Make dinner easy with the best meal kits for busy families
Family dinner nights are typically one of two things: a lovely chance to bring everyone together, or an hour or two of unbridled chaos. Whichever applies to your household, one thing is for sure: Anything that makes dinnertime easier is worth considering.
Meal kits – subscription-based deliveries with fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and recipe cards – can do just that. Meal delivery services offer chef-crafted meals that are packed with nutrients and recipes that are quick and easy to follow.
With ready-to-cook meals delivered right to your door, your family can enjoy a good home-cooked meal without the time and hassle that goes into doing it yourself. Dining together every night can also lead to better eating habits.
And here's another huge advantage: Meal kits help you plan ahead, using handy online tools that often operate weeks and weeks in advance. That means that a busy parent can "plan meals for the week ahead of time," says dietitian and nutritionist Anthony DiMarino of the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Human Nutrition.
And because meal delivery kits usually come with a week's worth of meals, "If you are pressed for time, you can batch cook several days' worth of meals."
5 of the best meal delivery kits for families
Most meal kit companies highlighted here offer perks, like discounts for larger orders and your choice of fresh or frozen meals, so you can keep a household stocked up for a week. Here's a look at some of the best meal delivery kits available.
- Best variety: HelloFresh
- Best organic meal kits: Green Chef
- Most budget-friendly meal kits: Dinnerly
- Best for toddlers: Little Spoon
- Best quick and easy meal kits: Mosaic Foods
Making the most of every delivery like this is the key to freeing up time in a busy household. If you let out a sigh of relief reading that, you're going to love what we found while reviewing each company.
Best variety: HelloFresh
HelloFresh has made a name for itself by having something for everybody in its meal plans. After testing out HelloFresh with a trial run of our own, we concluded that this meal kit definitely deserves its top slot when it comes to easy, breezy cooking that anyone can enjoy.
Busy families of two to four are no exception. There are dozens of chef-curated recipes available each week, with world cuisines ranging from the familiar to the exotic.
Plenty of "quick" recipes promise dinner on the table in a half-hour or less. But get this: Recipes like the family friendly Pineapple Poblano Beef Tacos can take less than 20 minutes to make. And if you or someone you cook for has a dietary restriction or particular preference, HelloFresh lets you pick which recipes pop up first each week.
There is a "Family-Friendly" selection of meals, but you can also browse other categories like Kid-Friendly, Quick, or Gourmet Recipes (if you feel like showing off). Small families with young children can really luck out with some of these options.
HelloFresh lets you order meals for two or four people, with two to six recipes being sent to your home each week. First timers looking to subscribe to HelloFresh meal kits can currently enjoy an automatically applied discount that knocks more than 50% off your total.
Best organic meal kits: Green Chef
If you want to cook family dinners with high-quality, organic ingredients, look no further than Green Chef. Their price per serving may be the highest on this list, but for good reason. Green Chef offers more than 30 creative and healthy recipes each week, as well as multiple sides and add-ons to elevate or customize any meal.
Green Chef is great for parents who want to stick to an organic diet of fruits, vegetables, and other ingredients. Everything is sustainably sourced and the recipes are put together by professional chefs, so what's not to love?
There is also easy accommodation for certain diets and preferences. Just look for the keto label beneath certain low-calorie dinners, or the gluten-free tag for, well, tasty dishes without any irritating gluten.
Green Chef also offers a whopping 65% discount off your first box (and 15% off all other boxes within a year) for eligible customers thanks to Green Chef's Hero Discount Program. All you need to do is verify your status as a medical provider, nurse, hospital employee, or military Veteran through ID.me and voila: instant savings when you sign up.
Most budget-friendly meal kits: Dinnerly
Sometimes, cheaper is better, and that's the case for Dinnerly. This meal delivery service not only sets you up with a slew of more than 30 new recipes each week, but it also lets you customize your plan based on the number of people eating and your desired weekly frequency for deliveries.
Dinnerly also has healthy options, even letting subscribers check a box to make their entire box vegetarian. With prices that break down to around $3 per portion at their cheapest, Dinnerly gives you plenty of choices right off the bat.
Dinnerly's ready-to-heat meals are great for whipping up something to hold everyone over until dinner. Alternatively, you can find whole recipes that take almost no time at all to prepare. This company also has one more ace up its sleeve: grocery staples you can add independently to any order.
This makes it easier than ever to avoid a time-killing trip to the grocery store -- a real game changer when you're running a busy household. New subscribers can also save $140 off their first five boxes.
Best for toddlers: Little Spoon
For families with young children or toddlers, meal kit selections may be limited. But Little Spoon is a meal delivery service that specifically caters to the younger members of your family.
