9 best prepared meal delivery services in 2025, tested by our editors
Prepared meal delivery services can take the stress and time spent huddled in a corner at the grocery store out of your weekly routine.
Factor
$67.45
$134.90
Here are the most important factors experts say to keep in mind when shopping for a prepared meal delivery service:
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All of the meal delivery services below offer single-serve, ready-to-eat meals. Some also offer additional meal kit options.
Get $130 off, plus free wellness shots for life with code NBCSELECT130 through Factor’s website.
Factor has a weekly rotating menu of over 30 prepared meals designed by dietitians. Lisa Young, an adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University, recommends this service because it caters to many diets and dietary needs, including keto, paleo, low-carb, vegetarian, plant-based and high-protein. You can choose from five plans, ranging from four meals per week up to 18 meals per week.
I tried Factor after the brand sent me a few boxes, and I found the meals to be both delicious and convenient — after a long day at work, I simply popped them into the oven and they were ready to eat in under 10 minutes. Though they don’t look the prettiest in their container, the meals are tasty and varied, which made me excited to eat dinner at the end of the day. I’m also someone who struggles with portion control, so these single-serve meals are satisfying and help me avoid that uncomfortably full feeling.
Experts also like that the service has a great price point for the quality of meals: “Factor is incredibly reasonably priced for the quality of health-oriented food they offer,” says Resnick.
Cookunity has multiple plans depending on how many meals you want to receive, with subscriptions ranging from four to 16 meals per week. You can make your selections from a rotating menu of ready-to-eat options each week or have the service pick for you based on your preferences, including your choices of protein and any dietary restrictions like vegetarian, vegan, low-carb and gluten-free.
“The convenience is unbeatable — it also offers a ton of gluten-free and pescatarian options, so I didn’t feel limited by the menu at all,” says NBC Select reporter Zoe Malin. However, Malin did have to take out a few components of meals before microwaving them, like a kale salad or coleslaw, which was tricky and caused her to do more dishes (normally, she would reheat and eat meals out of the same disposable containers they came in). “This didn’t take away from eating the meal, but it did make prep more involved — if I was in a rush or wanted to heat something up at the office, it would be frustrating,” says Malin.
Cookunity is also a favorite of NBC Select SEO editor Nikki Brown, who loves browsing and picking her meals each week. “It feels like grocery shopping, except I don’t have to push a cart or carry bags,” she says. There’s something for every type of diet, and the vegan and vegetarian options are hearty and filling, according to Brown. The meals are also easy to prepare: “All I have to do is remove the film and pop it into the oven for 15-30 minutes, depending on what it is,” says Brown.
You can flag any allergies or foods you don’t like, and the service will notify you if they appear in any meals on the menu. “I appreciate that they provide full ingredient lists, down to the individual ingredients in cheeses,” says Ariane Resnick, a special diet chef and certified nutritionist. The meals come in a reusable bag that you can send back to the company instead of having to break down boxes every week. The meals are fresh and have a refrigerated shelf life of about four to seven days, according to Cookunity.
BistroMD is a single-serve, individualized plan, so this may not be a good option if you’re looking to feed a family or yourself and a partner. It lets you choose from over 150 chef-prepared meals based on your dietary needs. Lisa Moskovitz, a registered dietitian and CEO of NY Nutrition Group, recommends this service because it has various health-conscious plans — you can pick from five different programs: signature, gluten-free, heart healthy, diabetic and menopause. Each week, you’ll be able to customize which meals you receive.
The service also has an EATS (Essential And Tasty Snacks) program that provides healthy snacking options for either five or seven days for an additional charge, as well as a Men’s Snack Program that costs an additional $53 for three snacks a day for seven days, and a Women’s Snack Program that costs an additional $35 for two snacks daily for seven days.
Purple Carrot has both prepared meals and meal kits, all of which are plant-based and include several gluten-free options. “Because it’s fully plant-based, Purple Carrot is an easy way for people to add more plant foods into their diets without having to fully convert to veganism,” says Resnick. She calls the meals a perfect mix of “familiar and innovative,” with options like kimchi grilled cheese and Baklava overnight oats.
Malin tried Purple Carrot after the brand sent her a few pre-made options, and she loves the convenience and taste of the meals. “When it comes to prepared vegetarian and vegan meals, I often find that they’re either bland or overly seasoned to make up for the fact that they’re boring. But Purple Carrot’s were genuinely delicious,” says Malin, who took the microwavable meals to work. “The pre-filled tray fit in my lunch box and I looked forward to eating it halfway through the day.”
