I Tried ALL The Food Subscription Boxes and Ranked Them (Updated 2022) -

For the LONGEST time, I’ve wanted to try food subscription boxes. You know, the ones where they send all your meals neatly organized, ready to prep and cook.

I wanted to try out food subscription boxes for several reasons:

I wanted to learn how to cook better and try new dishes.
I tend to eat the same meals over and over. I wanted to mix it up and get more of a variety.
I LOVE including veggies in my meals but needed new ideas and more variety. A food box seemed like a good way to help with this. (It did!)
My hubby loves cooking, I thought this would be a fun way to spend more time together cooking together.
I don’t like spending lots of time trying to plan out recipes, going grocery shopping to get ingredients, and then figuring out how to cook it. Food subscriptions would save me time and planning.

I did a little research, found the best first time customer deals, and ordered my first box!

Here are my ratings and pros and cons of each box I’ve tried. Keep in mind, that I’m rating them mostly from a nutritionist’s point of view, so I’m looking for a decent amount of healthy options, clean ingredients, and quality. I also rated them based on convenience, because hey I’m a busy working woman and don’t want to spend ALL night in the kitchen cooking or doing dishes.

The pricing listed is based on servings. You generally get a cheaper cost per serving the more meals you order. Most boxes have options to change how many servings you get, the frequency of delivery, and some have options to choose your preferred day of delivery.

This blog post is NOT sponsored by any of these companies. However, if you click on any of the discount links I provide, I may get credit towards my next food box order. If you sign up, you’ll get your own share link to share with friends and family and you can get discounts too.

Note: These are the food subscription boxes I’ve tried so far. I’ll update this blog as a try more because there are still lots to try!

Sun Basket, My Rating: A+

Pricing: $10-$13+ per serving.
Get a discount on your first box. Click Here. This is my favorite meal subscription box BY FAR.

Pros:

Lots of healthy options.
All produce is organic, so are most of the spices you use.
Variety of meals for different preferences, lots of unique options.
ALL meals were easy to make and tasted delicious.
Ability to choose vegetarian, seafood, or variety.
You can also order breakfast and lunches too.
Option to upgrade meats to organic.
Easy to pause account for long periods of time or cancel.
Most meals were under 30 minutes. They also have ready to heat meals.

Cons:

One of the more pricy boxes especially if you upgrade your meats.

Green Chef, My Rating: A-

Pricing: $13+ per serving

Get a discount on your first box. Click here.

Pros:

Certified organic produce.
Higher quality food.
Lots of meals with veggies and healthy options.
Delicious and easy to cook.
Organized meals in paper bags.
Plant-based, paleo, and keto options.

Cons:

Not as many meal choices each week.
Expensive.
Meat and fish were not necessarily organic, grass-fed or wild-caught and no option to upgrade.

Hello Fresh, My Rating: B+

Pricing: $10+ per serving.

Get $40 off your first box. Click here.

Pros:

Lots of dishes to chose from.
Ethnic and unique dishes available.
Pretty easy to cancel an account or skip weeks.
Most meals were quick and easy to make.

Cons:

No options for organic or higher quality protein.
Some of the meals seemed redundant and too similar.
Lots of “heavy” meal options that I personally wasn’t interested in.
Food quality is decent, but not the best out there.

Blue Apron, My Rating: C

Pricing: $12+ per serving

Pros:

The food tasted great.
Some healthy options.
Fairy easy to cancel.

Cons:

Customer service was NOT great. ( My first box was 4 days late and then discarded. Blue Apron didn’t bother to tell me and I had to reach out to them about getting a new box. They didn’t seem to care.)
Box comes very disorganized. They just throw all the produce in a box and you have to figure out what meal it goes with.
Expensive for what you get (aka non-organic premium ingredients.)

Marley Spoon (Martha Stewarts box) , My Rating: B+

Pricing: $8-$10 per serving.

Pros:

Fun recipes, many that were actually unique.
Good quality ingredients.
Well organized boxes.

Cons:

No options for organic.
One of the more expensive boxes.

Purple Carrot, My Rating: B-

Pricing: $13+ per serving.

Pros:

Meals are LOADED with veggies, because it’s a vegan based box.
Meals were pretty good despite being vegan.
They let you see the meals and check out their menu before ordering.

Cons:

Not organic and carb heavy.
Meals weren’t very filling since it was 90% veggies and little protein. I also didn’t love the use of “healthy” plant based alternatives.
More expensive box.

Every Plate, My Rating: B

Pricing: $5 per serving.

Note: This is a sister company of Hello Fresh. It’s about the same quality and variety as Hello Fresh, but usually cheaper but less food.

Pros:

One of the cheaper box options out there.
Decent amount of healthy options.
Easy to skip weeks and cancel.

Cons:

Some meals are kind of bland and overly simple.
They throw all the ingredients into the box rather than organizing it by meal.
Lots of the meal options include rice and pasta. Nothing wrong with that but personally, I don’t want to pay more for something that’s usually really cheap. (Aka rice or pasta.)

Other Things to Note About Food Subscription Boxes

I’ve really enjoyed trying out all the different food subscription boxes. I find myself grocery shopping less often and it’s honestly helped me learn how to cook better!

Here are my final tips when it comes to getting the best experience out of food subscription boxes:

Make healthy swaps if desired.

Most of the meals we chose were pretty healthy and had a variety of veggies. However, if it included something less healthy sometimes I would swap it out for a healthier version I had at home. You can do the same!

For example, if a recipe calls for a mayo-based sauce, swap out the traditional mayo they provide with mayo made from avocado oil.

Don’t Forget to THOROUGHLY check the entire box.

With the Every Plate box, we accidentally threw out some of the small spice packets because I failed to check the entire box. We literally had to dig through the trash to find the missing items. Woops. (Although this problem could have been avoided if they put all the ingredients you need for a meal in separate bags like MOST of the companies do.) Be sure to check under the ice bags and make sure you’ve got everything before tossing the box!

Work the box into your grocery budget.

For a couple weeks when I was ordering subscription boxes, I failed to really pay attention to our grocery budget and ended up overspending those two weeks. It can be easy to overspend if you’re not planning out your meals and what you need when you do go grocery shopping.

Wrapping it Up

Trying out food subscription boxes can be affordable and a great way to cook more while trying new foods. Cooking is such an important part of a healthy lifestyle and I’ve loved learning how to cook different meals while sharpening my culinary skills.

Check out all my favorite healthy recipes here.

Be sure to grab all the first time customer discounts no matter the food subscription box you choose. Remember to stay on top of when your orders are coming so you don’t get sent a box when you don’t want one.

If you have any questions about my experience leave a comment! Happy cooking!