What Are Meal Subscription Services?
These services have you choose from a selection of meals each week and then they deliver the recipes and pre-portioned ingredients on the weekday you choose so you can easily make chef-quality meals at home.
They're like a mix of meal planning, grocery shopping, and recipe discovery apps all rolled into one.
If you enjoy cooking and trying new foods but often don't have the time to plan and prep all your dinners, one of these meal subscription services might be for you. I've been using a combination of Blue Apron and Freshly and I'll explain why. Let's compare.
Cost
This is probably the first question on people's minds when it comes to these services. The pricing is similar across the board, ranging from about $9 per person per meal to about $12 (including shipping).Freshly has four plans: a 4 meals per week, a 6 meals per week, a 9 meals per week and a 12 meals per week subscription. The 4 meals per week plan costs $49.99 per week ($12.50 per meal or per person), the 6 meals per week plan costs $59.99 per week ($9.99 per meal), the 9 meals per week plan costs $89.99 per week ($9.99 per meal), while the 12 meals per week costs of $107.99 per week ($8.99 per meal).
By now, depending on your food spending habits, you could be thinking either "Holy scallops, that's expensive" or "I spend that much on takeout anyway." I was in the holy scallops camp, but one thing to consider is the ingredients are locally sourced and organic whenever possible, and those products also cost more at the grocery store.
Depending on where you live as well, if you consider grocery delivery fees are often around $7-10 per delivery and meal planning services cost around $6-8 a month, the $10 per person price isn't really that bad. (A Big Mac meal at McDonald's costs $7.45 in my neck of the woods, and these meals are significantly tastier and better for you.) Another consideration is that these ingredients come portioned out so no hunting for ingredients in multiple stores or having extra bottles in your cabinet (only later to be thrown away).
Meal Options and Flexibility
Part of the fun of using these services is discovering new recipes and ingredients, but it's also good to have a choice of meals, especially if your household has picky eaters, food allergies, or special diets (these services offer vegetarian meals). Both let you select meals and see the recipes beforehand.
Blue Apron, for example, picks the default meals for you based on your saved preferences (vegetarian or not, or avoiding specific proteins). Instead of the three meals they choose for you, you can swap out dishes from the other menu (vegetarian vs. meat and fish). Oddly, though, not all combinations may be available. For example, if you want the chicken thighs and pork chops but not the salmon, your only other option out of the six dishes is soba noodles (two of the other vegetable dishes are grayed out). So choice is limited here.
Example dishes:
- Center-Cut Pork Chops with beet, heirloom carrot, and hazelnut salad
- Seared Steaks and mashed potatoes with roasted Brussel sprouts
- Chicken and Rice Casserole with kale and cremini mushrooms
Example dishes:
- Sicilian Style Chicken Parmesan with Penne Marinara
- Penne Bolognese
- Southwest Chicken Bowl
Winner: Freshly, for more meal options and the ability to add more meals to your order.
Packaging
Both options are shipped in sturdy boxes with large ice packs and labeled well.
Blue Apron ships all the meals in one box but each ingredient is clearly labeled. The recipe cards list the ingredients for each meal so you can gather the items together before you start cooking.
Freshly plates are also clearly labeled so you know exactly what you are getting.
Recipes and Cooking Skills
Blue Apron comes with beautiful recipe cards explaining a bit about what you're cooking, in addition to the ingredients you need, time to cook the dish, and number of calories per serving. It has large recipe cards, which really helps when you're trying to figure out how crisp that gnocchi should actually be. It makes cooking feel like more of a learning experience, and there were more than a few times I picked up a new trick from the recipe cards, like using breadcrumbs to add texture to a pasta dish. Blue Apron's online recipes also incorporate feedback from other members, so you'll get tips on cooking or adjusting that recipe from other members.
Freshly plates come prepackaged with cooking directions printed on the sleeve. There is no meal prep. It reminds me more of the traditional TV dinner style, but most plates can be cooked in 3-5 minutes so these are great when you are in a time crunch.
Winner: For me, it was a tie. Blue Apron had little details like bolding the ingredients in the recipes and occasional cooking tips make the recipe cards useful and user friendly. While, Freshly is quick and easy with no cooking skills required.
So Are They Worth It?
I'd recommend these services to anyone! Blue Apron is great for anyone who loves to cook. The meals often take more than half an hour to cook, though, so it's not really saving you a ton of time in the kitchen. While Freshly is easy and convenient. If you don't mind paying a premium for the convenience of having the planning and shopping done for you --- and if you value seasonal, locally grown, and sustainable ingredients, then this is for you.Which brings me to why I use a combination of both. We are extremely busy and I only have time to cook 1-2 meals per week. I used to meal prep on Sundays but by Wednesday, everyone was tired of left overs. Now, using Blue Apron, I can cook healthy meals 1-2 nights per week and have a variety of Freshly meals available for nights when we have to grab and go.
Whether these services are worth it to you or not may also depend on how much you hate the "What's for dinner?" question.
Renee
Smith
Independent
Diamond BeachBody Coach
