As a mom of 5, I am always looking for a way to find an easier and healthy alternative to dinner time. I do not mind making dinner, in fact, I love cooking. However, making dinner for 7 people every single night is not my cup of tea. I would love to be able to go out more often, however again with all those kiddos, it is a costly adventure. Thankfully there are some amazing cheap meal delivery service options that I absolutely love. Some services do almost everything for you. Simply pop the dish in the microwave, oven or crockpot. Other services take a little meal prepping, but are so much easier than starting from scratch.
Hello Fresh
We have tried Hello Fresh and loved their service. In fact, it is the one we use the most often as I love the fresh ingredients. Hello Fresh has some incredibly delicious food, however, the choices are more limited than some of the other companies out there. My other complaint is that the prep time is a little bit longer than some of the other cheap meal delivery services. However, it is easy enough you definitely can meal prep with the kids.
What we love about Hello Fresh:
- Calories, Proteins, Fats & Carbs are listed on the recipe card.
- Eco Friendly – Everything comes in one nice cardboard box instead of plastic.
- You’ll find yourself with extra food. Some people complain that you’ll end up with an extra half a piece of fruit or vegetable, but I didn’t mind the extra food.
Some of the cons of Hello Fresh
- Limited Options
- More Prep time than other Meal Delivery Services
Home Chef
We recently tried home chef and were pretty impressed with their dishes. We received some amazing chimichangas and bang bang shrimp tacos. Some of the features I liked is they have an icon which lets you know that an item was a healthier item or vegetarian
In addition, they have a ton of Oven-Ready meals where you pop in the oven and within 20-40 minutes you have an amazing meal for your family. They also have some slow cooker meals which offer minimal prep.
What We Love about Home Chef Meal Delivery Service:
- Best Tasting of all the Meal Delivery Services
- Delicious fresh & easy meal delivery service
- We love their Oven-Ready and Slow Cooker Meals which offer minimal or NO meal prep
- Look for the Fresh Start Icon for healthier, calorie-conscious meal options
Save $100 on Home Chef ($25 off each of your first 4 weeks) with code AMBER
Thistle
My favorite NEW meal delivery service is Thistle. I love their plant-based meals + the convenience of a prepared meal a few times a week. They are not solely plant-based as they have a wide variety of options. I love Thistle for their amazing salads, and locally sourced meals.
What We Love about Thistle:
- Locally sourced and organic (when possible)
- Great calorie counts and even more importantly amazing nutrient-dense meals that contain plenty of phytochemicals + antioxidants which are great for a healthy immune system.
Try Thistle and Earn $50 Credit
Blue Apron
Blue Apron is definitely on the upper end of the cost scale when it comes to cheap meal delivery service options. However, it definitely has some of the most amazing dinner options. Blue Apron offers the widest variety of dinner choices.
Here are some of the things we love about Blue Apron:
- All of the food was very good
- Recipes are easy to follow
There also are a few cons about this service:
- All Ingredients are put in the box together and not broken down by meal. This makes it a bit more time consuming to make a meal.
- Only calorie information was listed on the recipe card, while other services list full nutrition facts. We are big into macros so, this was actually quite annoying.
Get 3 Free Blue Apron Meals Here!
Daily Harvest
We love the Delicious Fruit + Veggie packed Smoothies, Harvest Bowls, Soups, Oat Bowls & More! These are all delivered frozen to your door. While not full dinners for your family, we often use Daily Harvest for breakfasts and lunch replacements. We love mixing their green smoothies with coconut water and for the rest, our go-to liquid is unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
Why we Love Daily Harvest:
- Super Simple, simply add water, juice or coconut water and blend.
- The recipes are delicious.
Enjoy $25 OFF Your First Daily Harvest Box
Of course, if you are going to be making smoothies often it definitely helps to have a good blender! We swear by our Blendtec and I think it is totally worth the investment!
