How Meal Kits Stack Up

There are so many meal kits available, it's tough to know which one is the right one for your cooking style and your family's tastes.  What's best for my picky eaters?  What if I only want organic food? You don't want to spend all your time scrolling through all the different sites to figure out what is the best fit.  That's why I've done all that hard work for you.  I've put together the handy dandy table below with all the information I thought was most important from the meal kits that I've tried.

Kit Name	Meal Types	# of Meal Options	Cost Per Meal	Recycle Program	Other Notes
Hello Fresh	Classic Box 2 or 4 adult servings Meats, Veggies and Grains	3, 4 or 5 meals per week, if choose 2 serving 3 meals per week if choose 4 servings	$9.90-11.60	Recycle Instructions	6 meals published each week to choose from
	Veggie Box 2 or 4 adult servings Whole Grains, Veggies, Animal-Free Proteins	3 meals per week 2 or 4 Servings Each	$9.08-9.83
	Family Box 2 adult and 2 child servings	2 or 3 meals per week 4 Servings Each	$8.75-9.99		Child-friendly choices
Home Chef	Choose preferences and foods to avoid. Low-calorie & Low-carb options	2, 4 or 6 servings 2-6 meals per week.	$9.95	Recycle Instructions	Can substitute breakfast for one dinner. Can add smoothie for $4.95/2 smoothies or seasonal fruit basket for $4.95.
Blue Apron	Vegetarian or Choose protein preferences from Beef, Poultry, Fish, Lamb, Pork, Shellfish	2 Person Plan - 3 meals per week Family Plan - 2 or 4 meals per week - 4 servings each	$9.99	You can send them the packaging back to reuse and recycle, but you have to print/pay for your own postage. Postage free if you send 2 deliveries worth of clean packaging together.	6 meals published each week, but can only choose certain combinations of those menus. Optional wine club add-on.
Green Chef	Omnivore, Vegetarian, Carnivore, Gluten-Free, Paleo, Vegan	3 meals/week	$10.49-14.99	All Organic, eco friendly packaging. Detailed instructions on how to recycle/compost each element
Cooking Light/Fresh Realm	Sort by Cook Time and Proteins. Dozens of Dinner Choices	Purchase as many as you like. Each shipping vessel must be 60% full to ship - which was 2 dinners for 2. Adding a 4th dinner for 2 started a 2nd vessel, which you have to fill to 60% full. Get to 90% full and $10 shipping fee is waived.	$6.50 - $19.50 minimum 2 of each meal	Return the vessel - prepaid return postage already on the box

As new meal kit services hit the market, I'll add their information here when I give them a try. If you have a suggested meal kit, send me a comment and I'll check it out!

Seared Steak and Creamy Chipotle Pan Sauce

This was a great take on a steak and potatoes meal with a bit of added spice.  The poblanos provided a nice crunchy heat and the chipotle in adobe a smokiness.

The kit contained a sirloin steak, russet potato, onion, cob of corn and a poblano.  There was also a tube of sour cream and one of beef concentrate.  A 3.5 ounce can of chipotle in adobo was also inside.  The recipe only called for a quarter teaspoon of the sauce.  Since I always have chipotle in adobe in my freezer, I just used a little it and kept the can sealed.   It's a good tip, though.  If you have leftover chipotle in adobe, it will last months in a zipper bag in your freezer.  When you're ready to use it, just slice off a frozen chunk.

The recipe starts with preheating your oven to 450.  Then turn to the veggies.  Slice the poblano and half the onion.  Dice the other half.  Cut the corn kernels off the cob.  Peel and chop the potato.   Toss the potato with some olive oil, salt and pepper (not included). Toss in the oven for 20-25 minutes.  I turned them halfway through so they would crisp up on both sides.

While that's in the oven, focus on the peppers and onion, putting them in a hot pan on the stove with a little oil.  Once they're carmelized, toss in the corn kernels.  Salt and pepper and you're done.  Put that in a bowl, so you can reuse the hot pan for the main attraction - the steaks.   Sear them with a little more oil to your desired level of doneness - for me, that's medium rare, so I only left them about three minutes per side.   The recipe said to place them on the sheet pan with the potatoes in the oven for 5 minutes or so to finish cooking, but the steak felt cooked enough to me, so I skipped that step.
Using the same pan, the next step is the sauce.  Add the diced onion, adobo sauce, water and beef concentrate and simmer until it's reduced. Add the sour cream to that mixture until melts in.  Slice your steak and plate.  I piled up the potatoes, topped with hash and then steak and finished the whole thing with the sauce.  The recipe photo showed just a teaspoon of the sauce, but there's so much I poured it all over the steak.  I can see why they left it off for pictures; it wasn't too pretty, but it tasted great.

This was one of our favorite meal, so far.  The steak was a pretty good cut, tender and juicy and the hash and sauce had just the right amount of heat to keep you coming back for more.

Another delicious meal had me ready to try Jerk Chicken and Peach Skewers the next day!

