Do you adore the idea of cooking gourmet food at home yet lack the culinary skills to whip up something fancy from scratch? If you can follow a recipe, one of the many grocery services available today might deliver everything you need to your front door. Let Claudette Spinelli guide you through choosing the perfect meal service for you.
Quick Meals or Gourmet Feasts?
Decide what type of meal you want to cook. According to Taste of Home, services like EveryPlate deliver simple-to-prepare, everyday meals like hamburgers or goulash. Blue Apron and Hello Fresh specialize in gourmet meals the recipient prepares. Dinnerly and Marley Spoon offer a mix of both types of meals.
Cook from Scratch or Heat and Eat?
While most services deliver meal kits with all the groceries needed to prepare the week’s meals, Home Chef ships pre-made meals to heat and eat. It offers a few meals the recipient prepares, but not many. According to Compare Meal Delivery, Tovala and Factor prepackage their meals, too.
Catering to Special Diets
Every meal service offers some vegan and vegetarian dishes, but what if that’s all a person eats? Try Purple Carrot, a service specializing in vegan meals. All the mainstream services offer gluten-free and keto options. If you want to shop for organic foods, opt for Green Chef. Eat Clean offers Paleo and Keto meals, among others. Many services provide an option for mixing the types of meals, so a household can order two keto, one gluten-free, and one traditional meal during a week. That helps a household prepare for guests or nights when everyone eats at home.
Groceries Beyond Dinners
Dinnerly and Blue Apron offer grocery items separately from dinner meals. Order breakfast foods, extra cuts of meat, supplementary vegetables and fruits, and bottled drinks. There’s no way to order these items without a weekly meal kit; after choosing a week’s meals, the service offers add-on items.
Each service requires members to plan their menus a few weeks in advance, sending a reminder that it will choose for them if they don’t log in by a specific date. The meal preparation services sell special holiday meals that provide all the fixings for a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Hanukkah meal. When ordered by the deadline, they guarantee delivery.
Put cooking delicious meals firmly in your grasp. Let professional chefs design your menus, choose prime ingredients, and ship them to your door. Follow the recipe directions and use the pre-measured ingredients to create delightful meals in minutes.