Vegan meal kits vs. prepared meals: Which should you choose?
Purple Carrot is one of the only fully plant-based meal kit services.
The first choice you'll have to make is between meal kits and meal delivery. Vegan meal kits still save time and effort over starting a recipe from scratch, but they require some cooking. If you're looking to hone your plant-based cooking skills or learn new vegan or vegetarian recipes, a meal kit service is the way to go.
Prepared meals are the other option, and it just doesn't get any easier. These services send freshly cooked individual meals that are packaged in cooler boxes for you to eat or freeze for later. There's generally no cooking involved, so you'll get all the benefits of a plant-based diet without having to do the work.
Types of meals: Vegan vs. vegetarian
HelloFresh has a mix of vegan and vegetarian meals.
David Watsky/CNETPurple Carrot, Daily Harvest and Veestro are a few of the services that offer only vegan food (no animal products at all), while HelloFresh and Mosaic Food offer both vegan and vegetarian meals each week. If you're going fully plant-based, a vegan specialty service will offer more choices and you won't have to sift through the vegetarian meals to make your selections.
Go fully meatless or give yourself the option for meals with meat
Mosaic Foods is the best plant-based meal service for those who don't care to cook.
David Watsky/CNETSome meal delivery services such as Purple Carrot and Mosaic Foods specialize in only plant-based foods. Most other services have vegan options mixed in with the weekly menus containing recipes with meat. Decide whether you want to go full force with your plant-based diet or give yourself the choice of a chicken or salmon dish every once in a while.
Cost and pricing
Most vegan meal delivery services range from around $9 to $13 per serving. If you want the most bang for your buck, choosing a budget-friendly meal kit such as EveryPlate or Blue Apron and selecting plant-based recipes will be your best bet. Mosaic Foods also has family-size meals that cost just $6 per serving, making it the most affordable vegan prepared-meal subscription we've tried.
Number of meals and servings
A spread of Mosaic'd plant-based prepared meals.
David Watsky/CNETMost vegetarian and vegan meal services have a minimum number of meals you must order per week, but some are higher than others. For meal kits, you'll want to order only the number of servings you know you'll cook and eat in a week since most of the ingredients can't be frozen. Prepared meals offer more flexibility since you can typically freeze them to thaw and eat later.