11 Best Healthy Meal Delivery Services Of 2023

Sometimes the hardest part of sticking to a healthy eating plan is simply the extra commitment to making your own meals. It's a long process once you factor in the time spent finding nutritious recipes, shopping for ingredients, and actually cooking your meals.

Luckily, the best healthy meal delivery services solve this problem by offering well-rounded options suited to a variety of eating plans. 

First things first, the healthiest diet for you depends on your body. With that in mind, we asked registered dietitian and mbg Collective member Jess Cording, M.S., R.D., CDN, to help define what exactly a healthy meal delivery service really looks like on a broader scale.

"It's similar to how I would define 'healthy' for homemade meals," Cording explains. "Meals that provide a nourishing balance of protein, healthy fat, and fiber with lots of vegetables, minimal added sugar, and low to moderate amounts of sodium, with an emphasis on whole and minimally processed food."

Along with searching for well-rounded recipes, Cording recommends keeping an eye out for services that provide sustainably sourced proteins, such as wild fish and organic poultry, or minimally processed plant-based options, such as tofu, beans, and tempeh. She also notes that it's important to have options to filter for personal allergies or restrictions. 

Other green flags for Cording go beyond the recipes to the service themselves—she suggests services that make it easy to pause or cancel your subscription, as well as options that offer easy-to-follow recipes that are ready in 30 minutes or less. 

Of course the red flags are equally important. She tells mbg that it's a "big turnoff" when a brand doesn't make the ingredient lists and nutritional information of its recipes easy to find. 

Factor offers four main meal plans, one of which is designed around the macro-balanced keto diet. All of Factor’s keto meals are roughly broken down like this: 60% of calories from fat, 20% of calories from protein, and 10% or less from carbohydrates. If you need to play around with your specific macros, you can opt for extra proteins on the side or add your own fats at home.

“Heart-healthy” can mean various things, so always make sure you check in with your doctor if you have specific concerns. Otherwise, a Mediterranean-style diet consistently comes out on top. HelloFresh offers many types of meals, including Mediterranean and Greek recipes that include heart-healthy, high-quality ingredients. You can filter by most popular or quick and easy meals that are ready in 30 minutes or less.

Blue Apron was one of the first meal delivery services and the company is still going strong, thanks to its regularly rotating menus of healthy options. The company offers three main plans—Signature, Vegetarian, and Wellness—the latter of which is designed for anyone trying to lose weight or maintain their weight loss.

Daily Dose works with health experts to design good-for-you menus using fresh, organic ingredients. The meals are delivered directly to your door, completely ready to eat. The company believes in bio-individuality, meaning what works for one person will not work for everyone. Each week, you can choose from over five different menus, including options for keto, paleo, ketotarian, plant-based, and protein-forward lifestyles. Additional plans come from rotating chefs and health experts and focus on foods with science-backed benefits for things like longevity, weight loss, and beauty. 

Purple Carrot started with vegan meal kits, but has since evolved into a full-service plant-based meal delivery service. You can choose from vegan meal kits or fresh, pre-cooked meals that you can heat up in about five minutes. There isn’t a lot of available customization for dietary needs, but you can easily identify recipes that are gluten-free, soy-free, high-protein, and lower calorie.

It’s difficult to find a 100% organic meal delivery service, but Green Chef does its best to include as many organic ingredients as possible. All produce is organic and seasonally sourced, eggs are always organic, and animal-based proteins are sourced from farmers who follow strict animal welfare standards. Many of the meals are gluten-free and when choosing your menu, you can easily sort based on your preferences.

Home Chef is a meal kit service that’s built around healthy meals that take minimal time to prepare. Many of its recipes can be put together in 20 to 30 minutes, and others come together in as little as 15 minutes. And even though they’re quick meals, they’re still fancy enough to feel (and taste) like you spent a lot of time on them.

If you want some control over your meals, but prefer not to cook, Fresh n’ Lean offers a bulk option that makes meal prepping a cinch (no grocery shopping or cooking required). This à la carte service allows you to pick and choose from pre-cooked proteins, starchy sides, vegetables, and a limited number of breakfast options. 

Whether you want to feed babies or big kids, Little Spoon delivers. This child-focused meal delivery service offers baby food, finger foods, and age-appropriate meals for toddlers and bigger kids, as well as on-the-go smoothies. All baby food and smoothies are 100% organic, while the cooked plates are made with organic ingredients whenever possible (and always free of preservatives and artificial ingredients).

Sunbasket doesn’t just offer healthy meals; it’s built around the concept. Most of the ingredients the meal delivery service uses are sourced from local farmers, ranchers, and fisherman and the majority of produce, eggs, milk, and yogurt is organic—the company aims to include at least 99% organic ingredients in these categories. If it has to substitute any non-organic items, you’ll get a notification first from the brand.

Thanks to healthy meal delivery services, sticking to your preferred eating plan is easier than ever. You can choose from meal kits or premade meals that are designed around a variety of preferences, including keto, plant-based, and Mediterranean diets.