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I didn't Expect to appreciate meal kits as much as I do. I like to cook, and I like to eat out even more. But the best meal delivery services and kits don't just make your life easier, they help you eat better and maybe even live a little better. At heart, the best meal kits are marvels of logistics—a convergence of growers, butchers, purveyors, and sauce makers from all over the globe, kitted out into little individual portions and sent to your doorstep with one-sheet recipes.
The promise of the internet has always been the world at your door ( maybe even economically, if you do it right ). This, in part, is why WIRED devotes so much coverage to the best meal prep kits, as well as all manner of other food delivery services .
The WIRED Reviews team has tested and retested more than two dozen meal kit delivery services since 2017. For a lot longer, I've worked as a food critic on both coasts , and I bring a critic's gimlet eye to testing recipes and food. I've been surprised at how well the best delivery services fare. The best meals I've eaten from a meal kit have come from Marley Spoon , which offers a path to genuinely good home-cooked meals on nights when I might otherwise feel uninspired. But HelloFresh and Blue Apron have perhaps caught up after drastic updates that expand both convenience and options. Others among my favorite meal kits, like Green Chef or Purple Carrot , offer hassle-free solutions for organic, gluten-free, and plant-based home cooking.
I assessed each meal plan's recipes, breadth of selection, sourcing, ease of preparation, convenience, organization, packaging, high-quality ingredients, and suitability for different eating restrictions and needs. We also tested out the best new meal kits for those looking for alternatives to Blue Apron or HelloFresh. And not for nothing, we sorted out some often maddeningly non-transparent pricing. Here are the best delivery meal subscriptions we've tried.
Be sure to check out my investigation into whether sometimes Meal Kits Are Cheaper Than Groceries when trying out new recipes, and WIRED's related guides, including Best Plant-Based Meal Kits , Best Food Gifts You Can Buy Online , Best Coffee Subscriptions , and Best Delivery Chocolate Boxes .
Updated March 2026: I retested our top pick, Marley Spoon, which has undergone an apparent rebrand and moved further toward convenient and international meals. I've also updated our write-ups for EveryPlate and Factor, after colleagues with eating restrictions tested gluten-free and vegan meals. I've updated pricing, plans, and descriptions throughout.
Frequently Asked Questions Are Meal Kits Worth It? Can I Pause Meal Kits When I Go on Vacation? How to Best Use Meal Kits How I Test Meal Kits Other Meal Kits We Liked Meal Kits We Didn’t Like Best Meal Kit Overall Courtesy of Marley Spoon Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Chevron Chevron Save to wishlist Save to wishlist Marley Spoon
What has long differentiated Marley Spoon from other meal kits in the United States was its devotion to classical cooking technique, the sort they teach in culinary school and on Martha Stewart's TV shows. This is no accident. When the German-founded meal kit arrived in the US, it did so with the cooking maven's endorsement and a lot of her recipes and techniques.
The cost was always that Marley's recipes often took a little more time and care to get a hearty Hungarian-influenced creamy mushroom chicken, a boldly Cajun-spiced tilapia, or a delicate eggplant parm. For me, it's always been worth the trade. A kale and sausage soup, deeply savory, might be balanced with acid from a surprising splash of red wine vinegar. Recipes often call for light seasoning throughout the process, not all at once.
Gradually over many months, Marley seems to have changed things up a bit. After a rebrand, Martha's less front and center than she used to be. But the “Martha's Best” recipes have stayed. These are mostly classic, European-influenced recipes with sterling technique. But I've noticed an increasing tendency toward convenience and global flavors. A third of the menu is prepared, ready-to-heat meals. I see more 15-minute dishes and tray oven bakes. Marley has varied its vibe without raising its prices, which is admirable. In the meantime, it seems to have broadened its international fare, from takes on a Moroccan-spiced apricot and beef tagine to Indian-influenced keema matar that's as easy to make as garam masala sloppy Joe.
Anyway, so far, the ready-to-heat meals can be safely ignored based on the ones I tried, though the 15-minute meals are a good option for tired weeknights. Still, on recent testing, it's not clear that Marley nails convenience as well as competitors HelloFresh and Blue Apron , who've stepped up their cooking game lately. Unlike other top-line kits, Marley sends your ingredients jumbled in a box, which reduces packaging waste but also leaves you digging through a jumble of packets for the right spice mix or dried ingredient. The meat sourcing isn't as transparent as some kits. And Marley has also become among the least flexible plans when it comes to advance ordering.