You can customize the number of meals you get per week, ranging from six to 10 frozen meals. Deliveries take place on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays depending on your shipping location, and you can choose to skip a delivery on any given week.
Home Chef’s weekly rotating menu has a Fast & Fresh section with multiple microwave-ready meals, as well as oven-ready meals that lets you throw pre-chopped ingredients in a pan and heat them up with minimal prep and clean up, according to the service. Keep in mind that Home Chef is first and foremost a meal kit delivery service, which means its prepared meal options are limited each week: Within its weekly menu of more than 30 meals to choose from, Home Chef offers about 10 prepared options. However, it’s great for families who hope to rotate their meal kits with oven- and microwave-ready meals to cut down on cooking time each week, according to my experts. The service also has a family plan with four-serving oven-ready meals.
Before ordering, you’ll be prompted to take a quiz that personalizes your menu based on your taste, serving size and delivery preferences. When looking at individual menu options, each meal shows the estimated time it takes to heat up. Home Chef also lets you customize the type and amount of protein you want in each meal (including low-calorie and vegetarian options), which makes it a great option for people who want variety or those with certain dietary restrictions, says Ben Leonard, chef and culinary manager for GreenPan. With that said, it may not be the best option for people who are indecisive or picky eaters, says Leonard.
Sunbasket is made for those who follow specific diets like gluten-free, paleo and diabetes-friendly. On its weekly rotating menu, Sunbasket has around 10 single-serve meals, which the service calls its fresh and ready plan, that you can heat in your oven or microwave and add to your order each week. If you don’t feel like committing to prepared meals, you can mix and match with over a dozen meal kits from its menu, giving you options for days you want to cook, as well as those sporadically busy days when you just don’t have time. Each meal indicates whether it accommodates certain dietary restrictions, including gluten-free, soy-free, pescatarian and vegetarian.
Malin tried Sunbasket for a week and became a huge fan of the service. “There were almost too many delicious dishes to choose from, and each one I tried came with an easy-to-follow recipe — I loved that some of them also prompted me to cook with ingredients I don’t normally buy,” she says. “And don’t sleep on the fresh and ready meals: They taste like homemade meals, but all you do is warm them up in the microwave.”
Blue Apron recently joined the prepared meal delivery scene with its Prepared & Ready plan, and it now has over 30 single-serve meals on its rotating weekly menu. These meals heat up in the microwave in under five minutes, and they come in one tray that you can recycle afterward. You can also combine prepared and meal kit plans by adding the pre-made meals to your meal kit orders as add-ons each week.
I tried Blue Apron’s prepared meals for two weeks and was impressed by how tasty they were, in addition to being super quick and easy to heat up when I’m feeling too lazy to cook. The options are also fairly varied each week (though you will find a lot of pastas on the menu, which can be a con for some), and I found the portions to be just right for myself. However, the meals do not come with sides, so it may be lacking in variety. Sides like veggies are mixed into the meals rather than portioned separately (like you would find in most other prepared meal services).
Splendid Spoon has over 50 healthy ready-made and gluten-free meals and snacks, including smoothies, soups, noodle bowls and dishes. You can choose one of three plans, including a six-, 12- or 18-meal plan per week (and you can add more meals at an additional cost). The service recommends freezing the food upon unpacking, which it says makes the meals last one to three months. “They taste as healthy as they are, which is a downside for some and a bonus for others,” says Resnick, who was sent a few boxes by the brand to try out.
While you can’t customize the number of meals you get per plan, Splendid Spoon does let you choose how often you want to receive your meals: weekly, every other week or once a month.
Epicured’s meals are all gluten-free and low-FODMAP, which means they don’t have certain carbohydrates and food additives that can be hard for some people to digest, according to the service. This makes Epicured a great option for those with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or a generally sensitive stomach, says Moskovitz. It has a rotating menu of over 50 prepared foods spanning breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desserts. You can filter the menu by diet, including gluten-free, pescatarian, vegetarian and vegan — each diet has a “menu cycle,” which means it rotates every few weeks. Once you choose your meals and register, each weekly order is automatically renewed (if you don’t manually pick your meals, last week’s meals will be sent again).
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also take steps to ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
I am an updates editor at NBC Select who has extensive experience covering meal delivery services, including gluten-free and vegetarian options. For this article, I spoke to six experts about what to consider when shopping for a meal delivery service and how to determine the best one for you. They also shared their favorite meal delivery services to try out.
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