All ingredients are organic, so if you are like me, and just take “organic” to be synonymous with “quality” then you might be tempted by this one. Sun Basket taught me a very valuable lesson about produce though. Organic dos not always equal quality. Sun Basket had the lowest quality produce of any of the meal kits we tried. Many of the vegetables were pre-chopped, who knows when, and so were completely dried out with zero flavor remaining by the time they arrived. A lot of the sauces and bases were also already pre-mixed, leaving me wondering what was inside, but hey, it was all organic, so I shouldn’t care, right?

I have never been a fan of vegetables that have already been cut up. They are usually already dried out.

Pre-mixed Sun Basket coleslaw dressing base – but what is it?

The finished meal quality was about on par with the quality of the ingredients – highly lacking. A lot of the recipes seemed as though they hadn’t been tested before being published and packaged. There was an instance with a black bean quinoa burger that comes to mind. Now granted I’m no expert chef (hence the need for a box of ingredients and instructions on my doorstep), but I follow direction well and after an entire summer of HelloFresh, never once had an issue with a recipe not turning out the way it was supposed to. The black bean quinoa burger recipe suggested that the cooking time would be 35-40 minutes. I spent two very frustrating hours in the kitchen, smoked up the entire apartment, completely ruined our new, expensive, non-stick pan, and ended up with 8 oversized, overcooked burger patties that crumbled when touched, to go with the 4 little buns that also came with the kit. We ended up scrapping the burgers and turning the black beans and quinoa into burrito bowls.

The black bean burger fiasco…

The packaging also bothered me. All materials were recyclable, but only if your recycling center accepts those types of plastics. Everything came in a thick, plastic container. We live in an area without recycling, and so have become uber sensitive about the amount of waste we generate. All that plastic went into the trash, and let me tell you, there was an unnecessary amount of plastic. I felt sick throwing our bag of plastic containers away after every meal. Please avoid this service unless you live in an area with proper recycling.

Why so much plastic?!

This is the meal kit for you if you care more about tag words such as “organic,” “clean,” “responsibly sourced,” and “gluten free,” than you care about the actual quality.

Purple Carrot

Overall Rating: 3/5
Biggest Pro: Best selection of plant-based meals
Biggest Con: Price
Non-Discounted Price Per Meal: $12.00

Purple Carrot is well known for being 100% vegan. The website is easy to use but they do not offer an app. The serving sizes were sufficient and did not leave us hungry despite vegan foods usually being lower in calories. The ingredients and finished meal quality were all on par with HelloFresh. Each week had six different vegan meals to choose from, with variety from light meals such as salads and hummus bowls, to more hearty meals such as quesadillas and bourguignon. I really enjoyed the options on this one. Purple Carrot does not offer nearly as many discounts and promotions as the other food kits, making it one of the pricier subscriptions out there. When I first became a vegetarian, I was saving money by not eating meat. When did eating vegetables become the expensive way to eat?

Out of the box – Purple Carrot menu & pre-measured ingredients for Rigatoni Arrabbiata

Edit: I originally rated this one 4/5 but had to drop a point after some unsettling input from my sister who also tried the subscription. I never had any problems with the ingredients being anything less than fresh, but my sister received expired seitan on two separate occasions. Not just a few days expired either, but three months! When customer service was contacted, they apologized, refunded her $15, and said they would get to the bottom of the issue, claiming it was not something that happened frequently.

The finished product – Mushroom Bourguignon from Purple Carrot

This is the meal kit for you if you are a strict vegan, or wanting to incorporate more vegan foods into your lifestyle, and the price tag doesn’t scare you away. 

Blue Apron

Overall Rating: 3/5
Biggest Pro: Consistent quality
Biggest Con: No vegetarian option for 4-servings
Non-Discounted Price Per Meal: $7.49 – $9.99 (depending on the plan)

Blue Apron is one of the better known meals kits out there. The website and the app are both easy to use, although canceling took a little bit of searching around for. I finally found instructions to email cancellations@blueapron.com, and figured that someone on the company’s end would have to cancel the subscription for me. A form letter was returned though with instructions on which buttons to click to cancel.

Out of the box – pre-measured ingredients for Lemon-Butter Scallops from Blue Apron

The ingredients were all good quality, 100% of the eggs were pasture-raised. We received fresh noodles a few times which was a treat. The finished meals were almost as good as HelloFresh. Almost. A little extra something was usually missing to round out the flavors though. Preparation was slightly more advanced than some of the other kits, although still suitable for a beginner. The biggest difference was that the instructions actually told you how you should be multi-tasking.

Kudos to Blue Apron for the cardboard packaging on their sesame oil.