Little Spoon prides itself on helping families get started with healthy habits from day one, with collections like BabyBlends, which delivers fresh and organic baby food to subscribers. You can also find Biteables (tiny nutritious meals for young toddlers), small meals for toddlers and big kids, and cold-pressed smoothies that make for the perfect on-the-go snack.
All of the meals, snacks, and baby food products are advertised as entirely free of artificial ingredients. BabyBlends and smoothies are USDA-certified organic, and the only thing you'll find in Little Spoon's meals are veggies, superfoods, and whole grains: absolutely no additives or fillers.
Interested parents can read more on the company's FAQ page about the options it offers based on personal diets, or get quick tips for heating and storing products. Check out Little Spoon for a great way to safely feed your little one (or ones!) during mealtimes throughout the week.
Best quick and easy meal kits: Mosaic Foods
At the intersection of quick, easy, and healthy, there is Mosaic Foods. This meal kit service specializes in plant-based dishes that look and taste delicious, while packing a hearty mix of greens and proteins.
Unlike some others on this list, Mosaic Foods offers a selection of premade, frozen dinners once you sign up. These meals can be heated up within minutes or stored in the freezer for later use (think: meal prepping time), making this a great choice for planning meals out for the coming weeks.
There are a number of delectable family meals on display each week. You can warm up during a chilly night with a comfort food classic: the Veggie Pot Pie or even fool the kids into eating their greens with the creamy Broccoli Cheddar Mac.
As if that wasn't enough, Mosaic Foods has a new tab on its online shop: pizza. These pies look so good, you might not know it's a veggie crust holding up such tasty topping combos as roasted grape and butternut squash.
How to choose the best meal kit
You don't need to focus on a ton of factors here. A big menu of new recipes each week means there's something for everyone, and things like comfort food dishes and the option to add on snacks or smoothies will be a hit with children.
Look for first-time discounts that will save you even more during the first couple of weeks (and don't forget to double check shipping costs). If you or anyone in your family has a dietary restriction, food allergies, or is simply a picky eater, you want a meal delivery service that has options that cater to those needs.
A few other things to consider:
- Meal delivery frequency: Most meal kits will make deliveries two to four times a week. However, companies like EveryPlate will send you up to six meals per week. Figure out what works with your schedule to stay ahead of family dinners.
- Timing: Meal delivery services fall under two categories: meal kits you cook yourself and premade meals that are ready in minutes. The difference in cook times can be nearly an hour, so make sure you pick whichever meal plan will fit in with your busy schedule.
- Healthy eating: Families that have to navigate one or more restrictions when planning dinner can benefit from meal delivery companies like Green Chef or SunBasket that ship out fresh and organic ingredients every week.
How meal kits can save time and money
Do you consider yourself skilled in the kitchen? We looked at how different meal kits cater to cooks at every level of expertise. Are you cooking for large families? We polled several families of three, four, or more to learn more about how they tackled the dinnertime conundrum.
For smaller families, the most interesting part of meal kits is the variety of weekly recipes, with an eye on both easy-to-cook and more involved dishes. Larger families cited reduced cook times and the allure of semi-prepped or totally pre-prepped meals as the biggest draws.
The companies highlighted above make it easy to hop online and plan out a week or two of dinners. They also have at least one option (such as pre-made or frozen meals) that goes hand in hand with meal prepping.
Are meal kits worth it for households of four or more?
The key to making meal kits work wonders for your busy household is to plan everything out. The recipe cards from most of the companies listed are very straightforward and the meals themselves are quick and easy to prepare.
"You can freeze meals for convenient reheating right before mealtime," DiMarino points out. This is one surefire way to combine efficiency and convenience while setting you and your family up for a week of healthy meals.
By stretching out meals and keeping one eye on the future (and the other on the clock once dinnertime draws near), you can score some relief from the stress of a busy household with these meal delivery services.
Our process for comparing meal kits
While reviewing different meal kits, we kept an eye toward busy families around dinnertime. We looked for menus with tasty dishes that can appeal to people of any age. We also prioritized budget-friendly options that offer reasonable prices per serving.
A few other things we kept in mind while curating our list include:
- Easy meal prep: Figuring out dinner each night for the whole family can be a big challenge, so we focused on meal kits that took most (if not all) of the guesswork out of your nightly meals.
- Weekly variety: Parents know how picky kids can be, and so do we. If there is a meal kit that doesn't offer new and exciting dishes each week for everyone in the household, it isn't on this list.
- Affordable prices: Making the switch to meal kits can save you a ton of time and energy when it comes to meal planning. We made sure to pick meal kits that have the potential to save you money, as well.
- Fresh ingredients: We highlighted meal kits that consistently sent out fresh, pre-measured ingredients with every meal kit.
- Healthy recipes: Every meal delivery service on this list includes choices packed full of nutrients.
