You'll find dishes that appeal to a wide variety of palettes at EveryPlate. (Photo: EveryPlate)
If you're a fan of meal delivery kits, or are looking to take the plunge, and are considering giving EveryPlate — one of the most popular providers — a try, read my review before you dive in. I recently tested all the major meal delivery kits, and EveryPlate scored the top spot as the Best Crowd-Pleaser meal kit delivery service for its familiar flavors, easy-to-follow instructions and budget-friendly prices. We'll get into more specifics about why we recommend EveryPlate, but first let's learn more about its basic features.
EveryPlate is a meal kit delivery service that contains premeasured ingredients and an accompanying recipe, enabling you to create a fresh-cooked meal at home without having to run to the supermarket or measure your own ingredients.
EveryPlate offers a variety of meal kit delivery plans that range both in size (from two to four servings per meal, two to six meals per week) and in preferences, including Meat & Veggie, Veggie, Family Faves, Quick & Easy (ready in 30 minutes or less) and Nutrish & Delish (each serving is 650 calories or less).
Once you choose a plan, it's time to select a delivery date and browse the recipes that are available for that week. When that delivery day comes, you'll receive a box filled with fresh pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step instructions for each meal.
My family and I really appreciated how customizable EveryPlate is. For example, if you would prefer steak instead of chicken, you can swap out one protein for another. You can also double up on or upgrade proteins (opting for a more premium cut of steak or choosing scallops instead of shrimp) for certain meals. Plus, the generous portion sizes of some meals means you'll have leftovers for lunch the next day.
For this review, I tried all EveryPlate meal kits at dinner with my family. I’ve been eating for a living for many years now: I have a degree from the French Culinary Institute and have worked for various food publications. I’m also a mom with an active teen and tween, for whom I cook daily.
I evaluated EveryPlate based on the following criteria:
Subscription price, because everyone has different budgets.
Ease of use, because you’re getting a meal kit to make your life easier, so you don’t want anything too complicated or time-consuming.
Menu choices, because you want a good variety of recipes and ingredients.
Taste, because above all, you want your dinner to be yummy!
Packaging: Is there too much? Too little? Is it putting out excess waste into the world? We factored this into our reviews.
In making the selections, I also considered feedback from other on-staff meal kit testers for a variety of opinions (we got reviews from a family of five, a family with both an infant and a tween, and a family of three with vegetarians and a vegan). I also weighed info from Facebook Groups devoted to discussing meal kits, plus expert advice from Jaclyn London, a New York City–based registered dietician.
Every meal kit has different strengths and weaknesses. Some are very easy, others offer more variety, some are great for families and others are geared toward vegetarians.
Subscription: Starting at $5.99 per serving if you order meals for four people (less if you use a promo code). Three meals per week for four people costs $71.88.
Ease of use: In every box, you'll find all of the ingredients you need to make the meals, with the exception of a few pantry items (e.g. salt and pepper). You’ll also find recipe cards with step-by-step instructions for each dish. Most meal-prep times were a bit underestimated and took longer than we expected, but none were particularly tricky.
Menu choices: There are 25 menu options to choose from each week with familiar flavors inspired by global cuisine (Italian, Tex-Mex, Greek, American classics, etc.) and family-friendly dishes. They do not cater to specific dietary restrictions, though some vegetarian/plant-based recipes were available. There was an option to filter recipes by the following categories: Meat & Veggie, Veggie, Family Faves, Quick & Easy (ready in 30 minutes or less) and Nutrish & Delish (each serving is 650 calories or less). You may order a maximum of four servings of up to five meals per week.
Taste: The meals we tried included Creamy Mushroom Steak, Chicken Cobb Salad and Caramelized Zucchini Linguine. By far, the pasta was the biggest hit among our testers and most crowd-pleasing. The steak dish was tasty, but some less adventurous eaters were put off by the mushrooms. The salad was mostly well-liked, but we would have preferred a healthier, less-creamy dressing.
Packaging: Most of the packaging is recyclable or reusable and also keeps the food at a safe temperature during the journey from the facility to the customer's home. You can learn more about how to recycle each component of packaging here.
Let’s learn a little more about meal kits and answer some commonly asked questions.
With each delivery of preportioned ingredients and recipes that may feed two or four people, you won’t have to worry about what’s for dinner. You can filter meals by categories such as Meat & Veggie, Veggie, Family Faves, Quick & Easy (ready in 30 minutes or less) and Nutrish & Delish (each serving is 650 calories or less). You can usually choose your delivery day and even add on extras like portions of fully-cooked proteins, sides, snacks, desserts and breakfast and lunch options.
EveryPlate offers significant discounts to first-time customers, making it very affordable to try before you commit (or don’t) to any one plan. All you have to do is take advantage of any one of these offers and then mark your calendar with an alert for the date by which you must cancel the subscription.
You can skip a week or cancel anytime if your needs change.
On the website, you'll find the nutrition information for each meal under a recipe’s Nutrition Values, which is an estimation of one serving “As Prepared". Full nutritional estimates per serving on a Nutrition Facts Panel can be downloaded five days before your delivery by clicking on “View complete nutritional info” on each recipe detail page.
The serving sizes were about average as compared to many other meal kit delivery services we tried.
Yes! Each dish's set of ingredients comes with a corresponding recipe card with prep and cook times, a list of items you will need to have on hand and written instructions.
EveryPlate ingredients can stay fresh for up to 48 hours of being in the box, without being refrigerated. Their specially designed boxes with insulating liners, ice packs, and cooling material keep your food as cool as possible.
EveryPlate recommends storing all items in the refrigerator. With the exception of seafood, all ingredients should be cooked and consumed within five days of delivery. Seafood should be cooked and consumed within 2 days of delivery. EveryPlate does not recommend freezing ingredients.
Yes! EveryPlate boxes and separators are 100% curbside recyclable. Their website provides additional information about recycling its different forms of packaging.