Jamie's Tomato, Spinach & Olive Fusilli with Fresh Oregano & Cheese

Knowing this was the "chef inspired" meal in the first Hello Fresh box, I was really excited to try it. It had all my favorites - pasta, tomatoes, cheese - how could it go wrong?   But to be honest, this one fell flat. 

The ingredients included a bag of spinach, some whole wheat fusilli pasta,  a red onion, two packages of black olives, a can of peeled tomatoes, a packet of parmesan cheese, two small bottles of balsamic vinegar and fresh oregano.  

There was nothing lacking, but nothing special.  But it was a simple enough meal to prepare.  The recipe card told me this was a vegetarian, healthy meal that is nut-free and should only take 25 minutes to prepare. 

 First step,  start the pasta water boiling.  Then prep the veggies, picking the leaves off the oregano and chopping the olives and onion.

Heat up some olive oil (not included) in a skillet over medium heat.  Toss in the olives, oregano and onion.  Let those cook down for about ten minutes.  Then add in the vinegar.  This was strange to me.  Two bottles of balsamic were included in my box, but only one-half of a bottle was needed.   I just saved the rest; thought it would work well for salad dressings for lunch later in the week.   After the vinegar cooks down a bit, add in the tomatoes and some water.   You have to crush the tomatoes with the back of your spoon - would have been simpler to just include a can of crushed tomatoes.  Instead, I tried to smash the tomatoes and splashed them all over my shirt.

The sauce cooks down for ten minutes.  So that's a good time to start the pasta.  After tossing the fusilli in the boiling water, I went to change shirts.



Throw the spinach into a serving bowl and drain the cooked pasta.  The recipe recommends hanging on to a cup of the cooking water to thin out the sauce later, if needed.  I didn't need it.

Then toss the pasta in with the spinach and pour over the sauce.  Stir it all together, adding in the cheese. 

This was supposed to be a pasta with spinach in it.  To me, it was more like a spinach salad with pasta added.  It really had no flavor.  The olives were lacking bite, there was no spice and the oregano really didn't come through in the sauce.

I served up half to Jesse, one-quarter for myself and put one-quarter in a container for lunch the next day.   I couldn't even stand it the next day.  Just tossed it in the trash and ate a sandwich instead.    The bad experience with this meal left me a little hesitant for the next day's dinner,  Seared Steak and Creamy Chipotle Pan Sauce with Poblano, Corn and Crispy Potato Hash.

Seared Sesame Tuna over Rice

Starting with the Seared Sesame Tuna over Rice was a brilliant idea!  The tuna was moist and the salad was flavorful.  Eating this made me excited for all the meals to come.  We decided to start with tuna, since it would be served rare and we didn't want it sitting around too long.  The kit label also had an icon on it that said "Make Me First."

Hello Fresh sends a booklet with each weekly box, containing  recipes for each of your meals and some handy information about produce that's in season.

The recipe card has info about prep times and all the ingredients with photos on the front.  The back of the card also lists the ingredients and amounts of each that you'll be using, as well as potential allergens and the tools you'll need.  That's also where you'll find the recipe instructions and nutritional information, including calories, fat, protein, carbs, sugar, sodium and fiber.

This recipe is nut free, gluten free, dairy free and is a level 1 for difficulty.    It includes fish, eggs and soy.

You start by cooking the rice with a cup of water.  That part is kind of set and forget - at least for fifteen minutes.  Then you start on the produce.  Give the scallions and radishes a thin slice and mince or grate the ginger and garlic.  I prefer to grate them on a microplane to make quick work of them.

For step 3, you make the aioli, by mixing together a pinch of the ginger and garlic (to taste) with mayo and white wine vinegar.  The mayonnaise was perfectly portioned in this cute one ounce jar (the recipe called for 2 tablespoons, which is an ounce), but you only need a half teaspoon of the vinegar, which also came in a one ounce jar.  So be careful not to just dump the whole thing.

Next, it's time to crust and sear the tuna.  It's just seasoned with salt and pepper.  I patted it dry with paper towels before seasoning.  Then you press sesame seeds into the top and bottom of the fish, so they stick.  Heat up some olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium high and cook about a minute per side.   You can always cook it longer, if you're not into rare fish.   You provide the olive oil, salt and pepper yourself.  Those are the only ingredients they don't send you at Hello Fresh.

Let the fish rest a minute or two on your cutting board while you prep the salad.  All you do for that is toss together the arugula, radishes olive oil and a bit of the remaining white wine vinegar with some more salt and pepper.

Your rice should be done by about this time, so fluff it up with a fork, pile it on one side of the plate.  Slice the tuna and lay on top of the bed of rice.  Pile up some salad on the opposite side of the plate and add the aioli over the tuna.  Sprinkle with the scallion greens.  You'll have a lot.    There were 3 scallions in the box and I chopped all of them.  I probably only used one on our plates, though.