Which is to say, Marley had best look over its shoulder. Because while the best individual dishes I've made from a meal kit are from Marley Spoon, recent improvements from its competitors mean it's no longer way out in front.
WIRED Best culinary technique on classic dishes Large selection of meals Excellent proteins and sourcing (Cento tomatoes!) TIRED Express and international meals take some shortcuts Boxes arrive disorganized Ready-to-heat meals aren't great Meal Kit With the Best Selection Courtesy of HelloFresh Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Chevron Chevron Save to wishlist Save to wishlist HelloFresh
HelloFresh is pretty much synonymous with meal kits: It's the biggest, and among the oldest. Chances are, if you've tried a meal kit, it's among the first you tried. But what's surprised me is how much HelloFresh keeps improving since the first time I tried it five years ago: better sourcing, and more cosmopolitan and modern recipes. It's also well organized, with each recipe's ingredients portioned into labeled bags. All you need is pots, pans, a stove, and some basic oil- and salt- and butter-type staples. After a complete brand refresh this July, HelloFresh has become a strong contender for my favorite meal kit overall. It's also got the broadest selection of meals, not just because of its 100 weekly recipes but the wide array of styles and options, from aspirational Hainanese chicken feasts to simple sandos and seasonal salads.
What's new since last year? A lot more options—including backyard grill kits and fresh-dough pizza kits and a whole lot more light, bright food with accents from all over the world. This means meatloaf with harissa in the sauce, Honduran-style baleadas with chicken thigh instead of breast, a shawarma wedge salad designed to be seared on my backyard grill, and pizza made with actual dough balls (some stretching required). Where possible, HelloFresh has even begun dabbling in seasonal ingredients like conehead cabbage I charred on my grill. In some areas, HelloFresh has even added regional dishes and ingredients. Honestly, it's an exercise in logistics that makes the nerd in me a little giddy. After criticism ( including mine! ), the company has added more rice to the rice meals.
Alongside excellent sourcing of proteins from multigenerational, family-run meat purveyors, what impressed me most with HelloFresh is that it's evolved into the most cosmopolitan meal kit among those I tried, flipping happily pell-mell among international spices and ingredients (without any particular claim to authenticity, mind you). I didn't find this to be true a few years back, when I found HelloFresh a little staid.
Lately, the offerings from HelloFresh are bright, light, and lightly internationalized: with pan-Latin steak and rice bowls, beef stir-fried with ponzu and plum, Dutch-inspired orange Dijon chicken, Thai-style curries, and maybe some mango salsa atop a vaguely Southwest-y pork roast. HelloFresh is likewise responsible for my favorite bowl of ramen I've made for myself at home .
WIRED Broad, cosmopolitan menu with global ingredients Excellent protein sourcing in particular Organized, reliable delivery and packaging TIRED Recipes can take longer than expected Some new recipes are still working out bugs Best Family-Friendly Meal Kit Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Chevron Chevron Save to wishlist Save to wishlist Home Chef
Home Chef lets you do pretty much whatever you want. Do you want two servings of two recipes, but eight servings of a third? No problem. Did you want to add an oven-ready steak meal for six to this week's order, and only this week's order? Also no problem. Large family? Home Chef offers a cheaper family plan for batched meals. Only want two meals this week? Each one will cost a little more, but you can still cut back your order without canceling completely.
But more than any other meal kit I've tested, Home Chef is geared to convenience, and this includes the easy, see-through plastic bags that house the ingredients for each meal. The recipes are finely detailed, with easy-to-follow instructions. Nutrition and allergens are listed in even finer detail online. Each recipe is classed according to difficulty, and even the “expert” ones aren't that hard.
It's not for nothing that we previously listed Home Chef as the best meal kit for beginner chefs: Home Chef's recipe instructions are full of little hand-holds and added advice. That said, the meals we tried in 2025 weren't quite as accomplished and tasty as those you'll get from my top pick, Marley Spoon, nor as varied and interesting as HelloFresh. But newly, Home Chef has introduced more difficult “culinary” recipes like truffle-scallop risotto that are often endorsed by celebuchef Gordon Ramsay. We'll look forward to testing these more ambitious options in the future.
