at $8.99 per serving

Where does Blue Apron deliver: Nationwide (except Hawaii and Alaska).

How they deliver: Ingredients are carefully packaged in a refrigerated box so food stays fresh even if you’re not home when we deliver.

What we love about Blue Apron: Blue Apron is all about providing their “home chefs” with non-GMO ingredients.

What we’d love even more: We’d love to see more organic products on the menu!

Fresh N’ Lean

Fresh n’ Lean offers ready-made meals that are made with organic, whole-food ingredients. In addition, all of their meals are dairy-free, gluten-free, and soy-free. They offer a variety of meal plans including Keto, Plant-based, Paleo, Low carb, and protein. All your meals are kept fresh (never frozen) using vacuum-sealed packages and refrigerated boxes.

Meals are pre-cooked so you just need to chill them until you’re ready to eat; then heat them and enjoy.

Price: Based on the meal plan selected; vegan standard is the lowest-priced plan at $7.93 per meal.

Where they deliver: Nationwide.

How they deliver: 

What we love about Fresh N’ Lean: We love how customizable their meals are. There’s a meal for every diet!

What we’d love even more: Can’t really think of anything.

Freshly

Freshly offers fully-cooked, chef-prepared meals for delivery. These are perfect if you’re time-pressed as their healthy meals for busy families are sent straight to your door ready to eat. When they arrive, they’re ready to eat right away. No work on your part! You can choose from four, six, nine, or twelve meals per week. They are constantly rotating the meal choices, so you and the family will never be bored.

Price: Starting at $8.99 per meal

Where they deliver: 21 states across the country, and expanding.

How they deliver: You do not need to be home. Your Freshly box is insulated and packed with ice to ensure that your meals stay nice and cold on your doorstep, waiting to be refrigerated when you get home.

What we love about Freshly: Meals are fully cooked when they arrive. If you’re really pressed for time this might be the healthy meal kit for you.

What we’d love even more: Nothing besides wishing their entire menu were organic.

Green Chef

At last, a USDA-certified organic healthy meal kit! Green Chef meals won’t contain any growth hormones, antibiotics, synthetic pesticides, or GMOs. This is one of the healthy meal kit delivery services for a family that is big on clean eating. Green Chef offers five different menu types including carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian, keto, paleo, and gluten-free. And their packages are color-coded, each containing three recipes and ingredients to feed two or four family members.

Their flexible plans allow you to try different recipes week by week and skip whenever you like. And their meals can be prepared in under 30 minutes!

Price: Starting at $10.49 per meal

Where they deliver: Nationwide (except Hawaii, Alaska, and parts of Louisiana).

How they deliver: Green Chef boxes are packaged with an all-natural material made from jute, which provides really good insulation.

What we love about Green Chef: Um, all of their meals are organic.

What we’d love even more: Can’t really think of anything.

Hello Fresh

Hello Fresh helps you whip up tasty meals with simple recipes and fresh ingredients every week. Each of their boxes contains easy-to-follow recipes with clear nutritional info. They offer fresh ingredients sourced from farms.

Most of their meals take no more than 30 minutes to prepare. The Family Plan feeds a family of four and has the option of two or three recipes per week. There’s a Veggie Plan which offers vegetarian recipes with plant-based proteins, grains, and seasonal produce. The Hello Fresh subscription plan is flexible and allows you to skip a week. For instance, if you’re not a fan of certain ingredients, you can always skip that week by canceling before your weekly cut-off.

Price: Starts at $8.74 per serving

Where they deliver: Nationwide (except Hawaii and Alaska)

How they deliver: You don’t need to be home to accept your delivery. Hello Fresh boxes are layered with insulating liners and ice packs to keep ingredients cool until you get home.

What we love about Hello Fresh: Their meals are fresh and sourced from local farmers. And the plans are flexible and can be customized to any family size.

What we’d love even more: Currently they offer only dinner meals. We’d love to see options for lunch and breakfast!

One Potato

One Potato offers fully-prepped meal kits of fresh, organic food for busy families. Subscribers choose from their two, three, four, five, or six potato plans (how cute!). We love the One Potato pricing because it’s customized for kid-sized meals. You never feel you’re over-paying for meals that may be too large for your kids. And the best part? Their meals are organic!! Oh, we already mentioned that, didn’t we?

One Potato meal delivery kits include ingredients that are measured, chopped, ready to prepare. Their meals also include a little bonus treat each week (their special organic slice-and-bake cookie dough. YUM!).

Price: Starting at $12.95 per serving

Where they deliver: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Utah with more locations coming soon

How they deliver: Your One Potato meals are packed in a recyclable, insulated box.

What we love about One Potato: 

What we’d love even more: A broader variety of weekly surprises. Cookie dough? Every week!? That’s not really a surprise.

Plated

Plated no longer offers meal kit delivery. To see what they’re up to now, visit their website.

Purple Carrot

Whatever diet you follow, you can’t dispute that having more veggies on your plate is part of a healthy eating plan. And Purple Carrot helps you and your family to achieve just that with their healthy, plant-based meals. Their plans are customizable for any family size. And what differentiates them from other healthy meal kit delivery services is that their meals include a Regular option or their High-Performance option which is higher in protein and always gluten-free. Both plan options are for three meals per week. Just choose from the available recipes each week and your box will arrive with fresh, perfectly portioned ingredients that are ready to cook and enjoy.

Price: Starting at $12 per plate

Where they deliver: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and West Coast regions

How they deliver: Boxes include high-quality, reliable insulation and ice packs which work together to keep your food at a stable, cold temperature throughout shipping and delivery and fresh for up to 72 hours depending on outside weather conditions.

What we love about Purple Carrot: The Purple Carrot meal plan leaves no question about the amount of plant-based nutrition you’re getting at every meal.

What we’d love even more: More recipe options. I only saw three options when I visited the menu page on the website.

Veestro

Veestro delivers organic, plant-based meals that are fully prepared. This service is the perfect option for vegans and vegetarians as well as those seeking more plant-based meals to include in their usual diets.

They offer gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free, low calorie, high protein, and kosher options. And all their ingredients are preservative-free.

You have the option to order meals a la carte or choose from the chef’s choice or weight loss plans.

Price: Starting at $9.90 per meal on the 30 meals/month plan.

Where they deliver: Nationwide (except Hawaii and Alaska).

How they deliver: They ship orders via FedEx with no signature required. Your order will arrive in an insulated shipping container and shipped with dry ice to keep your meals frozen.

What we love about Veestro: The Veestro menu is super simple to understand. Rather than trying to offer every option under the Sun, they give a few options for their ideal subscriber, who is vegan, vegetarian, or someone looking to include more plant-based meals in their diet. Pretty simple, right!?

What we’d love even more: Can’t think of anything.

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