We thought this meal was delicious.  The aioli had just the right amount of spice.  I added about half the ginger and garlic and it was perfect.  The tuna was moist.  It did seem like the portion of rice was a bit too much for me, but the right size for Jesse.  I'll keep that in mind for future meals.  Maybe more of a one-third, two-thirds split, rather than 50/50.  The arugula salad had a bit of a bite.  This recipe left me ready to keep cooking the rest of the week.

Next up: Jamie's Tomato, Spinach & Olive Fusilli with Fresh Oregano & Cheese

Up First - Hello Fresh

Hello Fresh is probably the most popular of the kits - or at least the one I see advertised the most.   Promoted by celebrity Chef Jamie Oliver, it promised to be "chef curated" and healthy.  From the front page of their website, you'll find plenty of info about how the program works.  You can watch Jamie Oliver videos where he highlights the benefits of getting a box of ingredients on your doorstep and how much fun your family will have cooking away in your kitchen.  The front page also shows their pricing and gives a few examples of meals included in each type of box.  You can't find out what meals are available for the current week, until you sign up and give them your credit card info.  It's not too much of a commitment, though.  You can easily cancel from the FAQs page or just set your account to skip a week, if the current week's meals don't appeal to you.

I signed up right away. I had a coupon code for $40 off my first box (to save $40, use code TJ3XJF at checkout!)  I chose the following Friday as my delivery date and picked the Classic 4 meal box.  4 meals seemed like a good number.  We usually have a couple of nights each week that we aren't home for dinner and we'll still be able to enjoy a fancy restaurant meal each week. 

The Classic Box offers 6 recipes each week.  Four were pre-selected for me, but I could swap them out for any of the six recipes.   There seemed to be a good mix of classic dishes, international flair and protein options.  I didn't want to get bored with the meal kits and on Hello Fresh, that shouldn't be a problem.  Each week also features a recipe from Chef Jamie Oliver, which I hoped would bring me a challenge. 

I went with Seared Sesame Tuna over Rice, Jamie's Tomato, Spinach & Olive Fusilli with Fresh Oregano & Cheese, Seared Steak and Creamy Chipotle Pan Sauce and Jerk Chicken and Peach Skewers.

I missed the deadline to pause my next delivery, so after a couple of days, I ordered food for the following week.  In that order, I chose Pistachio-Crusted Chicken, Sweet-and-Sour Pork, Greek Gyro Skewers and Jaime's Spiced Crispy Beef Salad with Noodles & Crunch Veggies. Then I put all future deliveries on pause.  I have a lot of other box deliveries to try!

I also signed up for FedEx shipping notifications.  That way, I know when deliveries are on the way and can plan to be home or at least not stay at work too late. 

The first box was delivered around 10:30am on the scheduled Friday.  Jesse ran home from work at lunch and put the ingredients away.  What I really love about Hello Fresh is that all the ingredients for each meal are neatly packed in boxes that stack up nicely in the fridge.  The meats are in heavy plastic and packed beneath the boxes.  Since we had a lot of weekend plans and wouldn't be getting to our Hello Fresh meals until Monday, Jesse threw the meats in the freezer and stacked the boxes in the fridge.


By the time the second box arrived, we hadn't finished the first set of 4 meals.  While the first box was perfect.  The second one was missing a recipe.  So I had to print that one myself off the website.  One of the meals was also missing a label.  Since I already couldn't remember what I ordered and we were missing one recipe, figuring out what was in that last box was a bit of a challenge.  In the end we figured it all out, printed the recipe, wrote a note on the box and were ready to go for our week of meals.

Food from a Kit - It's What's for Dinner

If you're like me, your Facebook feed and Pinterest are filled with sponsored ads from any number of meal kit sites with offers of free or discounted boxes to entice you give it a try.  

It feels like I spend half my Saturday mornings planning out a week's worth of dinners and the other half fighting to get my cart down the aisles at the grocery store.  All so that I can spend big bucks on groceries that are just going to go bad in my fridge.  

So the idea of not having to worry about what's for dinner really appealed to me. But I did have some concerns.  I love to cook and chopping vegetables is cathartic to me - would a kit be challenging and interesting enough to keep us eating at home?  Which kit is the right one for me?  I don't eat fast food everyday, but I'm not the healthiest eater.  I'll admit it -  the sight of broccoli strikes fear in my heart. 

Jesse and I

I searched online to see if anyone else had compared these kits.  All I found were what felt like sponsored reviews for just one kit or another - nothing that side by side compared them.   I decided to dive right in.  I grabbed my computer and ordered my first box.  I'll be snapping pics along the way and writing reviews of each meal, as well as each service and it's website, itself.  It's just my husband, Jesse and I in our household (and our dog, Rocco, but hopefully, he doesn't get many of these dinners!). So whenever possible, we'll be testing out the 2 serving boxes. Oh, and it's summertime in Florida, which means if a box of food on the porch can survive here, it can survive anywhere!

Rocco - probably begging for food

See how the meal kits stack up in my comparison chart.  So far, I'm planning on testing Hello Fresh, Home Chef, Blue Apron, Green Chef and Cooking Light. If you know of another kit and you want Jesse and I to be the guinea pigs for you, send me a link or the name in the comments!