Blue Apron offers four different plans: 2-Serving Signature (choose from any of their 14 meals), 2-Serving Freestyle (choose from the 6 recipes that accommodate weight watchers), 2-Serving Vegetarian (choose from 3 vegetarian meals), and 4-Serving Signature. The serving sizes were smaller than some of the other meals plans, and so still being hungry after several of the meals, we tried to upgrade to the 4-serving plan. With all of the other food kits, any of the meals were available in 2-servings or 4-servings. Strangely, Blue Apron has an entirely different menu for their 4-serving plan, which only includes one vegetarian option, and does not accommodate a chicken-less diet.

The finished product – Austin-Style Breakfast Tacos from Blue Apron

This is the meal kit for you if you have a family who likes chicken.

Green Chef

Overall Rating: 4/5
Biggest Pro: Variety of choices and the quality to go with it
Biggest Con: Price
Non-Discounted Price Per Meal: $10.99 – $12.99 (depending on the plan)

Green Chef arrived on our doorstep and the box looked suspiciously like HelloFresh’s box. We opened her up and the contents were very reminiscent of HelloFresh as well; similar recipe cards, the same paper bags and labels. Come to find out that HelloFresh did acquire Green Chef a year or so ago. So the quality is all strikingly similar, but there are more options for more dietary needs, and a steeper price tag to make you reconsider if the options are really worth it.

Kudos to Green Chef and HelloFresh for using paper bags.

This one has an easy to use website, makes it simple to skip weeks and cancel, but does not offer an app.

The ingredients are all USDA certified organic, and unlike Sun Basket, they are all fresh and good quality. One week we received some of the prettiest kale I had ever seen. Yes, I just called kale pretty. It was purple! The portions were all a good amount of food and we were never left wanting more. The packaging is as minimal as they can get away with, and their website includes clear instructions on how to recycle every item in the box (but again, you have to live in an area with recycling).

The finished product – Corn Pesto Flatbreads from Green Chef

Available plans to choose from include Pescatarian (5 meals to choose from), Keto (5 options), Paleo (5 options), Heart Smart (5 options), Omnivore (6 options), Vegan (3 options), Mediterranean (4 options), Vegetarian (5 options), Gluten-Free (5 options), and Lean & Clean (4 options). The only downside to all these options is that there is no Chef’s Choice that allows you to mix and match between all the recipes available. Once you choose a category, you only have the options within that category. You can swap over to another category the following week though.

This is the meal kit for you if you have dietary restrictions or don’t mind paying more for organic.

Marley Spoon

Overall Rating: 2/5
Biggest Pro: Price
Biggest Con: Recipes are very hit or miss
Non-Discounted Price Per Meal: $8.70 – $12.00 (depending on the plan)

I really had much higher hopes for Martha Stewart’s meal kit. It was almost as disappointing as Sun Basket though. The only reason I gave it one extra point was because we did get a couple good recipes out of it. (The Thai-style veggie fried rice was surprisingly flavorful). Most of them were just plain bland though. The first one we tried was a white bean & swiss chard stew. I don’t know if she learned how to make it in prison or what, but it reminded me of the cabbage stew that poor little Charlie Bucket had to eat every night in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because his family was too poor to afford anything else. This stew had one spice, and that was paprika. The rest was water and beans and leafy greens. No stock, or bouillon, or anything beyond a bit of paprika.

I’m thinking that Martha Stewart doesn’t cross over into the realm of vegetarianism very often, because the bean stew offered the most protein out of the six meals that we tried. Most of them were pastas and fried rice and nothing but carbs. The cheese would have added some protein but another complaint was that she seriously skimped on the cheese. The recipes called for enough, but the handful of individually packaged, bite-sized cheese morsels sent in the kit never added up to anywhere near the amount that the recipes called for.

We chose a lot of recipes that called for a good amount of cheese. All we ever received in the box were a handful of these individually-packaged, bite-sized parmesans.

The other things that bothered me about Martha’s meal kit included the packaging. Lots of the produce came shrink wrapped to styrofoam trays. Martha was the only meal kit that sent styrofoam, a material that is harder to recycle than plastic and never decomposes. Sorry turtles. The produce, like the recipes, was very hit or miss. Many of the limes were too dry to get any juice out of, and the garlic was in sad shape. What Martha lacked in spices, she made up for in oil usage (not included in the box). Many of the recipes called for 1/4 cup here, 1/4 there, whereas recipes from other meal kits never called for more than “a drizzle” unless it was to make a dressing. Finally, the portions were lacking. Whether this was because they were too small, or because we were eating mostly carbs and therefor not getting much in the way of protein or nutrients, is up for debate.

This is the meal kit for you if you are a fan of Martha Stewart and her name is the only thing that matters to you. I honestly can’t think of another reason to spend money on this.

Conclusion

Coming soon: How to take advantage of different plans’ discounts and eat for cheap!