【AI前沿】11 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested by an Ex-Restaurant Critic

Matthew KorfhageGearMay 21, 2026 8:02 AMThe Best Meal Delivery Services and Meal Kits of 2026From HelloFresh and Blue Apron to Marley Spoon and beyond, meal kits cater to many diets and budgets. I made and ate dozens of meals to find the best options.CommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyFeatured in this articleBest Meal Kit OverallMarley Spoon Meal KitRead moreShop atMarley SpoonMeal Kit With the Best SelectionHelloFresh Meal KitRead moreShop atHelloFreshBest Family-Friendly Meal KitHome Chef Meal KitRead moreShop atHome Chef (Regular Plan)Best Prepared Meal Delivery ServiceCookUnity Prepared MealsRead moreShop atCookUnityI didn’t Expectto appreciate meal kits as much as I do, because I like to cook, and I like to eat out even more. But the best meal delivery services and kits don’t just make your life easier—they help you eat better and maybe evenlivea little better. At their heart, the best meal kits are marvels of logistics—a convergence of growers, butchers, purveyors, and sauce makers from all over the globe, kitted out into little individual portions and sent to your doorstep with one-sheet recipes.The promise of the internet has always been the world at your door (maybe even economically, if you do it right). This, in part, is why WIRED devotes so much coverage to the best meal prep kits, as well as all manner ofother food deliveryservices.The WIRED Reviews team has requested and tested more than two dozen meal kit delivery services since 2017. For a lot longer, I’ve worked as a food criticonbothcoasts, and I bring a critic’s gimlet eye to testing recipes and food. I’ve been surprised at how well the best delivery services fare. The best meals I’ve eaten from a meal kit have come fromMarley Spoon, which offers a path to genuinely good home-cooked meals on nights when I might otherwise feel uninspired. But over the past couple of years,HelloFreshandBlue Apronhave also made bold plays to expand both convenience and options. Others among my favorite meal kits, likeGreen CheforPurple Carrot, offer hassle-free solutions for organic, gluten-free, and plant-based home cooking.During my testing, I assessed each meal plan’s recipes, breadth of selection, sourcing, ease of preparation, convenience, organization, packaging, high-quality ingredients, and suitability for different eating restrictions and needs. I also tested the best new and innovative meal kits for those looking for alternatives to Blue Apron or HelloFresh’s longstanding meal delivery services. And not for nothing, I sorted out some often maddeningly non-transparent pricing. Here are the best delivery meal subscriptions I’ve tried.Be sure to check out my investigation into whether sometimesMeal Kits Are Cheaper Than Grocerieswhen trying out new recipes, and WIRED’s related guides, includingBest Plant-Based Meal Kits,Best Food Gifts You Can Buy Online,Best Coffee Subscriptions, andBest Delivery Chocolate Boxes.Updated May 2026: I added Tempo prepared meals by Home Chef as the top GLP-1-friendly meal delivery service. I retested HelloFresh’s flagship meal service, which has drastically expanded options this year and added seasonal meals; Marley Spoon’s budget plan; Dinnerly; and the Tovala meal delivery service and oven. I also updated pricing, plans, and descriptions throughout.Table of ContentsAccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronOther Meal Kits I LikedA Meal Kit I Don’t RecommendAre Meal Kits Worth It?Can I Pause Meal Kits When I Go on Vacation?How to Best Use Meal KitsHow I Test Meal KitsBest Meal Kit OverallCourtesy of Marley SpoonPhotograph: Matthew KorfhagePhotograph: Matthew KorfhagePhotograph: Matthew KorfhageChevronChevronSave to wishlistSave to wishlistMarley SpoonMeal KitShop atMarley SpoonMarley Spoonhas been evolving of late. Over the past year or two, the German-founded meal kit has added more menu items, more cosmopolitan meals with global flavors, and a greater variety of preparation times that now include a lot of 15-minute meals. They’ve done this without raising the price of the meal kit.But what best differentiates Marley Spoon has not, thankfully, changed. It’s the cooking. The best individual meals I’ve cooked among the 20 or so kits I’ve tested in the past two years have come fromMarley Spoon. A heartyHungarian-influenced creamy mushroom chicken, a boldly Cajun-spiced whitefish, or a delicate eggplant parm. hat hasn’t changed, and those meals are still on the menu.What has long differentiated from other meal kits in the US is the company’s devotion to classical cooking technique—the sort they teach in culinary school and on Martha Stewart’s TV shows. This is no accident. When the German-founded meal kit arrived in the US, it did so with the cooking maven’s endorsement and a lot of her recipes and techniques.The cost used to be that Marley’s recipes often took a little more time and care to achieve. For me, it’s always been worth the trade. Recipes often call for light seasoning th